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Our AS who we adopted at 3-1/2 yrs. and has always had issues with impulsiveness, boundaries, defiance, aggression, etc. It was manageable with ADHD meds. As he is now 7 the behaviors have escalated and he has now been diagnosed as RAD and ADHD. We are reading, reading, reading, applying the therapeutic techniques, we are already on counselor number 3, trying to find the right fit who can help us heal our son before his behaviors escalate out of control. He has been an absolute nightmare for the school district since January and at this time he can not even be in his classroom, but has to be in a separate room for instruction. School district has indicated that they are recommending partial-hospitalization program for next school year due to safety issues, ie: running away and hiding, throwing things, kicking, biting, hitting, yelling, refusing to work, verbal threats. Does anyone know of any other resources available that we could utilize to help him? He also does the pooping himself and peeing himself when he feels like it.....everything is about control. He wants to be in full control all the time and will go to great lengths to feel that he is in control. His behavior was improving and he was doing so good, then boom, his teacher got upset with him one day over something trivial and lost her cool with him and it has been a 5 week roller coaster and the behaviors are getting worse or as his therapist says he's behavior is ramped up right now. The school district has indicated that they are very concerned. We have never had the issues the school has had and have always been able to maintain the status quo at home, but in the past few weeks that is changing. The behaviors he is exhibiting at school are now starting to be seen at home. We do not go anywhere with him unless absolutely necessary because we are afraid he will just up and run away. He was playing a school sport and all of a sudden he just took off running off the field and we had to go after him, so needless to say, he no longer can safely participate in extracurricular activities. It is so sad to know there is a wonderful little boy inside that is trapped and we love him so much and want to help him but we have racked our brains if there are any other resources out there available to him other than residential treatment that we have not tried. Please let us know if you have any suggestions, resources, or experiences dealing with rad.
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Hopefully you will get more responses. You might want to cross post on the general foster parent forum. There are a few members that are parenting Kids with RAD, and they will be a great resource. My daughter is suspected to have disinhibited reactive attachment disorder, so I too am reading up. I just finished the book The Connected Child by Karen Purvis, and am now reading When Love is not Enough by Nancy Thomas. I have found the book by Nancy Thomas to have great ideas in how to handle a lot of the problems that arise with kids with attachment disorders. Good Luck, and hang in there Mom, it is so difficult :confused:
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I am an adoptive mom of two with RAD (13 and 5), am a child therapist and foster mom for 7 years. You need to get him either specialized school or really see what they can offer him because they obviously don't understand it. Educate them about RAD..get a therapist who specializes in RAD...you need interventions and fast...PM if any specific questions
I also have a son diagnosed with RAD. Mine holds it together at school and looses it at home. Bad therapy is worse than no therapy, you have to educate yourself and then find the right therapist, which is hard as you have found. So sorry you are dealing with this, I would not wish this life on anyone.
We have tried to educate the teacher, she is not interested in learning about RAD. She rolls her eyes, sighs and stares at the clock during all meetings with her. We have finally found a RAD therapist who is really good, but he has escalated so much that he is currently in the hospital to get his meds adjusted and get a full psychological eval. by a different doctor. So far he has been exhibiting all of his RAD behaviors for them. They have put him on Depakote and Adderall as of today. We would never wish RAD on anyone it is the most horrible disorder to deal with and we have spent the last 10 months educating ourselves, reading everything we can get our hands on. Daniel Hughes book, building the bonds of attachment is absolutely wonderful as are When Love is not enough by Nancy Thomas and the Connected child, to name but a few. We also have met with the school to start the process for him to do specialized school for the next school year. We just hope that we can get him stabilized so that he can function in the family unit without threats, destruction, and running away. We love him so much and this has been a really difficult week for our entire family. Thank you to all of you who have taken the time to offer advice, we really appreciate any information or advice, or sharing you give.
My heart goes out to you. Have you tired brain mapping to uncover any underdevelopment in the brain. I am planning to take my children to Dr. Ferderic to complete an evaluation on behaviors. I have 4 children with RAD and have modified my parenting from the books that we both have read. Best wishes to you and your family.
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It is so sad to know there is a wonderful little boy inside that is trapped and we love him so much and want to help him but we have racked our brains...
That is the true summary of parenting children with RAD, along with the minimal effectiveness of all the education we gain, the money spent on therapist and other interventionists, etc., etc.
As an adoptive parent, it has been a heartbreaking and gut retching journey. You have gotten good advice about advocating for your child's needs in the school system. If you get to work with new teachers that are more open minded one thing that might help is giving them Nancy Thomas' letter for teachers. I have given it to my daughter's teachers and I do believe it helped the relationship between between me and the teachers, at least. It helped stop the 'blame game' of why didn't I just take care of these issues at home.
[url=http://www.attachment.org/teachers/letter-for-teachers/]Attachment Disorder | Nancy Thomas Parenting | Attachment.org | Reactive Attachment Disorder | Nancy Thomas Parenting[/url]
At 13, after all other options were exhausted, my daughter is in a RTC. The rest of the family is starting to remember what "normal" life is like. What it is like to live without having to lock up everything, all the time. Of not having daily rage episodes to deal with, of not being able to have friends over, on and on.
I wish I could tell you there is one more thing to try, but sadly it isn't like that. There may some days the are better than other days. But, overall, it is hard. The best I can offer is to take care of yourself and be sure that other family members are doing the same. This is a diagnosis that takes a big toll on the whole family on so many different levels.
We just wanted to thank everyone for their advice and encouraging words and update you on our son. Our son had an EEG done as part of his evaluation in the hospital for his escalation of RAD behaviors. It showed discharges in the both temporal areas so the doctors put him on Trileptal and Adderall for his AD/HD. The doctors won't commit that he has an actual seizure disorder but seizure meds like Trileptal are commonly used to treat mood disorders as well. So far, he is doing much better on the Trileptal and Adderall combination. He continues with his RAD therapy and is also getting therapy at his specialized school to help him learn to control his anger and aggression. We hope and pray that we are on the path to recovery and in time our little guy will be able to be re-enrolled in regular school and function better both in the school and home settings. We have also met other parents whose children have very similar issues and are also taking this classification of medicine to control their mood, and they also have seen major improvements in behavior. It is encouraging, but we know with RAD children there is no magic pill, it takes time, patience, learning to parent therapeutically, and lots of therapy. We are just taking one day at a time.