From another forum:
This is the first time I have ever joined in on anything like this but I need someone who will understand what we're going through. We have an adopted 15 year old daughter who we have had since birth. She was always strong willed and was diagnosed as ADHD at 8 yr old. Things got progressively worse over the next 5 years. The summer before high school she started getting heavily involved in drugs & alcohol. In Oct 2007 we sent her to a school in Utah for help. She came home a couple months ago after being there for 16 months. She actually graduated from the program and we were so proud. They diagnosed her there with RAD and we have read everything we could get our hands on and done everything all the therapists said but find out now the basically cheated the system and did whatever she had to do to get out of there. She had been home a little over 2 months and is right back where she was before or even worse. Dealing with a teenager with RAD is very different that dealing with an infant or toddler. She is rude, disrespectful and using consequences doesn't work. We are pretty much waiting for her to get picked up by the police but know that they will only bring her right back home which she has made very clear is the last place she wants to be. God help us - we love her but just don't know what to do.
This is so sad...I feel for those parents, I was in similar situation a couple of years ago with my daughter....it was hell...so I know what they are dealing with...
they are hurting, they are scared...and here comes SOMEONE with a solution: let her go to a school in Utah to get help....oh well...
I do not know how the people working in those schools can sleep at night...or do they really all believe they are doing the right thing? Do they never have any doubts? Who is allowed to work in such schools?
I think back of the only time when such a school was opened in my country...the Morava academy. After a couple of weeks the Czech teachers reported the school to the police...they learned quickly that the methods were abusive and against the law in my country...the Academy was closed short after...so I wonder...
Maruska,
I suggest you consider the harm that is done by stamping your daughter with these diagnostic labels. Think about how your communication will always be interpretted by her as coming from the perspective of "you have X wrong with you, and how I am treating you is because I love you and want to help you get better." She has no choice but to perceive any and all communication as a reflecton of your beliefs about her as being inherently wrong, even the expression of love and compassion are now coupled with the message "You have X wrong with you."
The research on RAD says: "RAD is characterized by markedly disturbed and developmentally inappropriate ways of relating socially in most contexts."
and "The few existing longitudinal studies (dealing with developmental change with age over a period of time) involve only children from poorly run Eastern European institutions."
"RAD is one of the least researched and most poorly understood disorders in the DSM. There is little systematic epidemiologic information on RAD, its course is not well established and it appears difficult to diagnose accurately."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_a ... t_disorderI think you should let her know that this diagnosis of her doesn't hold much water, because it doesn't. What you have put her through in order to "fix" her is likely to produce the symptoms that qualify this label in anyone with this disorder. Think of how distressing a position you are putting her in. You are attacking her identity from the point of benevolence and love. She responds with an attack that you might view as extreme, if you don't consider how she feels in this position. Then you respond back to her with, "I'm just trying to help you because I love you. You are so ungrateful for all that I'm doing for you."
Now you are mantaining this label on her and propose to solve it, is this what you are going to do?
"Outside the mainstream programs is a form of treatment generally known as attachment therapy, a subset of techniques (and accompanying diagnosis) for supposed attachment disorders including RAD. In general, these therapies are aimed at adopted or fostered children with a view to creating attachment in these children to their new caregivers. The theoretical base is broadly a combination of regression and catharsis, accompanied by parenting methods which emphasize obedience and parental control.[89] There is considerable criticism of this form of treatment and diagnosis as it is largely unvalidated and has developed outside the scientific mainstream.[90] There is little or no evidence base and techniques vary from non-coercive therapeutic work to more extreme forms of physical, confrontational and coercive techniques, of which the best known are holding therapy, rebirthing, rage-reduction and the Evergreen model. These forms of the therapy may well involve physical restraint, the deliberate provocation of rage and anger in the child by physical and verbal means including deep tissue massage, aversive tickling, enforced eye contact and verbal confrontation, and being pushed to revisit earlier trauma.[91][92] Critics maintain that these therapies are not within the attachment paradigm, are potentially abusive,[93] and are antithetical to attachment theory.[9] The APSAC Taskforce Report of 2006 notes that many of these therapies concentrate on changing the child rather than the caregiver.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactive_a ... t_disorderGuess what? This is exactly what you have already been doing by putting her through these programs! Attatchment therapy is also known as Bonding therapy and it was developed by the founder of the very first TBS model, Daytop, Dr. Daniel Casriel.
There was a page here on fornits for some general info.
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=28320&p=349559&hilit=casriel#p349559I’d be happy to share more about this with you, but my main point is you should tell her that you realize that you may have been wrong in placing these identity labels on her and that you understand they can be hurtful. If you let her know you have been misunderstanding her, maybe she will put forth some effort to help you understand what she is going through. Believe it or not, she might really want to communicate with you, and this might be the thing keeping it from happening. I’m not saying you can’t disagree with what she is doing, just don’t place a label on her that invalidates her basic self-worth.
Currently what you are telling her is that you believe there is something inherently wrong with her and she needs treatment. This “treatment” could hardly be seen by her as anything but punishment, yet you expect her to accept it as “help”. Now you are punishing her because she is (correctly) perceiving your punishment for what it truly is, punishment. She is supposed perceive your punishment as a form of positive regard. This is pathological communication.
I could recommend some reading that may help if you’d like, but I truly think considering this could help.