"She can't manage to keep a placement."
"She has needed to be restrained in the ER multiple times before they can get medication to sedate her."
"She hits her caregivers. As well as spits, kicks, and runs away."
"She needs to be hospitalized in Psych Hospitals for weeks at a time."
"She has no physical boundaries and acts out."
"She screams and yells obscenities daily."
"Are you sure you want to get involved in this? Do you understand what taking in a child like this will mean? Do you realize how this will affect your home? Do you really understand that even if you do everything right by her, she may never change? It is possible and likely that she will never show "love" in return?"
"You still want to proceed with this placement? Why? Why do you want this child?"
I am still not sure how to answer that question. Let me take you back to the very beginning.
My husband, Clint, and I had always said we would adopt...someday. We were very content at the time with our biological son, Sam. However, one day a little girl's story came charging into our hearts. We knew immediately that she was meant to be ours.
Her name was Kate. She was an adorable 4 year old with an mischievous grin. She also had a story. Her story included 17 placements and behavior nobody quite knew what to do with. She had been in some of the top homes and facilities and she was unable to ever "settle".
We were newbies in the foster care circuit, but I think that possibly served us well when it came to Kate's placement with us. We were not accustomed to all the ins and outs of foster care and state services. We headed in to this with one tool. We believed that God had brought Kate into our lives and we were simply trusting Him to equip us to handle her. However, answering every one of the state's questions with "well, we are just trusting God to help us" didn't really sit well with the state.
Anyway, they placed her in our home because, honestly, nobody else was willing to take her.
We jumped in with both feet. We treated her like a normal child although she was nothing like one. We set rules and expected her to follow them. She didn't. We took her to meet people and expected her to care. She didn't. We planned fun activities and expected her to enjoy them. She didn't. In fact, the only thing she did that we expected was act out. But we didn't expect it to be all the time.
I am not exaggerating. Kate was in battle mode from sun up to sun down. Every single task set before her she viewed as opportunity to prove she was in control. And because of how powerful her behavior was, she was in control much of the time.
This went on for months. She had an alarm on her bedroom door. That alarm going off in the morning was our call to battle. That alarm meant that rest was over and all soldiers were to be ready for war. Kate met each morning with new ideas of how to sabotage everything going on that day. She lived for the adrenaline rush of upsetting or hurting somebody.
After several months of just surviving, we knew we needed to shake things up. Her adoption had become final and so she was officially ours. We could handle her the way we thought was best, instead of how the policy and procedures of the state said to do it. The first change we made was to homeschool her. The second change was to send her to a therapist of our choosing.
The therapist explained Reactive Attachment Disorder to us different than the state ever had. This therapist described Kate to us perfectly. We knew she was on to something and we changed how we did everything. She explained to us that RAD kids don't seek to sabotage everything. They seek to control everything. They don't seek to control everything for the reasons you or I might. Instead they seek control to be safe. They trust nobody except themselves and therefore only feel safe when they are in control.
This made perfect sense. We decided that since her behavior would not change until she trusted us, at least some, that we would conquer that first.
In our family, that looked like her never leaving us and we didn't leave her. We homeschooled, we accompanied her to her class at church, and we didn't let people (even grandparents) babysit her. We shifted our focus and conversation from her behavior to our response. We talked constantly about how we cared for her and kept her safe. We were always pointing out obvious ways of doing this. Some examples are :
"Kate, I am happy to hold your hand in the parking lot. It is another way I keep you safe."
"Kate, I love making dinner for you. It is another way I can show you love."
"Kate, I enjoy reading this book with you. It is another way I can teach you."
All of these may seem ridiculous to you, as they did us. But she needed someone to point these out to her. She did not recognize love in any form. Who can blame her? Had she ever even seen real love?
This was our focus for quite sometime before we added addressing her behavior. (Please note 2 things. 1) We ADDED addressing her behavior. We didn't stop constantly being with her or constantly pointing out ways we were keeping her safe. She still didn't trust us. We had just given her some ideas of what being protected looked like. It was our hope she would start to recognize this on her own. 2) Although her behavior had not been our focus, we had not been ignoring it. There was always a consequence for bad choices.)
We learned from our therapist that RAD kids need to be surprised by their consequences. Let me explain. We bought Kate a set of Disney princesses and made her a chart to earn them. Every waking hour she managed to stay out of (significant) trouble, her clip moved up the chart. When she hit 30 hours, she got to pick out a princess. (The few of you that are thinking that 30 hours is too easy have clearly never been around a child like this. I encourage you to keep reading and hold judgment.) We told her counselor how sometimes she worked her way right up the chart, while other times it would take days and days to manage to move at all.
Her therapist pointed out that although WE had set the rules of the chart, KATE was still in control. A normal child does better knowing what their consequences will be. That knowledge helps keep them in line, so to speak. A child like Kate, views it very differently. When she knows what the consequence will be she simply weighs out her options. She thinks "I am going to be home and would like a new princess so I am going to stay out of trouble." But she also thinks "Mom says we are going to grandma's. She has toys there so I don't need this princess so I can act however I want." She even will go so far to think "Mom wants me to be good to earn a princess. I want a princess, but that would mean I did what mom wanted. That means Mom won. I am not safe if Mom wins so even though I want the princess, I have to act out so Mom doesn't think she won." I understand I am paraphrasing, but that was her actual thought process.
We took the therapist's advice and took down the chart. We started surprising her with consequences that made no sense with the behavior. This made her start thinking twice before she did things...which by default gave us control. Slowly, overtime, we saw a shift in her behavior...with us...only at home.
As soon as we went out of the house, we were back to square one with behavior. While this was extremely frustrating, it caused us to see that we had made definite progress at claiming back our home and our authority in it. This gave us the strength and determination to keep going. We continued working on this at home as often as we could. If there was ANY challenging behavior, we changed plans and one of us stayed home with her. But because it was important that she not see that as a way to control our plans, we didn't ever tell her any plans ahead of time. By doing this we also took away her time to plan how she would sabotage the outing. This was a game changer for us. It was a simple, obvious way we were in control that she couldn't take.
She would ask, beg, and plead to know where we were going or what the plan was for the day. Our response was "Can you trust us to take care of you". She was never sure if we were going to the zoo or the grocery store so she was careful to mind her behavior. Again, this worked wonders for us because it forced her to accept we were the ones in control.
The only times we ever let her know that her behavior had changed the plans was when her behavior caused her to miss out on something SHE wanted to do. But we still kept it a "secret" from her until the last minute.
For example, we were planning on going to friends house for the evening, but she had had a rough day with making choices. When it was time for us to walk out the door, we would say, "Kate, we had planned on all of us going to our friend's house tonight to play. But you showed me today by your choices that you can't handle that this evening. Dad is going to take your brothers and go, but I am going to stay home with you and keep you safe. I hope next time we will be able to go together." Then Clint would make a quick departure so Kate would not think that a fit would have a chance at changing the consequence.
This was the beginning of how we learned to deal with Reactive Attachment Disorder. Our daughter has come along way in the last few years, but it is still very much a part of our everyday life.
This is my first entry on this topic and I plan to do more. I am not a doctor or a therapist, nor am I saying that you should do what we are doing. I am simply sharing our story and what has worked for us. I hope that you can take my words and be encouraged on your journey.
Please feel free to leave a comment or question or let me know if there is a specific topic you would like me to share my thoughts or experience on.
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