When I was younger, I always wondered why adoption had an “Are you sure you want to do this?” question attached to it. When high school kids were in trouble, why would someone assume they were adopted?

A remark that has always stuck with me was made by reporters who were reporting on the Columbine High School shooting some 20+ years ago. They were discussing the two shooters’ backgrounds and made, what I considered the dumbest statement ever, “Neither shooter was adopted!”

Learning what I know now, it’s definitely not unheard of that an adopted child could conceivably shoot up a school ground. No one really knows to what extent Reactive Attachment Disorder can lead to dangerous behaviors.

At what age do you throw in the towel when parenting a child with RAD? I’m talking about the child’s age. Do you do it when the child first shows signs of RAD behaviors? Do you do it when the child has been disrupting the household for several years? Or, do you suffer and wait until the child is 17 or 18?

I always think that the saddest thing I hear is that a family of a child with RAD sends them to a boarding school or a residential treatment facility until they’re 18 and never let them come back home. Parents need to reconsider their biases.  Every person, even a child with RAD, needs to feel valued.

I’ve heard parents who place their child into an RTF or boarding school say they wouldn’t wish their experiences with their child onto another person. I know their thoughts, “If we tried to be loving parents and were so badly treated, we would never subject another family to our child’s behaviors.”

I can hear it now, there’s no place in a “normal” household for these damaged children. I really don’t believe that statement.  I’m an optimist. I have checked out the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoptions and they placed thousands of older foster children in new homes for years. These kids were long-term foster kids because of their behaviors. I believe if people are willing to take on a worthwhile mentorship of these kids with RAD, the kids will succeed.

These lost kids make up a minority, but do cause a lot of illegal behaviors in order to survive.  I wonder how many adults with RAD are prison residents? I speak from the position of being a parent of a child with RAD who’s been in prison for the last 20 years.

Can children with RAD change? As a matter of fact, most can actually become successful in a different environment. The fact that children with RAD have been damaged before they were old enough to fight back, get adopted and that first stable home feels threatening to the child.

Children with RAD need different types of parenting. The good news is that once they find a secure relationship, they really can change and have an exciting life.

Check out these pages:

RAD Teen Adoptions (FB)

Second Chance Adoptions (FB),

My Adoption Life (website and blog)

Thanks for reading.

N. Ann Lamphere, MSW

         radteenadopting@wiaa.org

A Day in the Life of a Parent of a Child with RAD

Mothers of children with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) have totally different experiences than mothers of attached children. People with no experience with RAD often think the mothers of children with RAD are just exaggerating their parenting problems.

I totally understand what other mothers of kids with RAD deal with day-to-day. My daughter was a mystery to me. She never responded to me like my nephews responded to their mother, my sister. I was not someone she really wanted to know. As far as she was concerned, I was just an annoying caretaker.

Knowing what I do now has given me a much better picture of what happens in the daily life of mothers of children with RAD. Mothers of kids with RAD are almost universally targets of their disturbing behaviors. Those behaviors can include telling lies, stealing, rages, screaming, hitting and any number of behaviors their mothers have never had any experience with or even heard about.

Children with RAD are incredibly intuitive. They can take a couple of days or less in a new home to figure out how to manipulate and triangulate their new parents. If there are other children in the home, the new kid also figures how to get to those kids within days.

“What about the dads?” If the dad works outside the home, he rarely sees what the mom has gone through during the day. This causes a rift between the parents that may eventually lead to major disagreements and maybe even divorce.

The following is a typical day in the life of a mother of a child with RAD. (RAD child)

At 6:30 AM, it’s time to get the children up and get them ready for school. The two older children are grumpy, but moving. The ten-year-old RAD child starts screaming “No, No, I’m not going.” Mom tells the child to get up.

The child gets up and his bedding is soaked. Mom asks the child to remove the sheets so they can be washed. The child starts shrieking and jumping up and down. Mom removes the sheets and tells the child to get dressed. The child starts throwing clothes out of the closet.

Mom decides what the child will wear for the day. The child eventually gets dressed. Next comes an argument over what to have for breakfast. The mother tells the child eat what’s there or go hungry.

All three children go to school. About 10:00 AM, the mother gets a call from the school. The RAD child decided to tell the teachers, the mother is not feeding her child as punishment. The school may have to report child abuse unless the mother can explain why she told the child that.

The school personnel don’t understand the RAD behavior. They want to believe the child because the child already knows how to manipulate the teachers and tells the story with the straightest of faces. Mom explains what happened and teachers agree not to call CPS this time.

It’s 4:00 PM, the children are all home now. There’s homework to be completed. The other children get to work. The RAD child has a massive meltdown. The home work is too dumb, too hard and the child basically refuses to do anything except scream.

The mother sends the RAD child to their room, which makes the child even more angry. The child starts threatening the other kids or the mother with harm. The RAD child threatens to run away, jump off the roof or try to kill themselves by running in front of a car to end their misery.

At 5:30 PM, the dad comes home. The house is in an uproar. The older kids are yelling at their younger sibling. The mother is crying and trying to calm all the children down. Dad yells for quiet and then asks the mom, “What’s for dinner?”

The mom tries to explain what’s happening, but dad has no patience as this happens almost every day. The RAD child has convinced the dad that mom is the reason for all the troubles.

After a few more minutes, the mom cooks dinner. It’s not a pleasant experience. The RAD child gobbles down the food and then runs out the door to get away from the house. The parents take a quick break, clean up the kitchen and then decide it’s bedtime for the children.

The RAD child is nowhere to be found. That child has run away again. This is a continuing nightmare for the parents. The parents begin arguing and call for help. The child is eventually located a few streets over and brought home.

The day isn’t over yet. Now it takes another hour to get the RAD child for bed. The bed needs to be remade. The child balks at the pajamas. The parents put the child to bed and dad stays until the child drifts off to sleep.

Once all is peaceful, mom and dad get a few minuets to discuss the day. The discussion doesn’t go well for mom as dad cannot understand why mom has so much trouble with the RAD child.

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The above scenario is just an example, not all families experience all of the behaviors, but mothers do seem to get the brunt of the child’s anger. There has been speculation that the child transfers the feelings of abandonment experienced when taken away from their biological mother to the adoptive mother.

For more information on Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), please submit your questions to lamp1685@yahoo.com.

N. Ann Lamphere, MSW

Have you ever wondered how therapists diagnose Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)? Have you asked yourself, “Why does it take so long to get that diagnosis?”

It’s amazing, but there aren’t many physicians or therapists that really understand RAD. They often diagnose a child by their behaviors. The first diagnosis is usually ADHD. What helps kids with ADHD? A drug containing methamphetamine.

Now a true ADHD child does respond well to those drugs. All those drugs do for a child with RAD is wind them up like a top. They can become whirling dervishes. Their ability to concentrate becomes impossible and their behaviors escalate.

What are the specific behaviors of a child with RAD? There are so many, it’s hard to predict which ones will be more pronounced in any given child. Outwardly lying and stealing are issues almost every family sees.

It’s the control issues that really define RAD. The child has an uncommon need for control of every aspect of his or her life. The loss of control caused by traumatic experiences in a young child’s life, often results in a brain that says “Protect yourself at any cost!”

Rages that can last from five minutes to untold hours can be caused by someone telling the child “No!” When the rages happen, they can cause PTSD in many family members. While in a rage, the child can lash out with physical aggression usually towards his/her mother or another child.

Control, Control, Control. This is the name of the game for a child with RAD. You have no idea how manipulative a child can be until you have lived every day with RAD. They will triangulate parents and the other children in the family. These kids will play parent against parent, siblings against parents or siblings against siblings, anything to control everyone in the family.

These kids with RAD do not respond to normal parenting. They will sulk, scream, rage, or run away. Therapy, unless a family is lucky to find an attachment therapist, usually is a costly experiment. Kids with RAD do not respond to talk therapy very well.

The next question is do kids with RAD respond to a Residential Treatment Facility (RTF)? The answer is “not particularly well.” Once the children settle in, they begin to figure out who they can control or manipulate.

Sending a child to an RTF gives the adoptive parents some breathing room. It is important for decisions to be made before the child returns home.

There are groups and programs that offer parents of a child with RAD information how to help change parenting techniques or as support systems.

It’s really important to identify a child with RAD the younger the better. Getting diagnoses that really don’t apply keeps the child from getting the correct diagnosis and many years of psychoactive medications that don’t really work except to make the child either hyperactive or lethargic.  

If you have further questions about Reactive Attachment Disorder, please contact me at: lamp1685@yahoo.com.

N. Ann Lamphere, MSW