Parenting Children & Teens with Reactive Attachment Disorder

Lectures, warnings, hollering, bribes, second chances and reminders do NOT work. You are wasting your time and breath. Your youngster knows the rules – he just refuses to obey your rules! Remember – her actions are often automatic responses learned from infancy. Your youngster is in their element when you have lost your control! Natural Consequences: • Broken object – they must replace it with their own money or with chores. • Did not bring homework home – go back and get it or assign your own homework. • Does not want to eat – no problem, they will not starve, but they will sit at the table while the family eats (NO snack before next meal). • Foul mouth, raised voice, rudeness, and back talk – can be rewarded with chores, exercise (jumping jacks, sit ups, running on the spot) or payment to money jar. • Hurt someone – they must apologize and lose privileges (having friends over, watching TV, playing video games, using the telephone, etc.). Most likely, they will

A major problem with the diagnosis of Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) is the painful truth that many of the very individuals we moms and dads turn to for help - professionals in the mental health, neurological, and medical fields - often lack the knowledge and expertise to treat our kids. One of the first doctors I took my youngster to told me that my youngster would end up institutionalized and that if a PET scan were done on his brain, it would look like Swiss cheese - black holes of non activity where there should be brain activity. That there is nothing much I could do for him as "...these Romanian kids were hopeless cases..." My youngster was 7 years old when I was told this by a prominent neurologist. I didn't believe in giving up. This youngster was my responsibility and I would work hard to figure out how to help him. How I would have loved it if there were professionals willing and able to treat my youngster - who believed in positive change in his l