Children with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) have experienced some sort of trauma in the first 3 years of their life. In order to diagnose them with Reactive Attachment Disorder, they need to have at least one of the causes and more than half of the Attachment Disorder Symptoms. The various causes include “in utero” problems such as the pregnant mom using drugs or alcohol, stress in the house, and unwanted pregnancy. In addition, some of the “post birth” causes of Attachment Disorder are neglect, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse, illnesses such as ear infections or colic, and others. You can find a complete list of causes in our article What Is Reactive Attachment Disorder? The child must have at least one of these causes.

According to Nancy Thomas in her book When Love Is Not Enough, there are 23 symptoms that RAD children can exhibit. The child needs to have more than half the symptoms to be diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder. They are as follows:

1. Superficially engaging & charming. This helps them to manipulate and triangulate
2. Lack of eye contact on parent’s terms. They avoid eye contact unless they are lying, then they make excellent eye contact.
3. Indiscriminately affectionate with strangers. They don’t have appropriate “stranger danger” when they’re little. (My adopted kids were all like this!) When they get older, they will hug and befriend anyone they think they can get on their side against their mother.
4. Not affectionate on Parents’ terms (not cuddly). They give stiff hugs.
5. Destructive to self, others and material things (accident prone).
6. Cruelty to animals. Pets in the home of a RAD child are an “endangered species”.
7. Lying about the obvious (crazy lying). It’s a hobby for these kids, and they’re extremely good at it.
8. Stealing. They have no conscience, so if they want something they’ll take it. Plus, it makes them feel powerful.
9. No impulse controls (frequently acts hyperactive).
10. Learning lags. They are constantly in an agitated, emotional state. They want to do things their own way, and they think the teacher doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
11. Lack of cause and effect thinking. This part of the brain doesn’t function in the RAD child. Normal parenting methods such as star charts don’t work for them!
12. Lack of conscience. It’s all about them – they don’t have the ability to care about others.
13. Abnormal eating patterns. They frequently starve or gorge themselves.
14. Poor peer relationships. They don’t have many friends because other kids don’t want to put up with their lack of conscience, need to be in control, and cruelty to others. Without help, this will plague them for their entire life.
15. Preoccupation with fire.
16. Preoccupation with blood and gore.
17. Persistent nonsense questions and chatter. Nancy Thomas says that normal people talk for two reasons: to communicate thoughts or feelings. RAD kiddos talk for three reasons: to interrupt, make noise, or control.
18. Inappropriately demanding and clingy. Usually to get something they want.
19. Abnormal speech patterns. They don’t speak clearly. They aren’t interested in learning good communication skills.
20. Triangulation of adults. This is very common! Having adults united on one team is very threatening to children who don’t trust. In order to be in control, they divide and conquer by pitting one adult against another. In our house, this has been father against mother, grandmother against mother, teacher against parents, family friends against parents, and counselor against parents. They’ll triangulate anybody they can!
21. False allegations of abuse. This is a bad one – how do you prove you did not do something?
22. Presumptive entitlement issues. They think they deserve whatever they want, and it’s always something. This leads to draining their parent’s energy.
23. Parents appear hostile and angry. This is very sad, and people that don’t have RAD kids don’t understand this. The more the parent loves the child, the more pain the child dishes out to get them to stop. The child had his heart broken as an infant, and he believes that love hurts. They do whatever they can not to be loved – they don’t use the parents love to grow emotionally strong. Parents are basically abused in their own home.

These are the 23 symptoms that Nancy Thomas gives to tell if a child has Reactive Attachment Disorder. If your child exhibits more than half of these, I urge you to get help right away! The sooner the better – once they get to be teenagers it’s much, much harder. We know from experience! The best book we have found is When Love Is Not Enough by Nancy Thomas. In addition, she has many other resources you can buy on her website, Attachment.org.