Diary

A Day In Our Life With A Rad Child

ivyafire.

Posted to Diary on Sun May 04, 2008 at 08:58:16 PM EST. RSS.

Raising someone else's kids can be challenging.  Sometimes you get a little more than you bargained for, such as Reactive Attachment Disorder.  Characterized by symptoms such as low self-esteem; needy, clingy or pseudo-independent behavior; inability to deal with stress and adversity; depression; apathy,susceptibility to chronic illness; obsession with food - hordes, gorges, refuses to eat, eats strange things, hides food, lack of self-control; inability to develop and maintain friendships; alienation from parents, caregivers, and other authority figures; aggression and violence; difficulty with genuine trust, intimacy, and affection; lack of empathy, compassion and remorse; negative, hopeless, pessimistic view of self, family and society, behavioral problems at school; speech and language problems; incessant chatter and questions; difficulty learning...in all, a rollercoaster ride of constant attention getting behaviors that seem designed to drive you batty.

The goal?  Help them become sane and whole without losing your sanity in the process.

Her alarm goes off at 10 til 6 because every morning she waits until her brother gets into the shower to knock on our door, asking to use our bathroom.  She can't use our bathroom because she rifles through cabinets and steals things.  Every other alarm in the house goes off at 6, so if she doesn't get up before her brother hits the shower, she has to wait until he's done for her turn.  She showers at night because she takes too long and makes everyone late.   Every move is carefully planned out to make sure one person doesn't disrupt everyone else's day. Her backpack is already ready for the day, it's checked the night before to avoid the morning crisis of forgotten homework, pencils, books, etc.

It took a year to break the habit of changing clothes several times and missing the bus.  For a while we picked out her clothes, then we only let her have 3 outfits at a time in her closet.  Finally we allowed her to keep them all, but the first time she throws them all over the room again or makes us late for the school bus, the gestapo rules are in effect again.   It sounds extreme, but until you live with a RAD child, you can't understand.  It's all about control, and everything you do, from getting out of bed to going to the bathroom is about who is going to control the entire family.  Eventually either the parents become authoritarian, or the child becomes a little tyrant who runs the household.  

It sucks.  We were fairly permissive parents, nonspanking, gave lots of choices.    This is completely not the way I wanted to parent.  But if  you don't, everything you do will be a constant battle.   These kids love to argue, or to cause arguments.   They lie, they steal, they talk nonsense just for the purpose of annoying those around them.  They stall so they can control the time you leave or the amount of time you take to do things.  They pretend not to understand things to try to get out of doing chores or schoolwork.  They pretend to forget instructions and they lose assignments and belongings.   They're accident prone,  especially in public, and people observing think you're cruel and unsympathetic when you don't fawn over them because you are the only one who knows it's all an act.  They are masters at convincing teachers or counselors they're abused at home, setting up confrontations between officials and parents.

I have had angry words with school bus drivers and principals only to find out an incident my child reported to me one way actually happened another way or that the words repeated to me were never actually said.   At one point I was calling attorneys and threatening a lawsuit.  The lie grew so large that she actually pointed out supposed attackers in the yearbook.  She named names, made all these outrageous claims,  it finally came out that it was a fabrication when she named someone who had a verifiable alibi and the whole story came tumbling down around her ears.

There is not a single thing that comes out of her mouth that we can take for granted.  Every answer must be double checked for veracity.  Because she is indiscriminately affectionate and manipulative, strangers think they are dealing with a sweet, innocent being, so they get sucked into the game before they know it.  Every new person you meet becomes a potential enemy.   When you have a RAD kid, you get used to acquaintances offering unsolicited advice about your parenting, because manipulative RAD kids love pitting adults against one another for their own entertainment.  Nothing pleases them more than to get another mother to accuse you of being abusive, or to get a school official to think you're an uninvolved parent, because that takes the focus off their behavior.  It's called triangulating or splitting.  It isn't the same as other kids who always ask the 'easy' parent for things they want in a sneaky way, this is done hoping the other parent will find out so it will cause a fight.  Teachers and counselors have to stay on their toes as RAD kids get older because they like to make accusations of abuse against them just to watch the sparks fly.   They don't give any thought to the  consequences of their actions, and often the lies are so implausible it's almost laughable.  They have the potential to leave rattle nerves and shattered lives wherever they go.

And then there are the food issues.  If you don't want pests in your home, there will be frequent room checks for hoarded food.  We've never denied food, and this child has never been starved, yet she hides candy and food in her room constantly.   On days school is out every hour she'll ask can I have a snack?  I've seen her try to eat pieces of butter or spoonfuls of salad dressing.   From food to paper to soap, everything she uses has to be rationed and observed to ensure that it isn't wasted or misused.  Before we started timing  and occasionally helping with her showers, she was going through a bottle of shampoo a week and  a bottle of shower soap a week , and taking a minimum of 1/2 hour per shower while still not getting clean!  Now her shampoo is diluted for better foaming and doled out in 3 shampoo doses in a small container, her shower soap is in a pump, (1 pump per shower) and there is a clock in the shower.  If the shower takes longer than 15 minutes she loses her IPOD for the evening and the following day.    If she wastes the soap, she has to go back to the fruity smelling cheap kid soap from the discount store that goes for $1.99 a bottle.

Of course nothing is fair.  She's constantly looking for ways she's been slighted.  The world has not been fair to her.  She got a lousy start with a drug addicted, disinterested mother who abandoned her.  She came into a world where she trusts nobody and expects to get screwed over.  She's angry at everyone and everything, thinks she can't trust anyone, but paradoxically thinks somehow that some man is going to rescue her.  Even at this early age she's big on the Cinderella fantasy.  If there is a book or a movie with a handsome prince and wicked stepmother theme, she's there.  She writes poems and songs about how you'll be sorry someday and how she'll be with another man someday.  We don't know what the hell she's talking about.   We had an incident with a friend's teenaged son being nervous around her when she was 7 because she had a crush on him and he got creeped out by some of her behavior, then she became hostile toward our friend because she imagined this whole scenario in her mind where he was keeping her away from her 'boyfriend.'   It was bizarre and disconcerting.  

She gets angry that she never gets to have friends over, but she never keeps friends for more than a few weeks because she doesn't relate to people well. It's hard to get her to see that if she'd just stop trying to tell everyone what to do all the time they might want to play more often.  Her brother has had the same friends for several years.   Sometimes I feel like we punish him for having friends because we're so concerned with not hurting her that we don't let him have company very often.   I often feel like the 'normal' kid gets lost in the shuffle because so much energy goes into trying to keep things running smoothly   around the RAD kid.

Homework is a hassle.  There was 1 year where I foolishly tried to help her.  Now, she goes to her room and when she's done I look it over to be sure she followed directions.  If she didn't, she does it over.  If I get it back and she didn't follow directions, she does it over again.  No questions, no arguments, just repetition until she gets the hint.     Last week she made the mistake of trying to pass off a book report that she had turned in before.  For some reason she didn't think I would remember.   We just got a note from her teacher that she has 30 book reports to make up, so I've looked at a few in the past couple of weeks, but it wasn't very likely that I would not recall the summary of this particular book.   Ordinarily, she doesn't do homework on the weekends, but for trying to pass off old work instead of doing her homework, essentially lying and cheating,  she earned homework for the weekend.   Now she'll be 4 book reports closer to the total.  We are, of course, the meanest parents in the world.

Before this day is over, I will ask various questions, such as is your room clean? or did you empty the dishwasher? or maybe who left that gum wrapper on the counter?  

The answers I receive may be yes (halfheartedly) I forgot (sing song and I'm not buying it) and I dunno. (also halfheartedly and I'm not buying it.)

My response is to make the daily sweep for hoarded food, time to get up and get on that then and uh-huh, throw it away.    It never ends. She's hoping I'll get angry, or say something she can argue with, but I'm not biting, I just say things that I can repeat until she grows bored.   There are days that my response doesn't matter, she'll argue the color of the sky in the right mood.  And then we do the nightly ritual with the after-dinner chores, the shower, getting ready for another day.   It's thankless.  She doesn't care, and honestly, I don't know if she ever will.  I worry that she won't ever be happy, and that mentally she'll never be right.  I worry she'll be another dysfunctional adult, a sociopath, a street person, an addict.   It's amazing to me how people who trust so little are often the ones who are so easily led.  We both have observed the lack of judgment, the seeming inability to see cause and effect.  You can't reason with her because she has no logic.

How do you help someone who doesn't give a damn?    I've only got 8 more years to try, and then it's just too late.  She'll be an adult, and whatever she thinks, or decides to do with her life, she'll be responsible and there won't be anything else I can do.  I'm beating my head against a wall trying to make her into a decent human being, who can survive in the real world and think for herself instead of just running around like a rebel without a clue.  

I guess it's a case of, grow up hating me all you want, but for god's sake, grow up. Be whole, sane, honest, and as close to normal as possible, please.

I used to wonder about the people I read about who returned the RAD kids to the orphanages and adoption agencies.  I thought they must be the most horrible people in the world, to abandon those poor kids like that. Now, I completely understand.  I'm not going to leave, but I totally get the urge, and I will never again look down on someone for doing it.  Sometimes you have to save yourself, and the rest of your family.  I won't, because I'm stubborn as hell, but boy do I get it.  That, in a nutshell, is how RAD works.  People on the outside only know the history, which is tragic, and think oh, those poor kids.  People on the inside know the tragic history and spend every day vacillating between sympathy for the past and anger about the present behavior, and everything you learn about RAD tells you that logic doesn't apply, so what you think would work usually doesn't.   At first you feel an overwhelming urge to coddle these kids to make up for the past, but apparently it's the worst thing you can do, they seem to need narrowly defined boundaries to get them to stop the manipulative behavior.  It's almost like you have to learn how to be an ultra-hardass to work with them.  

For now, I will keep trying, and until 2016 rolls around, I will not admit defeat.  

Symptoms of Reactive Attachment Disorder

*Intense control battles, very bossy and argumentative; defiance and anger
*Resists affection on parental terms
*Lack of eye contact, especially with parents - will look into your eyes when lying
*Manipulative - superficially charming and engaging
*Indiscriminately affectionate with strangers
*Poor peer relationships
*Steals
*Lies about the obvious
*Lack of conscience - shows no remorse
*Destructive to property, self and/or others
*Lack of impulse control
*Hypervigilant/Hyperactive
*Learning lags/delays
*Speech and language problems
*Incessant chatter and/or questions
*Inappropriately demanding and/or clingy
*Food issues - hordes, gorges, refuses to eat, eats strange things,  hides food
*Fascinated with fire, blood, gore, weapons, evil
*Very concerned about tiny hurts but brushes off big hurts
*Parents appear hostile and angry
*The child was neglected and/or physically abused in the first three  years of life

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3

Re: A Day In Our Life With A Rad Child

ivyafire.

Mon May 05, 2008 at 12:28:45 PM EST

5.00 (informative)

So far we're trying ADD meds for concentration and help with the learning problems, and therapy for the anger and lying issues.

I am not a fan of meds, but when you're desperate, you'll try almost anything.  We've vetoed amphetamines and will almost walk through fire before trying antidepressants.

Therapy and constantly monitoring both her behavior and our own seem to be the most important things.  It's so easy to have a good day and get sucked into thinking she's cured, when in reality she's just acting, manipulating because she wants something.  The next day you're right back to square one.

The hardest part for me is constantly questioning myself.  She's been through so much and she's so screwed up.  If we can't fix it, I just don't want to be responsible for making her any worse, yk?

"It was an ancient rule of Hawaiians that no one should hurt another bodily, or through theft of goods or through injury to feelings.These were the only sins."

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Re: A Day In Our Life With A Rad Child

MayorBob.

Mon May 05, 2008 at 01:54:44 PM EST

none

I was sort of wondering the same thing about meds myself.  But, based upon my limited read of the condition, other than something to aid focus and attention, I'm wondering if a therapeutic approach might be better than a chemical approach.  It seems like a lot of the presenting symptoms have to do with behavioral patterns rather than something not firing right in the brain.  But, as I say, that's limited to my briefest of review of stuff on the web and an admittedly almost zero base of knowledge on my part.

On your questioning of yourself, I'd say this demonstrates what sort of a good parent you really are.  In my opinion a good parent will stop frequently to ask themselves and their spouse if they're really doing this thing properly for fear they might be messing things up.  Certainly, a parent capable to introspection about what they're doing and the flexibility to change things to suit the situation is a "better parent", if you will, than one who simply keeps on keeping on because they read about it in a book or heard some expert pontificate on it.

Once again, good luck.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

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Re: A Day In Our Life With A Rad Child

ivyafire.

Mon May 05, 2008 at 02:25:17 PM EST

5.00 (interesting)

MayorBob: That is a huge fear of mine, because some people have made an industry out of forming schools and camps for these kids, and you don't want to send your child off to some prison where they'll be further abused and traumatized.  I've had other moms tell me not to consider this at all because of the scam factor.   I'm hoping the teen years aren't so scary we'd get to that point.   Some of these experts are only in it for the money and aren't making any positive changes in anyone's lives.

I don't trust institutions so it isn't a likely scenario anyway, but from what I've heard a lot of parents have gone that route in desperation.  On the one hand, you know people who have no emotional attachment to the child are not going to be manipulated by them, which could be a good thing.  But on the other hand, if the facility isn't staffed by trained professionals there may be abuses going on, because these kids know how to push your buttons.  I can recall one day in particular where I yelled at her to get out of the car at the bus stop so I could go home to calm down because the urge to hit her was so strong it was overwhelming.  That was the day I was shaking and sobbing in the bathroom because I couldn't believe a 9 year old could induce that much rage, or that I could even entertain the idea of hitting a child.   It's  horrifying when you feel the urge to harm someone you know is emotionally damaged and incapable of understanding their own feelings.   Of course, what's more frightening is that there are people who give in to that urge.

I know how often I lose it, I don't know about someone who has no connection to her, yk?  What's to stop some 20 year old intern with no family connection from just punching her when she mouths off?  And if she were in a boarding school type situation, how would we know?

"It was an ancient rule of Hawaiians that no one should hurt another bodily, or through theft of goods or through injury to feelings.These were the only sins."

1

Thank you for your story.

MayorBob.

Mon May 05, 2008 at 06:41:28 AM EST

none

This marks the first time I have ever heard of this particular condition and, from what little info there is out there on it, that's not surprising as it's a fairly new diagnosis.  Your situation brings through, with clarity, a couple things I've felt over the years:

  1. We hardly ever become the parents we swear we will become when we grow up (or perhaps that's we rarely ever become the opposite of the parents whose clay feet and personal failings lead us to say we'll never be like them).

  2. There's a whole litany of trials and tribulations we'll be presented with as parents.  Stuff as awful and horrible as watching a young child struggle with stuff like leukemia or other life-ending conditions.  Stuff like the ongoing and seemingly endless challenge of trying to retain some sort of normalcy and health to your marriage as you deal with stuff like RAD.

You live with this day to day and about the only thing I can say is your story touched me deeply and I wish you and your family well in coping.

Illegitimi non carborundum.

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Re: A Day In Our Life With A Rad Child

Lou.

Mon May 05, 2008 at 07:50:08 AM EST

none

That's some pretty heavy stuff...thank you, Ivy.  I wish I had a poster of those symptoms back when I taught at the alternative school.  Reading through the list I can think of a significant percentage of my students who exhibited those behaviors.  In fact, we used to joke about when we knew X was lying...there were two things to watch out for...eye contact and lip movement.

Not that I'm a fan of medicating teens...but are there any medications that can at least take off the edges?

I can't argue with your logic...but I can recommend a good therapist

4

Wow

thefadd.

Mon May 05, 2008 at 01:38:34 PM EST

none

manipulative RAD kids love pitting adults against one another for their own entertainment. Nothing pleases them more than to get another mother to accuse you of being abusive, or to get a school official to think you're an uninvolved parent, because that takes the focus off their behavior. It's called triangulating or splitting.

So *you're* Karl Rove's mom. Totally kidding...I'm sure with parenting from someone as insightful as you, she'll actually get to become a healthy, positive adult.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

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Re: Wow

ivyafire.

Mon May 05, 2008 at 02:00:05 PM EST

none

All we can do is try.

We just count our blessings that she isn't cruel to animals or a fire-starter.  She's fascinated with fire, so we don't leave matches lying around, but as with any condition, things could always be worse.

For every insightful, level headed day I have, there is another one where I'm questioning my fitness for the job.  The truth is, I won't know how I did until she's a successful adult...or not.  

"It was an ancient rule of Hawaiians that no one should hurt another bodily, or through theft of goods or through injury to feelings.These were the only sins."

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Re: Wow

T Slothrop.

Thu May 08, 2008 at 12:25:27 PM EST

none

For every insightful, level headed day I have, there is another one where I'm questioning my fitness for the job.  The truth is, I won't know how I did until she's a successful adult...or not.

I don't really have anything insightful to add here beyond what the Mayor already said about the fact that bad parents rarely if ever question whether they might be bad parents.

But you do have my absolute admiration - however your daughter turns out. When I think of the generally mediocre (in my opinion anyway) job I did raising my bio daughter (now  21) and the only slightly better one I'm doing with her step-sibs (currently 13 and 15) under absolutely normal circumstances, I can only cringe in horror when thinking about how awful I would be at handling a child like yours.

She's incredibly lucky whether she ever realizes it or not. People like you who are wired up to handle that kind of provocation/manipulation do not grow on trees.




{Insert amusing quotation here}

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Re: Wow

ivyafire.

Thu May 08, 2008 at 01:00:37 PM EST

none

I won a major victory with the school board this week and finally got them to begin testing for learning disabilities.  With any luck, we'll be able to identify some specific problems and get some extra help with teaching strategies.

We suspect dyscalculia and the psychiatrist has mentioned ADD, but it's hard to know how much is I don't care attitude and how much is real disability until we get the testing done.

"It was an ancient rule of Hawaiians that no one should hurt another bodily, or through theft of goods or through injury to feelings.These were the only sins."

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Re: Wow

T Slothrop.

Fri May 09, 2008 at 02:16:46 PM EST

none

Congrats. I do know a little about how hard it is to get local school officials to test students with "unusual" diagnoses or circumstances.

But I have to ask a slightly uncomfortable question: How do you accurately test a child like your daughter? What if she decides to try to manipulate the testing process to her own ends (whatever those might be)?




{Insert amusing quotation here}

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Just a thought from the peanut gallery

thefadd.

Fri May 09, 2008 at 06:37:37 PM EST

none

Her ability to manipulate people means that she's a very intelligent kid. Combine this with the fact that she doesn't want to go to school and she's probably bored off her ass there (not that ivy hasn't thought of this). Counter to Urk's diary entry of today, this is imhexperience indicative of a child not being properly engaged by the educational system as opposed to someone who is unintelligent or "disabled" in some fashion. I went to a college full of kids who (unlike me) were diagnosed with all sorts of "learning disabilities" in college. The school really emphasized the fact that there are differences in the way people learn and just because you don't learn one specific way doesn't mean you're disabled.

Testing someone for how they learn is a lot more grounded than some personality test or a regular standardized test. If done correctly, it really looks at how you are wired and what approaches will address the way that you learn, in large part because there's no right or wrong, abled or disabled. The difficulty, really, is in getting the system to conform to the differences which it simply is not open to doing 99% of time. A friend of mine, for example, was the first person officially diagnosed with a learning disability in the state of North Carolina in the late 80s. He was an exceptionally hyper active and difficult to deal with child. It took finding the right learning environment before the system recognized him for being the exceptionally bright individual he is.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

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Re: Just a thought from the peanut gallery

T Slothrop.

Fri May 09, 2008 at 08:41:51 PM EST

none

Her ability to manipulate people means that she's a very intelligent kid. Combine this with the fact that she doesn't want to go to school and she's probably bored off her ass there (not that ivy hasn't thought of this). Counter to Urk's diary entry of today, this is imhexperience indicative of a child not being properly engaged by the educational system as opposed to someone who is unintelligent or "disabled" in some fashion.

I completely agree with you, actually. In fact, the more I read about this disorder (and I have been reading quite a lot in the past couple days - I find it fascinating), the more I'd almost go so far as to say that above-average intelligence must be a prerequisite for this condition. Dumb kids are not often very successful at manipulating/scamming adults in complex ways.

And I also agree that properly-administered testing with results interpreted by a truly sharp child psychologist would be difficult for even a very smart kid to scam. However in my experience with public school functionaries, I would say that it is unfortunately not a given that the testing will be properly administered or that the results will be astutely interpreted.




{Insert amusing quotation here}

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Re: Just a thought from the peanut gallery

thefadd.

Fri May 09, 2008 at 11:45:35 PM EST

none

However in my experience with public school functionaries, I would say that it is unfortunately not a given that the testing will be properly administered or that the results will be astutely interpreted.

Too true. This was an interesting take on the odyssey some people have to go through if you hadn't already come across it in your readings.

It is easy to buy small plaster models of what you think life is like.

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Re: Just a thought from the peanut gallery

ivyafire.

Sat May 10, 2008 at 01:46:34 AM EST

none

That is exactly what we have gone through.  For one year they let things slide and said she would adjust.  For 2 more years I kept going to school insisting there was something wrong with the way she processed information and they kept insisting there was no problem even though she lagged way behind grade level.  

At the end of last school year I requested testing and they put me off until this school year saying they wanted to observe her in class.  Her teacher approached me and asked if we had considered having her tested, and I told her they were supposed to be observing her in class.  At that point, she and I requested testing again.  This time we had a meeting where they told me that she was not a full 2 years behind in all subjects so she didn't qualify for testing!  A retired teacher friend told me this was bullshit, so I called the school board and raised hell until they agreed to test her.  We still had to make another trip to fill out papers since the originals mysteriously disappeared.  

Hawaii has some of the worst schools in the country, and they seem to be proud of it.  In the first meeting they kept telling me how although she was not at grade level, my daughter was in the top 5 for her class.    That was supposed to make me feel better, I guess, that our schools are so bad that even if my child is failing and has no clue how to do math, neither do any of her classmates.  WTF is that about?  They repeated it so many times I kept wondering if there were parents who fall for it.  Well, my kid is the smartest underachiever, so I guess I won't worry.

I used to think it was funny that McDonald's had little pictures on the cash register and it told the employees how much change to give back.  Now I know why. :(

We may have to buckle down and find a way to pay for private school or something   before this is over.

"It was an ancient rule of Hawaiians that no one should hurt another bodily, or through theft of goods or through injury to feelings.These were the only sins."

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Bumpersticker

Lou.

Mon May 12, 2008 at 08:48:39 AM EST

5.00 (funny)

Well, my kid is the smartest underachiever, so I guess I won't worry

My child is an honor underachiever at Pele Elementary

I can't argue with your logic...but I can recommend a good therapist

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Re: Wow

ivyafire.

Fri May 09, 2008 at 07:56:28 PM EST

none

That is a fear of mine, but at this point she's doing so badly that if she makes the test come out worse than it would anyway, well, maybe they'll work harder at adapting a lesson plan to whatever needs they identify.   I hope.  

There is always the worry that she'll manipulate things, but when a kid is as far behind in school as she is, I don't think extra attention is going to be a bad thing.   Maybe someone will be able to spark some kind of interest in her.

"It was an ancient rule of Hawaiians that no one should hurt another bodily, or through theft of goods or through injury to feelings.These were the only sins."

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