When Love Is Not Enough - Purchase From Amazon.com

I want to view each day as an adventure with my RAD kiddo. I don’t want to wake up depressed anymore dreading the day ahead. I want the challenge of helping this child become successful in coping with life in a healthy manner be what motivates me. So why can’t I? Oh, there is another person in this equation.

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! Oe of the resources we use is When Love Is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas. It can give you tons of help in dealing with your Reactive Attachment Disorder kiddo.

When Love Is Not Enough - Purchase From Amazon.com

If you have an unattached child, here’s a little hope.

I thought it would be cool to share with you what I have learned about the brain. If my previous blog post caused you a sense of hopelessness, this might cheer you up.

The Nancy Thomas videos I’ve been watching actually show PET scans of the brain. This is where the picture highlights what areas of the brain the energy is coming from. Frontal lobe (logical, processing) or rear lobe (fight/flight). Guess where my kid camps? You got it, back of his brain. In fact, he feels more comfortable there since this is where he has functioned from most of his life. Don’t get me wrong, he is a straight A student. He just handles life from the back of his head. And since life is safer there, he will do whatever he can to keep himself there, like freak out so I get mad or threaten him. This is just hunky dory living the good life for him. He knows how to operate and function and can be in power and control here.

The cool thing here is that I can bring him to the front of his brain. How, you ask? By not operating out of anger or threatening him for starters. Threatening – like “If you don’t clean your room by 1pm, you can’t play video games”. Or “If you get an F, you can’t have a sleepover”. So now I am trying “You can play video games when your room is clean”. Not sure if that will work better, but seems less threatening!

Also, keeping my anger in check when talking to him. Actually joking helps a lot, not hurtful teasing but joking keeps the humor level up and the tantrum level down. If he really makes me mad, (which surprisingly after learning some of this I don’t take his behavior so personally and am getting less angry), I give myself a timeout until I can talk calmly.

And the very best part of this is reprogramming the brain. Starting by doing the things above and learning how his brain is working has helped me to feel less hopeless and helpless as a parent.

Do you have an unattached child? It’s not easy, but there is hope! One resource we use is When Love Is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas. It offers tons of help in dealing with your Reactive Attachment Disorder kiddo.

When Love Is Not Enough - Purchase From Amazon.com

Well, I can’t deny it any longer, I have a child with reactive attachment disorder, or RAD.  It’s a roll of the dice when you adopt, even as infants which mine all were. The reality of the situation is that they all present attachment issues to some degree. This one seems to be the most severely affected (at this point!). He has hit puberty and his attachment issues have come screaming out. Conscience is sorely missing and lying and sneaking abound.

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.