"It's Just Bad Parenting"

Our first week of transitioning the boys back home went pretty well all-in-all. We are doing 5/2's, which means that the boys come home Sunday evenings and then return to residential care on Friday evening where they spend the weekend. This is done for transitioning purposes to allow the boys continued access to group therapy as well as one-on-one therapy with their therapist to discuss any specific problems they may have encountered at school or at home during the week. The 5/2's will only last two weeks and final graduation will be September 27th.

Things went smoothly the first couple of days, which most RAD parents know contain a level of the famous "honeymoon period", which occurs whenever the kids have been gone for a while and return. Wednesday was a rough day for all of us. There were issues with not wanting to do homework and some minor escalation from D in which he received an hour of grounding and utilized a coping skill to turn his behavior around and finish his work. (Homework will be discussed in a post all of it's own.) After dinner we received news that there was a traumatic event in our family. It upset all of us and the boys became very anxious over the fear of losing another person from their lives. As I sat at the counter later that evening, T came in and sat beside me. He looked at me, my eyes red from crying, and said with true sincerity the most change-acknowledging statement, "Mom, we'll get through this together". That may not sound like much, but for a child that has engaged in a primal fight within himself to stay unattached to anyone, it was nothing short of a miracle.

Perhaps it was this that angered me so much on Friday, when a random and otherwise irrelevant statement was uttered that felt like I had been slapped. Perhaps it was the fact that I had already had a highly emotional week and had been left vulnerable. Perhaps it was just the ignorance of it all.

As my profile states, I am a full-time non-traditional student in my last semester at a very traditional state university. On Friday, I sat in my class as a presentation on customer perceptions was being given by a classmate. He showed a great video clip that showed what outstanding customer service was. He then showed a video of very poor customer service that involved a 911 call from a mother whose 12-year-old child was out of control and she needed the police. The dispatcher makes a joke that while funny to many, is extremely inappropriate. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzgu3uAfjrc Of course, he pointed out that the second was poor customer service, but why?  I'll bet you right now that the parents with RAD kids at home are reading this shouting "oo, oo, pick me, I know" ala Horshack from Welcome Back, Kotter. Yep, you guessed it, another student raised his hand and with a combined snort and laugh stated this, "Well, it obviously wasn't an emergency. IT'S JUST BAD PARENTING". Slap, I could feel the pain as sure as if he had gotten out of his chair and actually hit me. The anger in me couldn't help but mumble that "it wasn't always bad parenting" before the tears came. Now, this student, nor any in my class, know that I am an adoptive parent of children with RAD and he is young and incredibly naive. But what about the countless adults that we hear the same type of response from? Those that have no idea what it is like to be in the position that mother on the phone was? I know, I've been in that exact spot and there is nothing funny about it.

I stood at the door of his room, senses heightened, poised to protect myself if need be. My son was raging, disconnected from the 'real' world. His "thinking brain" had shut down, he was no longer able to think clearly, he could not process the words I was trying to say to calm him. Finally, I stopped speaking as it was only serving to increase his escalation and his anger. He methodically punched the walls in his room until there was a hole he could reach into and pull chunks of the sheetrock off of the studs. He would take each piece and smash it onto the floor until it was broken into many smaller pieces. The entire time he was spewing curse words that would make a Marine blush. He moved to the bookcase, picked it up, and flung it to the floor. He continued until it broke into individual pieces that he could continue to slam to the ground or use to hit the wall or any other object he desired, at times resorting to placing shelves at an angle, braced against the wall, and jumping on it until the shelf broke. I watched, my goal to keep him within the confines of his room, to minimize the area of destruction. He picked up a Nerf gun- which I acknowledge cannot kill anyone, and pointed it at me. His eyes were black as night and dull as death. He looked at me and asked me if I could imagine what it would feel like with bullets going through my heart. How would I feel when I was dead and dad was dead? Then he stated "and I will be happy". This is the scenario that preceded my own phone call to the police department. He was out of control, and while not as big as me (yet), and armed only with a gun that shot foam bullets, I was frightened.

 This is the incident that forced our family to make the decision to place our son in residential care. The same son that reassured me this past week that we can get through our hard times together as a family. That miracle statement is the remark resulting from our parenting. The prior incident was the result of neglect and abuse from biological parents that left terrible scars inside my child.