RAD at school, but not at home?

I have another question to go with this: If you are raising a child with RAD, have they been successful in a mainstream general education classroom?

Mine is the opposite. He is usually pretty much an angel at school and difficult at home. I think RAD since it has to do with attachment is going to manifest itself worst with the people who are trying the hardest to attach themselves to the child. Usually that's the parents.

For the second question, my son with RAD is mainstreamed, he is considered 504 but that is more because he is in a wheelchair than his RAD. He generally behaves much better at school than at home.

My dd's RAD is much more evident at school because of the style of her RAD. Rebecca is anxious in her attachment. At home in a 1-1 ratio she feels more secure and doesnt have as intense of issues as she does at school. She does display some behaviors at home, but at school she is pretty much a RAD checklist. She is not violent, aggressive, or a runner. However she was unable to be successfull in a small private school setting with a low 1-8 ratio. She would not thrive in public school- too many transitions, too many caregivers, too many variables, too many out of control kids. She attends a private therapeutic school. Primary reason for this lack of success is because my child is in survival mode when ever I am away from her. She does not trust that ANY adult has her best interests at heart, other than me...maybe. She believes that she must master each situation, or danger will kill her. So she seeks control all day long. She also spends a massive amount of time thinking about me...if I will return at the end of the day, if I miss her, if I have sent her to school to be away from me because I hate her, etc etc. To her, it's quite plausible that I might just not come back to get her one day. She's been abandoned by her birthparents & sibs, foster siblings who left, foster parent who died, foster parent whom I adopted her from, social workers who left, etc etc, she doesnt understand deeply that this is different. So her acting out usually happens in anxiety ridden moments at school.

This is an interesting statement to me because it's my understanding anxious attachment isn't RAD (though it is certainly an attachment issue). We had a foster son for two years I would have SWORN was RAD like our older son but he was dx, treated and improved from an anxious attachment. We learned long-lasting lessons from our work with that child.

One son acted out more at school because he was panicked about what was going on at home. At one point, he was able to voice his fear that when he left, basically, nothing he left behind-me, the house, the dog-actually continued to exist. Sounds crazy, but apparently, he got stuck in the object/permanance phase(or missed it?) and couldn't grasp the concept that life existed if he could see it or not. He never went anywhere away from me unless he had no choice. He was unable to stay in a school. Most of my kids with RAD were mainstreamed and tended to be angels in school and saved their behaviors for home. They were far to hypervigilant to show any behaviors anywhere else(except previous families, of course). I had one son in a behavioral classroom(had fetal alcohol and other issues besides rad) and we mainstreamed him in jr high and though he couldn't keep up with the class load, behaved better in that setting. He learned more as well, just couldn't do that much paperwork in the allotted time. So depends on the kid and what the underlying issues are as to how the behavior shows up.

txwannabemom, You have perfectly described what I am seeing. Thank you so much for sharing. I hope that your daughter's current school is meeting her needs. Thank you to everyone else who replied as well. These are complicated little people......