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my daughter is diagnosed as being anxious attachment, she is being tested for an early learning center for preschool. I visited the school and they wanted some background information. I only stated what I thought might be helpful, I stated she has some attatchment issues because I wanted them to be aware of her strange behavior toward me when I drop her off and pick her up. (She has a tendency to be very angry and hateful at me if I leave her anywhere and I didn't want it viewed as me being a bad mom). Later during the conversation the gal said back to me that my daughter with RAD must be difficult for the family. I am not that familiar with attachment because we are just learning about both daughters but I wasn't aware everything falls under RAD.
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No. RAD is taking attachment disorder to the extreme. In my opinion, and I think most would agree, all children that are adopted through the foster system will have some level of attachment disorder. However, children that have RAD do not form attachments at all without intense attachment therapy. Children with RAD have very extreme behaviors.
Our adopted son was also diagnosed with anxious attachment disorder. Unlike children with RAD, he has really bonded with us, and the bond grew over ttime. He has been with us for 4 years now, and while we have discovered he has bigger issues than we first suspected (he falls somewhere in the autism spectrum, we are having him tested),we feel, and the professionals agree that attachment is not the issue now. When he first came to us, he would freak out if I wasn't standing right where he could see me the moment he got off his preschool bus. Even the next year, when he was in kindergarten, I had to be at the door the moment the teacher opened it. He has settled down some now, but he does still get anxious at times. Occassionally I will be gone for a weekend or longer, and he can get pretty anxious about that. It takes a lot of reassurance that I will be back.
A book that our librarian recommended when he first came to live with us was called The Kissing Hand. It was great, and we began ur own special thing between the two of us that he could turn to when I wasn't there to reassure him that Mommy would always be coming back for him.
Good luck with your daughter.
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Kudos to the teacher for being willing to express her concern for your family. RAD is distinctly separate from attachment patterns--it could be viewed as falling under category of disorganized attachment (not anxious attachment)--but not all children with disorganized attachment patterns have RAD.
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RAD is when the child is reactive to any kind of attaching. For instance.... They do not want to love you, they don't want you to love them and if they think this is happening they feel so threatened that they react in very negative ways to push you away. They will go to great lengths just to make sure that 100 percent of the time they are doing things that doesn't please you. This behavior is directed mainly to mom or primary care giver. They are relentless, it's so constant and will even do things to their own harm just so not to please mom. My children would not eat for days, just because they thought I wanted them to eat. You've got to learn an entire new way of parenting because normal things do not work.