A look into Nancy Thomas parenting

January 10, 2008

I think you keep forgetting that the kids who need this extreme therapy are extremely disturbed. Beth, the child in the original post, was known as the "Child of Rage". HBO did a special on her.

She didn't just walk up to her mother and say "Gee, I have super powers" and run around the house with a pretend cape on. In reality, she probably truly thought she had the power to control her parents. She may have even thought those powers could kill them. If my daughter told me she had "super powers" I would be very concerned. And I would want it delved into in therapy.

Do you allow a child to live this delusion or do you use extreme measures to prove that you are in control? I personally would use extreme measures with my child; otherwise her "super powers" will take over. If that means holding her down in a loving way (which the therapist did) then so be it.

Dad - you are lucky in that your boys were able to accept the love you offered. You could just demonstrate love and compliance and in time they complied somewhat. A child with ODD will never comply. They will fight and fight to the death. So, if we use these extreme techniques when they are young, then, hopefully, once they are adults, they will see that compliance is not a bad thing. Compliance is necessary in this world. Without it we would not be able to keep jobs, stay out of jail, etc. I'm not talking about being submissive, I'm talking about a healthy level of compliance with authority.

Think of a baby. The parents make all decisions for them. The parents decide what the child should eat, wear, do, play with, everything. You say, well they are babies and can't do that for themselves. But we are designed that way so that the baby learns to trust the parent to take care of their needs. Our children didn't have that. They need to learn that as older children. Without learning to trust your parents, you can never have healthy relationships as an adult. So, yes it’s extreme and it looks weird when you do it with an older child. But it’s necessary. My daughter has to learn that I can hold her throughout her rage. That my love is strong. Stronger than her rage. How else can she ever trust me?

I am not one to say that Attachment Therapy is the end all be all. Not at all. Most children with RAD also have other diagnoses and AT can't really help with that. My daughter has RAD, PTSD, bi-polar, possible schizophrenia, and more I'm sure. So, no, AT will not make her healthy. Nothing will ever make her mentally healthy (short of a miracle). But AT helps her deal with her past. And that’s one layer to her issues. Her past is so painful to her that she will not just talk about it. If you sit her down and so, ok, spill it, nothing will come out. But if we hold her and start telling her to remember that things that her birthmom did and we start replaying them, she will get angry and start talking. Yes, we incite the anger, but it also releases the pain. She fights and she rages and she yells and she spills her guts about her pain. She gets it out. Afterwards, she would tell you that she is relieved. And while I am holding her thrashing around, I tell her that I love her and I will continue to love her no matter what she tells.

I guess what I am trying to say, and I probably am not doing a good job at it, is that the children who need this type of help are literally psychopathic. They are not living in the world that we live in; they have no concept of reality. So, what you think would work for them doesn’t. It can’t. You say that AT like this doesn’t work. Well, if you take the most disturbed of the disturbed and try to help them, I think even a low percentage is good. These children would have no help otherwise.

I run a very “Nancy Thomas” type home. No, I don’t do everything she suggests. Some of the things just aren’t a good fit for me. But overall, her ideas are good. My daughter knows that she is safe in our home. While that seems minor, it really isn’t considering her extreme ptsd.

I have met Beth (the one in the original post). I had dinner with her. She is a wonderful woman now. She would tell you that this type of therapy saved her life. So, if you are looking for a success story, there she is.