RAD & School

October 3, 2012

First, get your kiddo's RAD written into her IEP! As a behavioral diagnosis, it should be able to get her better supervision, fewer opportunities to sneak out of class, write all over desks, etc. (She should be ASKING for tools from teacher if she can't handle having them in her desk.)

Hopefully someone else with RADdishes who are in school will answer, but I can tell you what I WISH we had done while our "mild" RADdishes were still in school (before we pulled to homeschool), stealing from classmates and teachers, punching kids on the playground, losing homework, claiming that I didn't feed them, etc.:

1. I WISH I had taken our attachment therapist's advice and just left the school behaviors AT school (and let the teachers deal with them in their clearly-not-gonna-work-for-an-attachment-disordered-child ways) rather than getting frustrated at the numerous emails, calls, and weekly behavior reports I received from teachers.

If I had parented therapeutically from the start, I would have hugged the kiddo and ignored the nasty gram from the teacher. I would have consoled my children and worked on the attachment: "Wow, it looks like you had a rough day at school today. I wonder if you were feeling scared that... Well, let's save homework for later and you can help me with xxxx right now." (And made a bonding game out of it.)

If they were out of control at home, I did do "time ins," but I didn't do enough of these and I didn't focus on the attachment with them. I just made them sit NEAR me to pout, rather than putting down what I was doing and working on eye contact and cuddling that would have opened their hearts and reduced the RAD behaviors sooner. I also would have put "PLACE" into place alot sooner. (Google that and "RAD" if you don't know what it is.)

2. And I also wish I had considered homeschooling right from the start. I can slowly and calmly help them when they struggle with subjects (instead of hurrying them so they can move with the class onto the next subject) and if that's not working, I can say "enough of this subject" for the day and we can move onto something else or leave the schoolwork entirely and go outside and "play" (aka, learning, but they don't know it. Identifying bugs, then researching them. Comparing leaves and animals in the neighborhood, nature hikes, museum visits, etc. All learning stuff, but "fun" and engaging.)

3. If you can't homeschool (and most can't--I get that), then you absolutely have to just force the school to handle those behaviors AT school and the lack of learning AT school--try not to stress about it. My kiddos didn't even BEGIN to learn until I brought them home to school them myself in a safer, more structured environment. Too many distractions, perceived fears, and opportunities to manipulate (always hypervigilant) and terrorize classmates and frazzled teachers. No kid can truly "learn" in that environment when their emotional needs (for attachment) aren't being met.

Focus on attaching first with the help of a good attachment therapist (who doesn't leave you sitting out in the waiting room!) Even if you can't find one, just be sure to read books, blogs, and this board and watch videos online about therapeutic parenting and effective responses to their behaviors. The more attached to you they become, the less frequently and intense the behaviors will be. (And trust me, the wrong kind of therapy--"play therapy," "talk therapy," etc.--will do more damage to your child's attachment than no therapy at all!)

Of course continue to advocate for her in case conferences, requesting an IEP (if you don't already have one) for at least "other health impaired" for the RAD and note any possible prenatal drug or alcohol exposure. Get a "behavior plan" in place, too. This will guarantee that your kiddo can't be punished for med or psych behaviors (such as "lost homework" if your kid has trouble organizing or paying attention to details, as most ADHD kids do, and this is comorbid with both RAD and fetal alcohol). The teachers may be more willing to work WITH your kid in helping her keep all work in a particular place rather than just punishing her for losing it.

My long-winded point is...you can do great things in helping your kiddo to heal when you can implement the structure yourself and not have to depend on an already overburdened teacher to do it.

But if you can't homeschool, you have to just leave the handling of misbehaviors to the school and try to pick up the pieces when you pick your child up each day. And have your therapist/Dr./psych write a note to teacher saying that due to your kid's mental health issues, you will NOT be doing homework on nights when it just isn't going to work for YOUR child. You know your child best, and it hurts you both (you and child) to try to force homework when you need to be working on attachment. If the school complains, get other options written into the IEP. (Maybe child does missed homework during school day. Or maybe child works on homework lesson, such as math facts, using a computer game rather than writing it on paper. We use TimezAttack.com and I guarantee any kid would rather practice their math facts (x/+-) with that than writing facts on a sheet of paper over and over! Same end result, much less painful process to get them there!

As for your child's behaviors while in school? Again, just leave those to the school. The LOGICAL consequence is for teacher to have her clean her mess. Scrub the desks she wrote on. Do cleanup chores--AT school!--to "pay" for damaged books. If she can't handle the responsibility of bringing home books (because she writes in them), she doesn't get to bring them home and has to do "homework" supervised in office at school during recess. (But let TEACHER dole out that consequence!) Don't give her access to notes that have to be signed by parent/teacher--have teacher EMAIL you these notes. Don't "punish" your kiddo at home for at-school behaviors. It harms the attachment process. Yes, consequence misbehaviors at home, but do so logically and in the spirit of trying to keep her SAFE and secure/structured rather than in a punitive way. Also work WITH your child to help her identify triggers.

Concerning academics, just tell her to do her best, that you love her no matter what (especially when she's frustrated at the difficulty and feeling dumb), and that together you'll be focusing on attachment, NOT on school. And that once she gets to a place of healing, the schoolwork will be much easier---to not stress about it right now, but continue to do her best. She has to see you as an ally/partner in life, not as another wimpy adult (because she can control you/make you mad) who can't be trusted to keep her "safe."

That's a word we hear alot in attachment therapy, and it's because these kids live in constant fear and it drives most of their negative behaviors. It's up to us to help them figure out where that fear comes from and how to get through it so they can make better choices. And remember, this is just what has worked for my family. There are lots of ideas concerning RAD, and I still come to these boards to learn from other parents when mine get triggered and start with the odd behaviors again. ;) Good luck!