[jenatmcds]

My head and heart are having a horrible argument . . .
My husband and I have been foster parents to a 4 year old girl on and off since she was just under a year old. Due to neglect/chronic illness/multiple moves to and from an abusive bipolar mother and an apathetic father, she has recently been diagnosed with RAD. To say the least we really weren't surprised, afterall she was diagnosed with Oppositional Defiant Disorder at just under 3.

Of course after 2.5 years straight in our home, our county agency is attempting to once again reunite her with her birthfather and his new wife (who suffers from severe clinical depression). She is a difficult child not just in personality but physically as she has a disability that requires regular cathing, bowel stim, and multiple therapy appointments. Honestly, I think once the BF and Stepmom realize the magnitude they will not want her.

My husband would adopt her in a heart beat (like most RAD girls - she is nowhere near as difficult with him) and I truly do love her; however, we have an adopted son who is only 4 mos younger than she and he is going to have his own set of issues (a regular poster child for Ritalin!). In my heart, I want to keep her and the psychologist believes that it may be her only chance since she is reasonalbly attached to us for a RAD kid; however, my head says "these are the kids that kill their parents while they sleep".

How realistic are these fears? and does she have a good chance of being "normal" since she was diagnosed so young?

I know that this is ridiculously long, but any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Jen

[rindava]

once b=parents are out of the picture, things settle down and life gets a lot better (at least that is how it was for my girls and for my 3 foster kids when they stopped having visits with b-ps and were supposed to be going for TPR)

You may want to check out Dr. Bryan Post who has some very interesting therapy for kids in these situations with problems. He come to people's homes to do intensives.

I don't think that too many people actually get killed by their adopted child.

Keep dangerous things away from her. Is she very cruel to siblings and pets??? Things like that would be a concern.

I have been told to hospitalized my 10 year old, or to give him back, etc... I think the school systems main ploy was to have him arrested for some minor infraction (as they sure were not trying to help and they kept putting him in situations and blaming the entire thing on him) To boot, he never really has done much of anything really dangerous. {They tried to expell him over pretending his finger was a gun.....Then they would turn around and say he is so retarded that he can't do this or that, etc...}

Dr. Post's things have helped, most of everything else just made everything worse.

[lucyjoy]

Post trained with DR. Martha Welch so you might consider her material. I perfer Nancy Thomas parenting style, however, I agree with Martha's keep the child with you and reteach them everthing style. Liz Randolph also travels to do intensives.

Some children with RAD do kill, but most do not. They are abusive to moms and siblings(verbal, physical, sexual, emotional) but not all to the same extent. With the right type of therapy, with a trained attachment therapist, and a willingness to adapt your parenting atyle to what the child needs, she's likely to heal and lead a normal life.

If you know you cannot live with this child if she doesn't heal or you feel it would be harmful to your son, don't take this child. A lot of people will pressure you and make you feel quilty for saying no, but you're the one who has to live in that environment everyday, all day.

This is not an easy decision. If you haven't already, do some reading and research on attachment parenting and attachment disorder before , do so now before making a decision.

My book suggestions are:

1 Parenting With Love and Logic by fosterCline and Jim Faye(also good for your son).

2.Can this Child Be Saved by Foster Cline

3.When Love is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas

4.Healing Trust audio tapes by Nancy Thomas

5.Adopting the Hurt Child by Greg Keck

6.Theraputic Parenting by Deborah Hage

7.Holding Time by Martha Welch(which is pretty much the same stuff Post uses)

[Dr. Art]

Your struggle is natural and understandable. It is good that you are taking a realistic look at what may be in store for you and your ability to manage that.

Few children with RAD kill. Maybe half are actually violent (hitting, pinching, etc.).

Our experience, and that of most therapists, is that younger children heal faster than older children. A good rule of thumb is that when attachment based therapy is provided by a trained and competant therapist (see www.attach.org for someone in your region) and the family is able to implement attachment-based parenting methods, a child needs one to two months of treatment for every year old is the child. So, I'd expect that in your situation you are looking at around six months of weekly treatment. Very few children need a two-week intensive. We do those, but nearly all the children we do that with are from out of the region because there is no one in their area who can provide treatment. Locally, we've only had to do this in two cases in the last five years. Nearly all kids respond fine to weekly treatment.

However, if you do a two-week intensive, it is imperative that you have a local therapist for follow-up. Our research and experience is that without follow-up treatment, the two-weeks is not sufficient. We've treated several families that had two-week intensives with therapists who use Martha W's approach and who did not have local follow-up treatment. What you'd want is a therapist who is willing to be trained and who will go out with you for most or all of the two-weeks (or be at your home for all of the intensive if you use someone who comes in) to be trained. We now require that there be a local therapist, or we find one for the family, to do the follow-up work.

For parent training we have families read and then use/train them with:
Chapter's 11 & 12 of Dr. Daniel Hughes book, Facilitating Developmental Attachment
When Love is not Enough by Nancy Thomas
Attaching in Adoption by Deborah Gray.

It is important not to get caught up with technique. Structure keeps the child and family safe, but that is not what heals the child. The healing part of the parenting is maintaining the affective attunement with the child and maintaining a healing place (being playful, loving, accepting, curious, and empathic).

Regards,

[lucyjoy]

"We've treated several families that had two-week intensives with therapists who use Martha W's approach and who did not have local follow-up treatment."

Martha won't let you do this, so if the clients are doing intensives based on her work, they're not using her. She required a therapist either trained by her or one who would participate in the intensive and agree to follow up for one year before she would even agree to see anyone.

There are, however, many people who have used her technique and added on their own style who do the intensives without the necessary follow up.

Only one of my children required a two week intensive and two did mini intensives(2-3days). The other 4 did not need an intensive.

[Dr. Art]

Dear Lucyjoy,

When Martha comes up to Chautaqua and does her 3 day intensives with sevaral families, she brings a number of therapists with her, but there are not local therapists to do the follow-up, so I don't see how she can provide a year of follow-up treatment when she's treating eight to twelve families in one group with people she is bringing up.

Regardless, as you see, most children do not require an intensive, and you will be better for looking for a good attachment-based therapist who can do ongoing work with you and your child.

Regards

[lucyjoy]

Well, that's what she required when I went up there and from the local families she came here to see. She had very strict guidelines and a very long contract.

[jenatmcds]

I really appreciate the support and have already found many good resources. It is encouraging to hear that not all children become serial killers as they grow older.

In response to an earlier post - no she is not physically violent - and she does have a physical disability which limits her strength and mobility - so I am not sure that she will ever be truly physically capable of inflicting serious harm at least not on us or others close to her size.

Just out of curiosity what do some of these programs cost. I know that Medicaid in our state does not pay for attachment therapy and considers it experimental. I am already looking at changing to a home-based working environment which will mean a serious loss of income to provide greater consistency should a TPR come through. Are there funds available to help offset the costs?

Thanks again for all of your support.