Author: Keri

I live in Charlotte, NC with my family and am working on a memoir about raising my adopted son, Devon.
Tips to navigate "the System"

Residential treatment options for children with Reactive Attachment Disorder #NAVRAD22

#RADNAV23 update

Best Choice has partnered with a foundation to create Restoration Pathways to help parents with funding. Through this fundraising tool, friends and family can make a tax deductible donation! There’s also an option for an employee match. For more information, contact Best Choice.

I’m in Atlanta at the Navigating RAD 22 conference with RAD Advocates this weekend. For those of you who couldn’t make it, this is your place for the highlights from the amazing speakers!

Seeking Alternative Placement When Home Isn’t Working

Scott Smith, Best Choice Admissions

Highlights & Takeaways

Best Choice Admissions is a free service for parents that helps find the right therapeutic school for your child.

  • It’s not failure when you need more help. Allowing the child to continue to fail at home is not a way forward. There is no treading water with RAD. The entire family is being damaged.
  • When considering if out of home placement is right for you:
    • Ask yourself if you have heart strings to your child? If you don’t have heart strings you probably aren’t going to be able to effectively manage them.
    • The difference between and extreme and a mild situation is usually how long a parent waits to get help.
    • Doesn’t matter how good of a parent you are: You cannot watch them 24 hours a day, you cannot force them to change, you cannot put the rest of the family at risk.
  • These are signs your child may need placement:
    • When everything you try doesn’t workWhen it’s effecting the whole home and siblingsWhen your child is no longer participating in receiving helpWhen illegal drug use is consider acceptableWhen parents cannot keep the children safe from risky behaviors
    • When medications are unmanageable
  • Placement should not be a scare tactic. This is not a punishment, it is when your child needs more help.
  • How do I find the right program? Internet reviews and survivor pages don’t tell the whole story about a facility. This is why a service like Best Choice Admissions can be helpful.
  • Best Choice Admissions is funded by the programs they represent and offer their services to parents free of choice. They do not work off a commission. They will inform you of any discounts the program is offering.
  • The programs cost between $500 and $18,000 per month. The average cost is $8,000 per month. This is paid for by insurance, fundraising, or out of pocket. Insurance coverage typically is only available short term.
  • Best Choice Admissions does have some free resource opportunities, but there are waiting lists. They also can refer you to financial assistance options.

Scott Smith, Best Choice Admissions

As an admissions director of a large boarding school for struggling teens for nearly a decade, Scott understands the benefits and struggles with alternative placements. Today, he leads the Best Choice Admissions team, visits schools across the nation, and helps parents to find the right program the first time and within their budget.

BestChoiceNetwork.com

Parenting advice

Glass Children: The Impact of RAD on Siblings #NAVRAD22

I’m in Atlanta at the Navigating RAD 22 conference with RAD Advocates this weekend. For those of you who couldn’t make it, this is your place for the highlights from the amazing speakers!

Glass Children: The Impact of RAD on Siblings

Monica Badgley, RAD Sibs with a panel of young people

Highlights & Take Aways

  • See Them: Help them recognize their value apart from their sibling with RAD
  • When your bonded child comes to you with a hurt, don’t listen for the facts of what happened. Trauma minds don’t always remember all the details. What they’re really saying is that they were blamed for something their RAD sibling did and the details don’t matter.
  • Bonded children who grow up with RAD siblings need to process their trauma so they don’t bring it into their own future families.
  • Bonded kids often come to have this mission to help their parents with the RAD kid. They aren’t able to rest in their role as a kid and they grow up quickly. As parents we need to be mindful that our child sees themselves as a teammate.         
  • As parents we have to learn how to set our bonded kids free. It’s not their job to protect us and to take care of their RAD sibling.
  • Bonded kids with RAD siblings also can develop amazing skills of independence, resilience, self-sufficiency, and the ability to find the silver lining.
  • A lot of bonded kids with RAD siblings use humor to cope.
  • In a household that is high pressure kids can start to shut down. Arts can help kids to express themselves, feel and heal.
  • When our kids expose how they are feeling it is their way of decompressing. Even if you feel that you have no idea what to “do,” that doesn’t matter. Just let them talk. Talking allows them to process their feelings which is the step to healing.
  • Having alarms on your RAD kids door can help your other kids cope if they are afraid at night.
  • Your bonded children can also benefit from fidget toys and a safe place.
  • After you are finished managing a rage be sure to check in on the other kids and make sure they’re okay. Let them know that they’re not a burden.

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Monica Badgley, RAD Sibs

Monica Badgley is on a mission to create a community of support for siblings of those with RAD. After several years of focusing on her children with RAD, Monica’s eyes were opened to the traumatic impact it was having on her child without RAD. To bring a platform to these often overlooked children, Monica founded RAD Sibs, an organization supporting siblings of people with RAD, helping them to feel less isolated and no longer seen through like “glass children.” RAD Sibs offers community and validation through Sib Shops, videos, interviews, and encouraging mail.

Find Monica at RADSibs

Parenting advice

Determining What You Have Left as a Family and Ideas to Move Forward #NAVRAD22

I’m in Atlanta at the Navigating RAD 22 conference with RAD Advocates this weekend. For those of you who couldn’t make it, this is your place for the highlights from the amazing speakers!

Determining What You Have Left as a Family and Ideas to Move Forward

Carrie O’Toole, , M.A., board-certified Christian life coach

Highlights & Take Aways

Carrie is our people and we are her people. After struggling with infertility, she and her husband created a family of two adopted children and one birth child. Their youngest, Sam, they adopted from Vietnam at the age of 3 ½. Their long journey through special-ed, hospitalizations, and multiple diagnoses including RAD ended with relinquishing Sam for adoption into another family. After suffering devastating judgement from the people she thought would support her, Carrie has devoted her life to being there to support other families who find themselves grappling with these difficult situations.

  • We’re told all we need is love by churches, agencies, therapists, and our families but that’s not true. Love cannot cure trauma.
  • Some families are damaged beyond the point of recovery.
  • Moms of children with RAD do develop PTSD.
  • We all believe adoption is forever, but sometimes that’s not what is best for the child or the family.
  • When considering if your child should continue living in the home you have to think about yourself, your other kids, your marriage, etc. It’s not just your child with RAD. Consider,
    • Do you have the finances? Do you have the emotional support?
    • How traumatized is everyone in the family, especially mom? Sometimes mom can’t recover from her trauma with the child in the home. It’s very hard to heal PTSD with the child who is triggering you in the home.
    • This is true for the child too. If you’ve become the “nurturing enemy” mom, it’s very hard for them to heal in the home.
  • Living with a RAD sibling has significant impact on siblings. In partnership with RAD Sibs, Carrie offers groups, support, and curriculum for siblings.
  • Parents/former parents of kids with RAD can be amazing respite providers because they understand RAD and we know that kids with RAD won’t do it to us.

Carrie offers resources through Carrie O’Toole Ministries including a faith-based Relinquished Retreat to help parents process trauma and grief related to trauma, adoption, and relinquishment. This retreat is not only for parents who have already relinquished. It’s for anyone who has put their children in out of home care or who is considering it.

Sign up for the mailing list so you don’t miss out on #NAVRAD23

Carrie O’Toole, M.A., board-certified Christian life coach

Carrie works as a coach, helping other struggling adoptive parents to heal from their own grief and trauma. She helps parents through coaching, her book, Relinquished: When Love Means Letting Go, documentary film, Forfeiting Sanity, the Relinquished Retreat for Parents, blogs, and podcasts.

Find Carrie at Carrie O’Toole Ministries

Tips to navigate "the System"

RAD and its relationship to mental health disorders #NAVRAD22

I’m in Atlanta at the Navigating RAD 22 conference with RAD Advocates this weekend. For those of you who couldn’t make it, this is your place for the highlights from the amazing speakers!

Co-existing Disorders with RAD and their Effective Medical Treatment

Dr. John F. Alston, MD

Highlights & Takeaways

  • The fatal flaw in the overall treatment of RAD is with psychiatric interventions and medications.
  • The most common co-morbidity in children with RAD is childhood bipolar but it is often misdiagnosed as other disorders including PTSD.
  • There is a high likelihood kids with RAD have an inherited mental health disorder.
    • Normal biological parents do not create abusive circumstances for their children. Most abusive biological parents abuse methamphetamines, are ages 18-25, and they don’t want to stop. Up to 70% of people with substance abuse have coexisting mental illness. Up to 70% of people with bipolar disorder abuse substances.
    • Bipolar is an inherited mood disorder that affects 3-5% of the population. It is the most likely inherited disorder children with RAD have. They also may have antisocial personality disorder, borderline personality disorder, or paranoid schizophrenia (very rare).
  • If your RAD kid has coexisting childhood bipolar, antidepressants will have an adverse effect. Kids with childhood bipolar often get misdiagnosed with PTSD. A key indicator of misdiagnosis is a child who truly has PTSD should be overly compliant not defiant. Kids are prescribed antidepressants for PTSD. However, when the PTSD is a misdiagnosis and the child has bipolar, the antidepressants will accentuate rapid cycling (according to 20 of 21 studies)
  • Stimulants will have an adverse effect on your RAD kid. Kids with bipolar often get misdiagnosed with ADHD and prescribed stimulants. Probably no more than 10% of kids with RAD also have ADHD. Stimulants will exacerbate the RAD symptoms and even for a correct ADHD should be the last not first prescribed medication.
  • Mood stabilizing medications work very well for RAD kids. The most often prescribed mood stabilizers are Depakote and Lithium which are effective, but can cause massive even life-threatening side effects. In Dr. Alston’s practice he looked to these as much safer alternatives: Lamictal (10% skin rash side effect, slow to take effect). Trileptal which is not FDA approved as a mood stabilizer.
  • Atypical antipsychotic medications work very well for RAD kids but need to be given in adequate doses. Many clinicians give sub-therapeutic dosages and then discontinue usage when it doesn’t work. Also parents tend to ask for the lowest effective dose assuming the dose can be the minimum. Many RAD kids with bipolar are moderately to substantially mentally ill and need substantially higher dosages to get and stay better.
  • Medications, potentially lifelong, are an opportunity for our children to have a full, functioning life. This is because medications treat the genetic root cause of the illness. Appropriate medications and dosages help dysregulated and behaviorally disturbed kids feel better about themselves, help them think more clearly, and help them to be more likely to coexist peacefully in their families. Medications help everybody – the child, the family, and the community.

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Dr. John F. Alston, psychiatrist

Dr. John F. Alston, MD is a child, adolescent, family, and adult psychiatrist. He has a significant national reputation within the attachment community. He has evaluated and treated over 3,000 patients with disruptive behavioral disorders associated with early life abuse and neglect. Dr. Alston has published several articles in medical journals and a book chapter emphasizing the co-existence of childhood mood disorders, especially bipolar disorder with reactive attachment disorder.

Parenting advice

“Why Am I Feeling Crazy?”: The Life of RAD Parenting” #NavRAD22

I’m in Atlanta at the Navigating RAD 22 conference with RAD Advocates this weekend. For those of you who couldn’t make it, this is your place for the highlights from the amazing speakers!

“Why am I feeling crazy?”: The Life of RAD Parenting

Forrest Lien of Lifespan Trauma Consulting

Highlights & Takeaways

  • To understand RAD we need to understand Erik Erikson’s attachment cycle theory. Kids with RAD have disrupted development prior to the age of 3 and their need to survive is locked in. Our RAD kids are locked in an arousal state because they learn at a young age from abuse and/or neglect that that creates more safety for them than dissociation (neglect often can be more profound than physical abuse).
  • Bonded kids want to please you, but RAD kids don’t have that connection with you, so lying and stealing become part of their toolbox for control. “Lying and stealing” is a developmental delay in the attachment.
  • Traditional residential treatment programs don’t make kids with RAD “family kids.” When behavior modification is the model, kids are following the rules for rewards not in order to go home. Those facilities are staffed with newbie social workers and therapists and our children are exposed to other kids with similar behaviors and issues.
  • Can we “fix” a kid with RAD? It depends on how severe It is and how empty they are.
  • We can’t treat the RAD unless we treat the mental illness first (such as bipolar and mood disorders).
  • There is no pill that is going to fix RAD. Medications can regulate the brain—make kids more clear in their thinking and calm—and we can treat them. Unfortunately, it sometimes creates a more clear thinking and calm RAD kid.
  • If kids with RAD don’t want to learn, they’re not going to. Parents shouldn’t work harder than their kids on their life.
  • The cuter and smarter the RAD kid, the harder they are to treat. These children can be very sophisticated in grooming the adults around them.
  • Here’s how moms of kids with RAD get PTSD: repeated rejections from the RAD kid, relentless control battles, losing your friends/spouse, becoming isolated without support.
  • Dads need to believe their spouse. This doesn’t mean that moms don’t sometimes respond badly, but that needs to be put in context. RAD kids can make moms crazy.

I’m so thankful for Forrest, one of the few professionals who really “gets it” and is supporting and advocating for our families.

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Forrest Lien, LCSW, Lifespan Trauma Consulting founder/owner

Over his career, Forrest has avidly shared his expertise to advance the field of trauma. He has consulted with 20/20, HBO, and The Today Show and has presented at over 300 workshops internationally on the effects of early trauma including at the Mayo Clinic.

As founder and owner of Lifespan Trauma Consulting, Forrest continues his legacy of highly sought-after training, program development, and advocacy for families and their children with reactive attachment disorder.

Parenting advice, Resources

Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) visualization: Restoring empathy

Here’s a meditation from Chel Hamilton created especially for RAD moms to help us recenter and return to that place where we can view our child’s challenging behaviors through the lens of their trauma. Chel walks us through a powerful visualization exercise to restore our empathy, a feeling that is so easily worn away by the daily struggles we face with our child.

Parenting advice

Tips to survive parenting a child with RAD as an introvert

Being the the parent of a child who has Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) as an introvert can be incredibly challenging. Our child’s needs and the extensive interactions we have with service providers leave us drained and unable to recharge. Most days we don’t even have five minutes to ourselves and are bombarded with constant, mostly unpleasant stimuli. By understanding our strengths and needs as introverts, we can better parent our children and better care for our own mental health.

What is an introvert?

We think of the extrovert as the life of the party while the introvert curls up on their couch with a novel. In truth, the extrovert-introvert personality trait exists on a continuum.

These are some common qualities introverts share: 

  • Prefer calm, less stimulating environments
  • Introspective, reflective, and self-aware
  • Need to prepare to spend time in groups and crowds
  • Enjoy small, close circles of friends
  • Lose energy in social settings 
  • Need to spend time alone to recharge
  • Prefer to write/text instead of talking

Being an introvert is often confused with being shy or socially anxious and some introverts do have these personality traits. However, there are many introverts who are not shy and are not socially anxious. 

Playing to your strengths

First, as a fellow introvert, let me say, there is nothing wrong with being an introvert. In fact, one recent study found that introverts are more likely to be successful CEOs. That’s great news for parents of kids with RAD because we sure have our hands full!

So, let’s start by looking at 3 ways we can play to our strengths to be more successful in our role advocating for our children.

  1. Family-team meetings and therapy sessions are full of non-verbal communication and layers of context. TIME Magazine compares an introvert’s observation skills to a “superpower.” As an introvert you have the advantage of excellent observation skills and intuition to gain insight into these highly charged situations and navigate them safely and more effectively.
  2. Frustration, anger, outrage – big emotions – often lead to words we all wish we could take back. When working with service providers this is especially true. Introverts tend to think before they speak and choose their words wisely. Your introvert’s quiet nature is a huge advantage because it will help you be more cautions in your interactions and make you less likely to speak off the cuff.
  3. RAD is a nuanced disorder and untangling any situation with your child, a therapist, CPS person, or teacher can be seemingly impossible. “For an introvert, [active listening] is a natural way of being.”  As an introvert your natural listening skills are a big advantage to enable you to understand what each person is saying and better communicate.

You are your child’s best advocate, and remember that you you bring a lot to the table specifically because you are an introvert.

Tending to your needs

People with introverted personality types have two very specific needs:

  1. They need to mentally prepare for socialization
  2. They need regular alone time to recharge

Our child, their therapist, the parade of service providers, endless appointments, and dealing with extreme behaviors — make meeting these needs impossible. This leads to introverted parents quickly spiraling into depression and hopelessness. They literally have no energy left to draw from because they are running on empty. There is no silver bullet solution and in some cases you may need to consider if RTF is an option. But, there are some ways you can prioritize your needs to protect your mental health and enable you to better meet the needs of your child.

Here are a few simple ideas that worked for me:

  • Start each day with some alone time (even if it’s 5 minutes before you wake up the kids).
  • Use soothing techniques like a deep-breathing exercise or a calming meditation.
  • Pick your battles – know your limits. If letting the kids watch TV gives you some alone time, I say go for it. 
  • Create boundaries with service providers (ask that they schedule all calls ahead of time, or at least text to ask if you’re available before calling).
  • Ask for time to review any documents before you sign them – even if it’s just to buy you time to process the meeting you just had.
  • Take a coffee or soda to meetings so you can take a sip to give you a few seconds to gather your thoughts or get through an awkward moment.
  • Leverage emails. Write notes before phone calls and meetings. Practice, practice, practice.

What has worked for other parents:

“I commandeered a room in our house as ‘mine.’ I give notice before going in that they need to get what they need from me before the door closes. If I’m in there with the door closed, I’m off limits … usually doing yoga or meditating. However, it only works if they’re sleeping (i.e. 5am or 10pm) or if my husband is home.” – Thanks to Allison for this tip!

Are you an introvert? What other ideas do you have for leveraging our strengths and prioritizing our needs while parenting a child with RAD?

Remember to focus on the amazing strengths you bring to the table as an introvert and look for creative ways to meet your needs.

Resources

Rejecting Blame and Shame (visualization)

Highly specialized meditations created for moms of kids with RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) by professional hypnotherapist, Chel Hamilton.

Visualization

Rejecting blame and shame (5:58)

How to use these meditations

Of course, use these meditations as a tool when you’re in crisis. But you’ll get the most value if you also listen to them when you aren’t in crisis. Each time you let the words and affirmations soak into your mind, you’ll be building your resilience. Bookmark and favorite this page and come back often. Listen until they become a part of your internal strength and come back whenever you need a boost!

Chel Hamilton, is a hypnotherapist, and the host of the popular Meditation Minis podcast which has over 40 million downloads . Find and listen to her other meditations on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. Thank you, Chel, for this incredible gift!

Resources

Calm Frustration and Anger (meditation)

Highly specialized meditations created for moms of kids with RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) by professional hypnotherapist, Chel Hamilton.

Meditation

Calm Frustration and Anger (9:38)

How to use these meditations

Of course, use these meditations as a tool when you’re in crisis. But you’ll get the most value if you also listen to them when you aren’t in crisis. Each time you let the words and affirmations soak into your mind, you’ll be building your resilience. Bookmark and favorite this page and come back often. Listen until they become a part of your internal strength and come back whenever you need a boost!

Chel Hamilton, is a hypnotherapist, and the host of the popular Meditation Minis podcast which has over 40 million downloads . Find and listen to her other meditations on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. Thank you, Chel, for this incredible gift!

Resources

Finding Hope (meditation)

Highly specialized meditations created for moms of kids with RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) by professional hypnotherapist, Chel Hamilton.

Meditation

Find hope (9:17)

How to use these meditations

Of course, use these meditations as a tool when you’re in crisis. But you’ll get the most value if you also listen to them when you aren’t in crisis. Each time you let the words and affirmations soak into your mind, you’ll be building your resilience. Bookmark and favorite this page and come back often. Listen until they become a part of your internal strength and come back whenever you need a boost!

Chel Hamilton, is a hypnotherapist, and the host of the popular Meditation Minis podcast which has over 40 million downloads . Find and listen to her other meditations on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. Thank you, Chel, for this incredible gift!

Book Reviews, Resources

The BIG little book on Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD)

Just getting started on your RAD parenting journey? This little 99-cent book is literally a BIG bang for your buck!

  • Quick start guide with an introduction to the disorder, how to get your child an evaluation, and next steps.
  • List of over 125 RAD related resources including books, conferences, coaching, blog posts, and support groups.

Available here on Amazon as e-book only!