If you want to help your Reactive Attachment Disorder kid to become healthy, it’s important to get past the behavior problems that will drive you up the wall and interfere with the development of a loving relationship that is so vital to their healing. Here is a list of 7 ways that RAD kiddos will drain your power and keep you from getting close to them.
- Using your brain instead of theirs. This is a biggie, and it’s what they do whenever they can. They’ll ask you a question that they know the answer to. They’ll constantly ask “Why?” On and on. You must not answer them – they need to figure it out on their own.
- Homework. Around our house, this used to be a battlefield, but not anymore. Now, we set up a time and place for them to do their homework and if they don’t do it, they suffer the consequences at school. Plus, it’s their responsibility – we don’t help them or do it for them. That doesn’t teach them anything other than to use our brain (see #1 above!)
- Lying. A normal child lies when confronted with misbehavior. RAD kids lie as a way of life. It’s like a hobby for them, and they’re extremely good at it! In fact, we’ve noticed that our youngest Radish will look you right in the eyes when he lies – and that’s about the only time he will! Just the opposite of normal kids, right? RAD kids will say they have spaghetti when they had a hamburger. It’s a test to see how gullible the adult they’re talking to is. RAD kids want power and control more than anything. When an adult gets angry over a lie, the message the child gets is that the adult is powerless to get the truth out of them and it reinforces the behavior. It’s better to err on the side of not believing a child than being duped. And don’t get angry!
- Swearing. Don’t freak out when they swear! They’re just doing it for shock value – if you’re shocked, they’ll continue to do it! This is a good time to prescribe the behavior. Have them go to their room and prescribe 5 or 10 minutes of swearing for each offense.
- Why? Never answer that question. Have a consequence ready and say something like “That’s a good question! After you’re done doing what I want you to do, you will sit down and write and answer to “why?” Keep all interactions to two sentences or less.
- No. Get ready for this, because you’re going to get it! Here’s what we do: have them jump on the trampoline or give you 5 good jumping jacks. If they refuse to do this (which they probably will) tell them “Oh honey, I didn’t know you were too weak to do this. I want you to rest until you’re strong enough to do it – whenever that is! Not a problem”. Then, make sure you do some fun stuff with the other kids, but don’t let anybody interact with the weak child. Weak kids really need to rest and not be over-stimulated.
- Triangulation. RAD kids are masters at this and they will do anything they can to triangulate other adults against their parents, especially their mom. The best way to avoid this is to clue the adults in that the child will come in contact before they do. Tell them the child is diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder and show them the list of Reactive Attachment Disorder Symptoms. If a child does manage to get an adult on his or her side against the parents, that person should be eliminated from interacting with the family, if possible. Nancy Thomas has a great video called The Circle of Support that you can give to close friends and family members to help them to understand the problem. If the child manages to pit dad against mom, it’s especially bad. Dad’s, please believe what your wife is telling you! Take it from one who know!
There you go – 7 ways RAD kids drain your energy and some techniques for dealing with them.
Having trouble with a RAD kid? Don’t even know where to start? Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of When Love Is Not Enough today. It will be the best $12 you ever spent.
One of the most important things you can do for a Reactive Attachment Disorder child is to build their self-image – in a healthy way. These kids feel bad about themselves, and when they act out a lot of the time that’s why. This is something I’ve learned, but today I got to put the learning to action.
Our family therapist says our youngest child is the “RAD poster child” and today he showed that to me. I picked him up from school for physical therapy (he has cerebral palsy, among other things) and his teacher came out with him. She had a big stack of papers, some of which were homework packets that he hadn’t completed. She said maybe he could work on them while we rode in the car. When we got in the car and I suggested that to him, he proceeded to crumple up the papers. That was just the start of 2 hours of belligerence and disobedience.
He refused to go to physical therapy, to which I said “Not a problem”, which is one of the top phrases in my vocabulary. Not a problem means not a problem for me, I can take it, I’m a strong and loving parent. So, we headed out to neurotherapy, which was next on the schedule. Same thing happened there – he refused to go in, so we went back out to the car. I asked him to talk about the big feelings he had, which he wasn’t really able to articulate today but nevertheless I figured it might have to do with the overwhelming stack of homework he was presented with. So I said go ahead and get in the back seat and get buckled which he did.
WOO HOO! He got buckled when I told him to! (I know, it doesn’t sound like a big deal but here’s where the pizzazzing comes in). I said “Great job of getting buckled! You’re getting much stronger for yourself! Give me five!” And I gave him a high five and he was a totally different kid. He got out of the stuck part of his brain. He’s in working on the homework now, being stronger and stronger, and it all came from one little pizzazz!
Sometimes you have to search really hard to find one little thing they do right, but when you do jump all over it! One time Nancy Thomas said “Good job not kicking the dog when you walked by him! Give me five!” Today for us it was 2 hours of misery before the bucking of the seatbelt, but I found that little thing and he’s much stronger for it now.
Do you have a RAD kiddo in your house? Are you tearing your hair out? Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of When Love Is Not Enough today. You won’t be sorry!
One of our favorite things to do with our RAD kids is to prescribe the behavior. What exactly does that mean? Well let me explain.
(First of all, I’d like to say that many parenting techniques that work for healthy kids will not work for kids with Reactive Attachment Disorder. However, I believe that many of the techniques for parenting RAD kids that I’ve learned from Nancy Thomas and other RAD experts will work for attached, healthy kids. Prescribe the behavior is one of those techniques.)
Here’s how it works: when your child decides to do something obnoxious, irritating, or otherwise unacceptable, tell them to continue to do it for 10 minutes. Maybe they’re saying “Mom, mom, mom, mom, mom…” incessantly. I know you’ve been there – we all have. Well, what we do is say “You’re pretty good at saying ‘Mom’. I want you to sit over there by the wall and say ‘Mom, mom, mom, mom’ for 10 minutes! If you’re going to do something, I want you to be the best you can be at it! Just keep saying it for 10 minutes so you can get really good at it!”
Then walk away and go about your business. If they do decide to do it, you’re just going to have to tough it out, but chances are they’re going to stop right away. What they really are doing is draining your energy and trying to make you mad. Remember, RAD children like to live in that fight, flight, freeze and freak section in the back of their brain, instead of the front, logical part. It’s where they feel comfortable and if you refuse to join them there it’s no fun at all for them, and they’ll stop the behavior.
Last week one of my kids decided to grab my cell phone and play keep away with it. I started to go after him and he held it over his head and started running from me. So I went against everything I wanted to do and said “Not a problem! You’re pretty good at that – I want you to stand there waving that phone over your head for 10 minutes!” Then I walked away. Guess what happened? He put the phone down.
There you go – another tool in your RAD toolbox. When they drive you nuts, prescribe the behavior.
Do you have a RAD kid in your house? I’ve recently been listening to a great set of CDs by Nancy Thomas called Healing Trust: Rebuilding The Broken Bond. It’s full of useful information, tools, and ideas for parents of Reactive Attachment Disorder kids.
We’ve also had much success with Total Transformation by James Lehman. Though it’s not written specifically for RAD kids, the techniques we’ve learned in it have worked very well for ours.
Have you ever gone to bed on a bad note? You know, not used your best parenting skills at bedtime, maybe? Remember how yucky you feel about yourself? Well guess what? Our kids feel bad about themselves too if they end the day on a sour note. So what can we do that would be positive for all?
I use the thinking that “tomorrow is another day”. What does that mean you ask? It simply means leave no business unfinished (as much as is possible) each day. There are lots of words of wisdom that support this – “don’t put off tomorrow what you can do today”, “don’t let the sun go down on your anger”, and my favorite – “God’s mercies are new every day”.
Putting feet to this idea is fairly basic. I can probably best explain it by giving examples:
- You go to put your kiddo to bed and toys litter their bedroom floor. Instead of giving them a lecture on what are the rules and shutting off the light as you stomp out of the room, have them get up and pick them up and then come get you when they are done. Then, you can pleasantly tuck them in.
- Or you just realized they did not finish their homework as they had said they did. Not a problem! They can answer to their teacher tomorrow and let her dish out the consequences. (It is ultimately between the teacher and your child anyway.) Kisses and hugs, good night!
There you go – finish all your business (if at all possible) and everyone sleeps better and you both get to start the next day with a clean slate. A win-win!
Looking for parenting help?
One tool that we’ve used is the Total Transformation program by James Lehman. It’s given us a lot of solid, common sense ideas for parenting our challenging children.
In my ongoing research to be an A+ parent, I look at a lot of different child behavior programs. And one thing I have found that is always present in the solid programs is consistency. Let me explain.
You know that I am a big fan of the TV show “Super Nanny”. And one of the many reasons is because she stresses consistency in parenting, especially in her time out philosophy. Every time, follow the steps:
- Warning
- To time out spot with explanation why there
- Time limit (1 minute for each year)
- Take back to time out spot if they leave before time is up WITHOUT talking
- When time is up reiterate why placed there
- Apology from kid
- Hugs
- And move on!
Every time it is the same process. Don’t give up in the middle, either. It works – I have seen it. And one of the two reasons it does – consistency (the other is you are being the parent).
Whether you have RAD kids or not, consistency in your parenting techniques are vital. Two of the main reasons that first come to mind are that kids need to feel safe and it makes parenting somewhat easier.
First, if a child knows what to expect most times for whatever happens, it makes them feel safe and safe feels loving. As a side note, I am not saying you have to prep them everytime before you do something (and this is especially a no-no for RAD kids), it just means that they know already how things are going to be handled. Then they get to use their brain in weighing their decisions. That is great!
Then, we as parents deal with being thrown curveballs daily. So any consistent, do-the-same-way-most-of-the-time techniques give us a bit of relief from having to think on our feet again. Nice respite.
Consistency is just another great tool in our parenting toolbox!
Looking for help with difficult kids?
James Lehman has a no-nonsense but compassionate way about him and he has helped our family to learn to problem solve, and our house to become a calmer, more peaceful place. I totally recommend his Total Transformation Program to anyone that has difficult children they are trying to raise.
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