I recently saw a YouTube video about RAD - Reactive Attachment Disorder. While the video was a little "over the top" in the speaker's teaching style and not someone I would enjoy listening to on a regular basis, the content of his message described our every day life.
If you are planning to adopt, STOP EVERYTHING, click the link below and watch the 22 minute video. Yes, inside all your required adoption training hours, RAD is covered. Know one thing: all of my adoption friends and I agree that
no amount of required adoption training prepares you for how hard it is to raise a child from a hard place. Watching this video is a good place to start.
If you are an adoptive parent and wonder if your child could have RAD, take some time to watch this. The speaker outlines 20 signs of RAD. A child needn't show all 20 signs. Perhaps this will highlight some behaviors you are facing. Mostly, I hope this shows you that you are not alone.
Today, take a step into my world and see what it's like to raise a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder. I'm going to go through the list of 20 signs of RAD and show you how they surface in my daughter's behavior. Why the speaker in the video treated it like a top 10 list and went backwards from 20 to 1 is really beyond me. But in keeping with his outline, I will also start with #20 and end with #1.
Ready? Here we go.
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| This cutie patootie is the face of RAD. |
#20. Superficially engaging and charming.
Oh friends, this is my daughter to a T. Everyone loves her. Who wouldn't? She's cute. She's smart. She'll have you wrapped around her little finger in a heartbeat. You'll be smitten with her! It's so deceiving and believe me, she had my mom fooled! She fooled her good! This charming behavior is purposeful. And it's very, very fake! She'll behave almost sickly sweet and then turn 180 degrees into a complete train wreck in about 10 seconds flat. I call her Jekyll and Hyde. Don't let her fool you!
#19. Lack of eye contact on parents' terms.
Oh, yes! Quiet Tiger simply will not look into our eyes when we are disciplining her or trying to get her attention. She may turn her face away, she may hang her head, she may dart those eyes right out to the side. She will not look at us. And when she is overloaded from a sensory processing standpoint, she also will not look into our eyes. She is so overwhelmed by stimuli that she simply cannot connect with us via eye contact. You should have seen her at one of Jay's Summer Regionals when she was on the dance floor with Jay's friend Jim. She was wild and would not connect with us. She would constantly check in to make sure we were still at the table, but she would not give us eye contact. We have been working on this, but it's not at all unusual for us to hold her chin in our hands and ask her 3, 4 or 5 times or more to look us in the eye. It's
extremely hard for her!
#18. Indiscriminately affectionate with strangers.
This one is not an issue with our girl, but trust me, I have friends whose adopted kids would run to up strangers and hug them and walk out of Target with them as if they had no care in the world. Or, these kids will reach for a stranger knowing that they can charm their way to get anything in the world they wanted. It's scary.
#17. Not affectionate on parent's terms.
I'd say our Quiet Tiger doesn't really do this either. If I ask her for a hug, she will generally do it, but it still doesn't feel real, it feels superficial. If Jay asks her for a hug, only sometimes have I heard her say, "Why?" or "I don't want to." With her brothers, she definitely won't give them a hug. I chalk that up to sibling rivalry, but it could be partly RAD.
#16. Destructive to self, others, material things.
This one makes me want to pull my hair out. Oh, wait! My daughter already does that! Last year around Valentine's Day I put my Quiet Tiger down for a scheduled nap. It was not a traumatic nap time, it was just nap time as scheduled. When she came downstairs after her nap, she had a huge bald spot, probably the diameter of a quarter or larger, right in plain sight by her bangs. That's a lot of dark hair missing with a big white spot of scalp. I went upstairs and found a wad of thick black hair in her room and then found more in her pants that she had hidden from me. She did it again this year, right before Chinese New Year, leading me to wonder if our annual celebration of China stresses her out. Time will tell.
She has found markers (I do not know where because they are kept in a closet with a child lock), and colored all over her furniture and her bed sheets.
And toys do not last in our home. It's not unusual for her to break a brand new toy, just 1 day after her birthday or Christmas. I have had to make sure that all gifts given to her are clothing or something consumable like crayons or coloring books (although I hate it when she breaks crayons purposefully too). And let me just tell you that she is OBSESSED with our new floors. Ever since our new laminate was installed she has been determined to destroy it. She takes toys and tries to scratch it. She has thrown toys at it. I have found her underneath the end table, quietly picking at the new floors in a place where she thought I wouldn't see her. And once my boys and I even caught her singing a song about "wrecking daddy's beautiful new floors." I cannot tell you how much #16 irks me, angers me and frustrates me. I could cry.
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This is an actual photo of our girl, last year after her first hair-pulling event.
We're still growing out all that hair that had to grow back in. |
#15. Cruelty to animals.
We have dogs. For the most part, Quiet Tiger is good with our dogs. I have caught her maybe 3 times in incidents of pulling a tail or an ear and once she hit one of our dogs for no apparent reason as he walked by her. I know what you're thinking: All toddlers pull tails and need to learn how to treat our furry friends nicely. I agree. But I have to watch her like a hawk around our dogs, no matter how sweet our pups are!
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| My sweet woofs. Juneau & Mack. |
#14. Lying about the obvious.
The clip in the YouTube link kind of made me laugh because Quiet Tiger will do just what they did. She will be wearing a yellow shirt and she'll insist it's a different color. I'll give her chicken for dinner and she'll insist it's beef. Just this past Tuesday at the park for our homeschool group, she got out of the car and announced that it was windy out. It was not. She is also beginning to lie about the naughty things she has done, even when caught red handed. Yes, she's only 4 and still learning the difference between truth and lies, but the lies are much more prevalent these days.
#13. Stealing.
Well, my mother-in-law can attest to this. When under her care while Jay and I were in Rome, Quiet Tiger took a ball from a set of jacks at the museum gift shop and hid it. When grandma asked her where the ball was, Quiet Tiger clammed up and refused to answer. Then she threw a fit when grandma pushed for an answer. Quiet Tiger has also been known to "steal" something of the boys and hide it somewhere, particularly birthday or Christmas gifts that the boys receive. Thankfully all things have turned up, except for that ball. Grandma had to pay for a set of jacks at an expensive museum gift shop.
#12. No impulse controls.
Oh good gosh, this hit the nail on the head. This is Quiet Tiger 24 hours a day. She simply cannot control herself. And when the speaker mentions that, "I don't know," is a popular response these kids make when asked why they did something, I could have screamed out loud! That is Quiet Tiger's go-to answer whenever I try to get some understanding from her for her behavior. It frustrates me to no end. I can attest that she really doesn't know why she does things.
#11. Lack of conscience.
Yep. The girl has no conscience whatsoever. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. She has no red little devil on one shoulder whispering the bad and 1 white little angel on the other whispering the good. She has no conscience telling her that some things are good and others bad. We get blue in the face from trying to teach her right from wrong. She fears no consequence. We keep thinking that the longer she is home and under our care, the more she will learn. But we're finding the opposite to be true. It feels to both Jay and I like we are taking steps
BIG backwards in this area and it exhausts us.
#10. Abnormal eating patterns.
I've blogged about our daughter's food issues before. They somewhat come and go. Compared to her first year home, they have
GREATLY improved (bold, underlined and capitalized)! Praise God! This very week though, before I even had time to sit down and watch this RAD video, the food issues resurfaced. My daughter knew hunger in China. That's a fact that's been proven by Quiet Tiger's pediatric dentist and our first pediatrician. It angered him and it angers me. My girl still gorges, sneaks and steals food, asks about food all the live long day! At home, she'll ask for seconds and thirds. She'll easily eat more than me if I allowed such a thing. At a restaurant, she'll pound everything down in a flash. No doggie bags for her. She'll eat more than her brothers, finishing long before the rest of us finish half and ask our server for a to-go box for our meals.
#9. Poor peer relationships.
Again, Quiet Tiger is only 4. She has friends. Her best friend is her exact same age, down to the very week, if I remember correctly. I haven't seen too many issues in peer relationships but she still plays mostly side by side with kids her own age. At our homeschool group, she gravitates to the older girls (even teenagers) and bosses them around saying, "Emily, come here. Katie do this, do that!" Very bossy. I don't like it. But she's so stinking cute that the teenage girls eat it up and love to let Quiet Tiger walk all over them and control them.
#8. Preoccupation with fire.
Age is a big factor here because with a 4 year old in the house, we don't keep candles or flames and we don't have a fireplace. We have roasted marshmallows outside in the fire pit only a couple of times and I haven't seen an issue with fire, but believe me, I'll be watching her as she grows up.
#7. Preoccupation with blood and gore.
Again, age is a factor and I don't see this in my daughter. It probably doesn't help that I watch Grey's Anatomy in front of her while I'm cooking dinner or folding laundry and maybe I should cease and desist if this could develop into an issue.
#6. Preoccupation with bodily functions.
Sorry folks, I'm going there. This is gross. If you don't like poop talk, skip ahead, but this is [unfortunately] a BIG issue around here. Even at the age of 4, and having been potty trained for well over a year, heck almost 2 years, she will sometimes still poop in her pants. Sometimes she will come right up to me and do it in front of me. Sometimes she will do it quietly in a corner. And oh yes, my daughter will still.... wait for it.... play in her own poop. She'll finger paint with it. Gross. Disgusting. I have VERY LITTLE patience with this filthy act. But in February alone, this was something I dealt with numerous times, more than I care to admit. I find it smeared on walls, on the bathtub, on the tile floors, on the carpet, in her bedroom, in her bed, on the bathmat, on the toilet porcelain lid, seats and base like it was a fine canvas. I HATE THIS!!!!! HATE, HATE, HATE! Yet after watching this video, I'm so thankful that it isn't multiple times a day like the speaker mentioned. It's maybe once a month.
And you know something else she is famous for? She'll control her bathroom habits to an extreme. When you and I go into the restroom, we empty our bladders completely, no? Well, Quiet Tiger will only let out the slightest bit. Then in 20 minutes she'll go again. Then 20 minutes later she'll go again. She doesn't have a bladder infection. She's controlling the situation. I have to go into the bathroom with her and when she says, "All done," I have to correct her and say, "No, you can do more. It all has to come out right now." She has been known to cry over my instruction. She's obsessed with the control of this bodily function. Thankfully, this going every 20 minutes has greatly improved with time.
#5. Persistant nonsense questions and chatter.
In our house, you will hear Jay and I repeat one word over and over to Quiet Tiger. That word is, "MOUTH!" Her mouth constantly runneth over. She is always talking. Motormouth. It drives us crazy because we can never have an adult conversation or watch a family TV show after dinner without her talking, interrupting, interjecting, shouting, whispering, babbling, yammering, uttering, sounding off, vocalizing, voicing, expressing.... Yeah, it's like that. On and on and on. And the questions? If it's raining, she'll ask, "Mom is it raining out?" If the dog is barking, she'll ask, "Mom is the dog barking?" If I'm cooking dinner, she'll ask, "Mom are you cooking dinner?" The answers to these are all completely obvious but the questions just do not stop. Oh, and she'll baby talk too. Lovely.
#4. Non-stop demanding of attention.
I know most 4 year olds demand a lot of attention. Our girl is no exception. But where this really becomes an issue is when Jay comes home from work or when I am in the middle of schoolwork with the boys. The girl cannot let anyone have a conversation without her. We tell her constantly that "this is mommy and daddy's time to talk and we will be with you in a moment and then it will be your turn." It doesn't really work. Sometimes I have to pick her up and hold her, if I'm not at the hot stove cooking dinner. Even then, in my arms, she will lean her face into my face so that I cannot look at Jay as he's telling me about his workday. She will try to forcefully turn my head to get me to look at her instead of Jay. She cannot let anyone else have the attention. It frustrates Jay after a long day at work when all he wants to do is come home and talk to his wife first, and then the kids.
#3. Triangulation of adults.
Is there a hidden camera in my home? Oh my gosh. Number 3. Number 3! Number 3!!! YES! I'm home all day with Quiet Tiger. Mommy is the enemy. She tries so hard to push me away, to make me leave her like her birth mom did. It's all day long, folks. When Jay gets home, she lays on that charm and is daddy's girl. He so rarely sees what I deal with daily and sometimes I wonder if Jay thinks his wife is secretly crazy. He knows that when I call him at work, exasperated by one thing or another, that it's been a really bad day. I never interrupt him at work unless I am at the end of my rope and want to run away at that very minute and never return. Number 3 is what can easily make me feel like I'm failing my daughter. But knowing #3 is all about RAD, helps me to know it's not me, it's her.
#2. False allegations of abuse.
Quiet Tiger talks about China. She has memories. When she first came home we had trauma over blankets. I began to have my suspicions and I talked at length with China adoption friends about daily practices in Chinese orphanages. I have pictures of my daughter in the orphanage giving proof of other daily practices. I will not go into detail about them, so don't ask. It is a very private story between mother and daughter. I haven't even told my mom and I won't. I wasn't in the orphanage. I didn't see it with my own eyes. But I believe her stories are true. Here at home, Quiet Tiger will be sitting next to me on the couch after dinner and she has been known to shout, "Hey, don't hit me, mom," when I was simply reading an email or browsing Facebook and not even touching the girl. Just today I was taking her picture as she was playing in the ball pit in the loft and she said, "Mom! You hit me!" What the
bleep????? She has told me that her brother's have kicked her, when I was in the same room and the boys were 5 feet away from her. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.
#1. Creating chaos.
Chaos. That is our home. She creates chaos. She cannot be left alone for a second, unless it's 8pm and it's bedtime and she's too tired to cause any chaos. She cannot be trusted to use the bathroom on her own or else we'll have #6 all over the place, literally! I cannot go upstairs to gather laundry while leaving her downstairs lest she attempt to destroy mommy and daddy's new floors. She lives in a state of chaos. And what's more, when she's going crazy, causing chaos on the naughty step, screaming so loud I'm certain that my neighbor Jackie can hear her all the way down the street, and I do not respond to her chaos in any way, shape or form, the girl goes even more berserk. Case in point, a 1.5 hour screaming tantrum on the step earlier this week because mommy wasn't getting rattled by her uncontrolled rage. Oh, she was livid with me and wanted the world to know it. Mommy didn't give in. Mommy sat right in front of her, calm and even smiling at the boys, dancing to music on a TV commercial. She simply prefers chaos, the more the better.
I'm not trying to make any excuses, because I'm as much to blame as the girl, but I don't think it's any wonder that I've gained so much weight with all the chaos in our household. It's constant and I'm so stressed all.... the.... time.
I'm working on that, the weight stuff, trying to do what I can do to take my own responsibility for it all. But I'm praying for God to provide the resources we need to learn how to parent a child with RAD. We need a manual, a "do this, don't do that," kind of guide, something that says, "When the child does #13, the parent responds with
this type of discipline." More so, we need God to do a work in her and continue to do a work in us, her parents. Quiet Tiger is God's plan for our family. No doubt about it. I need Him because some days, most days are so hard that I wonder how I'll possibly make it through 14 more years with this child under our roof.
I cling to hope that He will do more than I can ask or think when it comes to healing my daughter.
Would you pray for us please? Daily?
I'm not ashamed to ask.
