And right now this one does not want to participate. She so boldly stated to her daddy and I that it is her life and she will do what she wants. Never mind the consequences, she will take them! While this is okay for a 10-year old (usually!), when you are a middle teen (with an emotional age of 10) the stakes get immeasurably higher for this attitude.

Living her life her way, right now looks like lying about everything. She does it so frequently that I believe that it is more natural than telling the truth. Why do I say this? Because she even now is lying to her friends about things that no one even cares about. “I will only have a small piece of meat because I really don’t eat meat”. Yes she does and who cares?! Certainly not the friend who was not only unimpressed but that statement didn’t even register on their “care to know meter”.

Of course, what goes with the lying but sneaking. Wanting control of her life, there is nothing she won’t sneak to do. And most of the time, if she asked (or I’d be happy with even telling us at first), we’d be okay with it. However, telling us makes us in charge of her life.

So the trust in our relationship with her is gone. So much so that I can’t believe anything that comes out of her mouth. Even when she gets caught and goes through her honeymoon period to manipulate us back to sleep (so she thinks), I don’t believe her. And my fear level for a phone call from the police or a positive pregnancy test is off the charts. And by the way, she says that this is our problem, too.

I have spent all of her life knowing and working with this child with abandonment issues. And intensely so the last 2 years. We have had her (and still do) in counseling. Read, listened and watched everything that we can lay our hands on. Formed support groups and starting counseling for us. Implemented, reworked, backed up and tried again over and over again. And she will not budge.

Maybe tomorrow will be the day?

Do you have a RADish? It’s not easy, but there is hope! Two resources we’ve used are When Love Is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas and Total Transformation by James Lehman. Both offer tons of help in dealing with your Reactive Attachment Disorder kiddo.

You might be wondering if I’m making money by promoting this program, and the answer is yes! If you buy it after visiting my website, I will earn a commission.  The truth is, I tried it and liked it so much, that I decided it would be something I would feel proud to support and promote, and as a bonus, I get a commission if you buy it.

So what do we do? Here are a few things that have worked for me, maybe you’ll be able to bring about a change in your child’s behavior, too!

1. You have to make your “no” means “no”. This means, if you say “no” to something, stick to it. Even if you wish you hadn’t said no in the first place, you still have to stick to your original no. I find myself just automatically saying “no” sometimes, kind of a knee-jerk reaction. So I’ve lately made an effort to think before I say “no”, and try to say “yes” as much as possible. But, if you do say “no”, don’t waffle – stick to it!
2. Don’t let them turn you around. The best thing you can do when your child is arguing your rules or consequence is to say “No, I’m not going to discuss this any further” and turn around and walk away. Don’t reply if they continue to badger you – just keep walking. Kids need a reasonable amount of explanation, but when you’ve given them that you don’t owe them anything else. Besides, when they continue badgering you, they don’t want to hear your explanation, they just want to change your mind.
3. Over-stimulated? Give them a break. One thing I’ve noticed about my kids is that when they get over-stimulated, it’s almost impossible to talk to them. They won’t look me in the eye, they just continue to misbehave and escalate. What you need to do in this instance is to take them to their room and have a little seat or place for them to cool down and recover from the over-stimulation. Then, after about five minutes you go in and talk to them simply and firmly about what the boundaries and/or expectations are. And ask them if they can do it. If they can, you can let them out of the room. If not, give them a few more minutes in there.

If you’re having problems changing your child’s behavior, try these three ideas and I’m certain you’ll see some major improvement fast! Remember, you’re the boss, and you have to let them know that from the start.

I can hear you saying, “That all sounds great, but can I do it?” How can I get us there?

Don’t lose hope yet, there is help out there. And yes you can do it!

Get some great workable ideas. Click here to get going today! You have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

You might be wondering if I’m making money by promoting this program, and the answer is yes! If you buy it after visiting my website, I will earn a commission.  The truth is, I tried it and liked it so much, that I decided it would be something I would feel proud to support and promote, and as a bonus, I get a commission if you buy it.

I figured this out because, by the recommendation of my friend and our family therapist, I started watching some videos on attachment disorder. I think for the first 2 videos, I couldn’t shut my gaping mouth. It was describing him to a T. Here I was thinking “why don’t consequences change this kiddo’s behavior?” and “nothing seems important enough to him that can move him from what he wants to do”. Right on both counts, I discovered. In fact, there was a chart that showed just where his level of conscience was.

Ages 1 – 3: Takes what he sees and wants.

Ages 3 -5: Doesn’t take what he sees and wants for fear of being killed by mom/dad.

Ages 5 – 9: Doesn’t take what he sees and wants thinking mom/dad may be upset.

Ages 9 – 11: Doesn’t take what he sees and wants because he wouldn’t like the way that would make him feel about himself.

Oh wow – we are in stage 1-3!

I can’t watch these videos fast enough! Many of the parenting skills I’ve learned up to now are just not working. So I am taking it one piece at a time. Today I learned that until this kid feels safer and is sure he can trust us, we are in for one mighty power and control struggle.

I am starting off with 2 things I learned: Never tell him “I NEED you to do something”. He’ll just think “Oh you mean I have power over your needs? Cool!!” What you have to say is “I WANT you to do something”.

Secondly, when he has his meltdown because he can’t do something (like master something which for him is usually fear of failure so he doesn’t try), I am going to say “Yes you can – I have faith in you”. This also is when he says he can’t handle his consequences, too.

So far that’s all I’ve got! So, keeping the humor up, I will keep plugging away. He’s worth it!

By the way, the videos are part of a DVD series called When Love Is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas. Take a look at the video series or the book if you’ve got adopted kiddos like me. We’ve also had much success with Total Transformation by James Lehman. Though it’s not written specifically for RAD kids, the techniques we’ve learned in it have worked very well for ours.

You might be wondering if I’m making money by promoting the Total Transformation program, and the answer is yes! If you buy it after visiting my website, I will earn a commission.  The truth is, I tried it and liked it so much, that I decided it would be something I would feel proud to support and promote, and as a bonus, I get a commission if you buy it.

I was recently looking for answers and found a couple of good articles by James Lehman on the Empowering Parents website. One of them really applied to both of my problem kiddos. It’s called Motivating Underachievers – When Your Child Says “I Don’t Care”. It gave me several great ideas – I’ll share a few that have worked for us.

One of the things he says we have to understand is that it’s impossible for teens and pre-teens not to be motivated – it just depends on what they’re motivated to do. Quite often, they’re motivated to resist us, withdraw, or under-perform. Instead of acting out, they’re acting in!

So how can you motivate teens? Mr. Lehman gives 9 “motivate tips” to get through to your unmotivated children or teenagers. Here are 4 of them that really resonated with us.

1. Look at what your child likes. The idea here is to observe what your child likes to do. Don’t take his word for it, he’ll say “nothing matters”. But look at his actions – does he watch a lot of TV, play video games, play on the computer? Observe, and write them down – later on you can use these things as incentives.
2. Make sure everything is earned each day. This is one I didn’t realize, but it makes sense. You have to hold unmotivated children accountable. Make sure everything is earned. Life for these kids has to be one day at a time. They should have to earn their TV or video games. How? By doing their homework and chores. They earn their cell phone today, and then start over tomorrow.
3. Have conversations about what your child wants. This has been very successful with my daughter. It’s not small stuff, like the phone or iPod, but bigger things like a car, driver’s license, apartment, and so forth. She has to have good enough grades to take driver’s ed, to get insurance, and to be able to get a job so she can move out on her own. This is motivating her well, and in a more long-term way.
4. Don’t shout, argue, beg or plead. If you do any of these things, it lets your child know he’s in control. With underperforming kids, you have to be very cool. Keep the shouting to a minimum!

One thing you have to realize is that being an underachiever gives your child a sense of control and power, because she doesn’t have to worry about the anxiety of failure or meeting responsibilities. She doesn’t have to deal with people’s expectations. Once people start expecting more of these kids, they fall apart.

That’s a few tips about dealing with underachiever children. To read the whole article, click here.

If you like what you read, and want to learn more, consider trying out The Total Transformation program. It’s a CD, DVD and workbook set with hundreds of ideas for managing challenging behaviors in kids. It’s done wonders for our family – believe me, if you’re willing to work at it, you will get results.

You might be wondering if I’m making money by promoting this program, and the answer is yes! If you buy it after visiting my website, I will earn a commission.  The truth is, I tried it and liked it so much, that I decided it would be something I would feel proud to support and promote, and as a bonus, I get a commission if you buy it.