RAD Kids and Behavior
Behavior modification for kids with Reactive Attachment Disorder is very different than that of traditional behavior modification. The one thing that I have found to work with these kids is giving them options and having lots of patience.
When one of my foster children moved in,I asked him what he needed to be happy. He said without hesitation “Chocolate milk and ice cream” For the next 7 months he drank about 2 gallons of chocolate milk and about a gallon of ice cream every week. This was the first time he was given some type of control of what he can eat and the amount he wanted.
I remember the day that we went to the grocery store and I told him to go get his chocolate milk and he said ” Dad, I think I’m done with that.”
He was given control and he was allowed to fill the need for as long as he needed. Not every child needs chocolate milk and ice cream to be happy. Although wouldn’t it be nice if life was that simple. Parents should find out what their RAD kid needs to be happy and if possible allow the child that want/need.
Another on of my foster children would tantrum for hours. A seven hour tantrum was not uncommon. Behaviors during the tantrums included biting, kicking, spitting,swearing, throwing shoes and any other object he could get his hands on. He also would break his toys but he would only break the toys that I had given him. This is one of the ways he tried to break or destroy the relationship that he had built. After about a year he began changing. The tantrums slowly began to diminish both in intensity and duration. He slowly stopped breaking the gifts that I had given him and he began telling me some of his pain.
Just have patience.
Patience is the most important. Kids with Reactive Attachment will try the patience of everyone. They are experts when it comes to getting people mad at them. This is often the only way they know how to keep everyone away. The thing to remember is that these kids often will form attachments quickly and will also do behaviors to destroy these attachments. For a parent with a RAD kid they need unbelievable amounts of patience. A child who has RAD has the unique ability to test the patience of the most dedicated parent.
My RAD Kids!
After working with kids in a variety of settings for the past 25 years I left the rat race and opened my home to kids. I have four teenage boys all with the diagnosis of Reactive Attachment Disorder.
All the boys have been in multiple foster homes, and both pre-adoptive and adoptive homes. Each time they were given back. They have been in placements, including residential programs, (short term and long term), and of course psychiatric hospitals for their “out of control behavior.”
These kids have on average have been in 17 different homes in their lives (I have two 12 year olds and two 14 year olds). That’s more than one home per year. They all have significant learning disabilities. Does anyone wonder why? They have never completed a school year in one place…with the exception of the time they spent in the “residential treatment facilities”
I could talk about each one of the boys forever, both about their success in school, in life, or when they were able to sleep through the night without waking up crying. The biggest fear they all have is that I will give them back to Department of Children and Families (DCF) formerly Department of Social Services (DSS). Their fears are endless and they all cope with these fears differently. One of the boys fights, puffs up his chest and threatens to “kick my ass”, another doesn’t eat, another isolates himself and wants to be the invisible child, and my last son wants to be held and make all the bad stuff and memories go way.
My home is not the typical foster home nor is it a pre-adoptive place, although it is possible for them to be adopted if that is what they want. There is no mother in the home. Each one of the boys has such huge mother issues that by eliminating the mother from the home half the battle is gone. For them mothers are not supposed to leave. Well I say neither are fathers. But, lastly the biggest difference about my home is that they are given choices. They can stay here as long as they want, they can choose to leave or stay.
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