How common is attachment disorder in older child adoption?

That's a tough question to answer. I think any child who's life has been flipped upside down and who wasn't cared for properly is going to have some issues with attachment. How severe these issues are, or if the child has attachment disorder depends on a lot of things. How was mom when she was pregnant? What were the first three years of the child's life like? These are big, big factors for attachment disorder. Other later breaks in attachment can cause trust issues, but not attachment disorder. Can these children heal? That's the million dollar question. Their brains are miswired from neglect in their early years. It makes their thinking a bit different then a child cared for lovingly from day one. How long has the child been battling the disorder is a factor. Does the child WANT to get better is a HUGE factor. How many moves has the child had? You cannot always know ahead of time if a child with have this disorder. You can look at the factors in the child's life and get information from former foster parents that can help you discover some of the information you will need to determine the level of a child's issues. There is always a risk.

I adopted two children. One had some minor issues, but they were resolved fairly quickly and she is now attached just fine. My son is not. He has come a long ways from where he was. As he puts it now "He is used to me" however he does not love me and is not yet attached. He is better at faking it now and his behavioral issues are better, but we are not there yet. I think (hope, pray) that he will heal. It's not going to be an easy road though. RAD was on my dealbreaker list. LOL, I got it anyway. I do love my son, and I have dealt with far more than I ever thought I could. I am a strong person now for it, however I will admit that it's been hard on my other children and hard on my health. Our marriage suffered though we are still good because we fought hard to keep our marriage strong.

You will see some RAD in almost every older adopted child. We saw it in our preemie baby that we had. She was left in the hospital for 3 weeks until she weighed enough to leave. Her mother only visited once the whole time. She was well cared for by several different nurses. When she was 4 mo old I still could not keep good eye contact with her. Especially after visits. I am a stay at home mom. I loved all over her all the time and never left her except for visits. She went home to her father at 13 mo. I have not seen her since that day. I often wonder how she is doing. We are seeing some definite RAD in our fd. I didn't really notice it so much until after the visits ended. She is overcoming slowly, but I often think she is faking like she has always done. Everyone including the sws thinks she is the cutest sweetest fc they have ever seen. I think she is great too, but I can see the emotional problems. This is what it is all about. Foster children unless they are taken on day one will have some issues. They can overcome, and many do very well but you can't expect a child that has ben neglected, or abused, and moved around to be completely normal. It helped me to get knowlege. Study RAD and know what you are getting into. We love our dd and we are ready to love and raise her with eyes wide open.

Thanks to all three of you for replying to my post. I appreciate the info. I'm really sad actually that there is such a high risk for RAD in an older foster child. I understand the reasons they have it but it's just so sad that they do. It's so sad that they have been through so much that it could actually affect them in that way. I definitely want a little girl but I don't think we are prepared to take the risk of possibly adopting a child with RAD. I give all of you who have children with RAD lots of credit. To raise a child with RAD and to try to heal his/her heart is the work of a true hero.

True RAD stems from neglect/abuse during infancy. That means any age kid beyond 2 is just as likely to have RAD as any older kid. Older kids, though, may have stronger coping skills and may heal harder. The older non RAD kids, though capable of attachment, are more likely to resist attachment due to repeated loss at many homes.

yep...I came along b4 RAD was identified. There had been abandonment and abuse from a dad who became a single parent to a child he didn't want.At age 5, I knew something was wrong. There were gaps in my head I couldn't open. I became "separate from" peers and adults...an outsider...wanting to relate and end the fear of outsider status, but not knowing how...there were no links or pathways. The best I could do was to remain in the status that came about and watch.At age 6, my 2nd stepmother shared my adoption secret and I became tainted, suspect and a permanent "outsider." I was sentenced.Slowly a distancing from all people and associations became evident. People kept me "outside" and for that I hated them.The hopes of care and concern and being allowed to enter a family, dissolved. Adults and their feelings of caring and love were conditional. Issues of trust became attached to my "outsider" status. There was fear that any security I had in regards to family, was fragile at best, and may not last.I had only my past experiences to remember. If I held back my own feelings of wanting to be loved and cared for, it was safer. If there were ongoing hi's and lows, I would be shielded to some extent because I hadn't given in to sharing all my feelings. The "outsider" status provided protection. I retreated behind it...I built a wall...people wanting to get in, had to be screened...some got in part way, some not at all. As I grew older and made a life for myself, the RAD feelings, ( if thats what they were) gradually subsided, but never completely left.Now in the sunset years it is easy to look back and identify times when there were strong feelings of a lack of attachment...if things went wrong, all eggs were not in one basket and escape with only a small amount of hurt would happen.From my own perspective, "attachment" difficulty may be prominent when we are young and gradually become less and less as we grow older. In my own case it has remained all of my life.I wish you the best.

Drywall, thank you SO much for that reply. We have RAD kids and I have often wondered just how they see the world and themselves. I've heard the "expert" opinions of that but never from a RAD/adoptee perspective. Your post is very helpful to a mom like me, trying to understand my kids.