[mikeintexas]

If ADN recommends the therapist, usually that is a very very good place to start. Did your therapist give you a list of therapeutic approaches s/he uses? Our therapist uses a number of different treatments, but the approach he uses is dyadic developmental psychotherapy (look at its description on wikipedia). We have not used neurofeedback or other things yet since we just started. It's a very very very slow process.

I'd recommend you get on the listserv at the attachment disorder network's website. That listserv has saved me in many situations.

Our therapist is NOT in our insurance network, so we had to go through special approval to get it paid for. They aren't paying for all of it but we did manage to recapture some of the cost.

You will find on the listserv that there was just a discussion about school. Most of us do not deal with school issues. What happens at school is for them to deal with. We equip the teachers with the information and knowledge (which they initially think is useless) at the beginning of the year. We will conference on e-mail and on the phone. But the school is to handle school issues. They do not get brought into the home. Last year...they did. And it empowered my girl so much that she made it difficult on all of us. After all, she got ALL THIS ATTENTION for her behavior at school... attention that was negative and consistent with the way she sees herself. So this year, the teacher is on her own. Note: attachment-disordered children do NOT respond to motivational stuff like sticker charts. It's yet one more way for them to manipulate your (and the teacher's) attention to both good and bad behaviors (e.g., they remain in control).

You will eventually get over the "bad kid" concern. If you realize what a disadvantage your child had when he got home, sometimes those things take awhile to get past.

Go to the special needs board (as Lorraine suggests) for more info.

And always PM if you have questions.

What I've learned is that the process of figuring out that a child has attachment issues is in fact a process, and it often takes going through a number of different approaches to find a mix that works.

Mike