RAD Diagnostic Checklist

Hello again!

In this post I am including a link to the Randolph Attachment Order Questionaire. This describes a list of behaviors common to kids with reactive attachment. While some of them appear to be behaviors that most kids have at some point, RAD kids do them to an extreme. I have to say that between my two boys, we experience every single one of these behaviors except (thankfully) "My child teases, hurts, or is cruel to animals".

Over the past five years, the boy's behaviors have evolved and thankfully we don't experience some of the behaviors that we did at the beginning. I remember sitting with T during one of the first months; he would be sitting on the floor alternately screaming (literally) for me to put his pajamas on him (he was 7) and to "don't touch me" while slamming anything he could find on the floor. There was the time he deliberately urinated on the living room carpet and in a fit of anger kicked the windshield of my car and broke it and he was barefoot. I remember the first year that we found cheese slice wrappers hidden in the Christmas tree as we took it down and I still find food wrappers and sometimes food itself hidden in the oddest places, for example, the day I found a peanut butter and jelly sandwich under the bathroom sink or the opened jar of frosting hidden in the storeroom. Last, but certainly not least, are the death threats that are made. At first the "I'm going to kill you" doesn't seem too disconcerting when it comes from the mouth of an enraged 6 year-old and you are reassured by everyone that he is "just mimicking" what he's heard, but when you hear it from an enraged and disengaged from reality 12 year-old it holds a whole different meaning.

Our boys have spent the last 6 & 4 months respectively in a residential care facility an hour from our home. We made countless visits attending family therapy and having home visits with the boys. T has worked very hard and made great advances in his behavior. D did terrific there too even being a great role model for the other kids in his unit, but only because he was comfortable there. His problem lies with us, his parents, specifically. He was not faced daily with parents trying to form a bond with him and while he formed superficial bonds with staff, they are still only staff and easy to keep at a distance emotionally.

Both boys are transitioning home right now and my blog will cover how things are going. My husband and I have had time to rejuvenate over the summer, to refill our reserves, and to reconnect with each other. This time we are going back in with hearts full of hope and our eyes wide open with no illusions of what we are dealing with. Pray for us!

Talk to you next time!