Sucking the air outI would like to address a comment made on a blog that I wrote on July 2, 2008 entitled “Place Older Adopted Children With Stay at Home Parent.” In that blog, I stated that older adopted children typically come to their new family with abandonment issues. I realize there are many other issues involved, but I am addressing just abandonment for now. In the summary of the article I stated, “Try to find a way to spend those first... more

I have three daughters, adopted at ages 15-17. Our home was their first adoptive home in all three cases. In all three cases, the children grew up in a home with both birth parents. In all three cases, there were extenuating circumstances in the birth homes that prevented healthy attachments for the girls – parental mental retardation, severe/life threatening health issues from infancy on, parental mental illnesses, or birth parents who were completely emotionally unavailable. Yet, the girls remained in those homes until their... more

“If we adopt a baby, we can avoid attachment problems.” “If we adopt an older kid, they come with attachment problems.”

Two statements that I hear quite often. But, are they true? I don’t think so.

True attachment disorder occurs in a span from conception to the first few years of life. So, anyone from babies thru adults can have a diagnosis of reactive attachment disorder. It’s the early experiences that the diagnosis is based on and not things that happened in a child’s life after those... more

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So, what are the options? Some have suggested that we disrupt his adoption back to the state. We *could* do this, but we won’t for two big reasons. First of all, in our state, disrupting an adoption back to the state results in automatic legal charges for the parents! If he were a birth child that we turned custody... more

Only 7 months later, John entered his first residential treatment center when his behaviors began to become serious safety risks for himself and the others. He was 6 years old. He had a long list of mental health diagnoses, none of which seemed to truly match this perplexing little boy. We had some home visits with John. At the last home visit, he somehow managed to get hold of some bleach (in spite of all the systems we had in place) and put it in the fish tank to “see if the fish liked to drink it” (They did; they died.). He pointed out poisonous... more

How is it that a mother can actually be arrested FOR seeking treatment for her adopted child?

A certified letter was delivered to my front door this afternoon. This letter was terminating the intensive level of residential services my adopted son now receives. I, of course, will be sending an appeal package first thing next week. And so it continues, the several year long battle for proper care for my very first adopted child.

John arrived to our home at 3yrs old, our very first foster child. (Although we later adopted... more

I definitely agree with the position paper referenced on Nancy's blog that RAD is wayyyyy over diagnosed. I don't think that nearly as many children who are diagnosed with RAD actually meet the formal criterion for RAD. I don't think nearly as many who receive so-called "attachment therapy" require that level of intensity for treatment. I believe that often conflictual relationships between parents and their children are just that, conflicts between parent and child...sometimes driven by the child's behavior and temperament, sometimes driven by the parent's, often times driven... more

Nancy Spoolstra, who writes the Reactive Attachment Disorder Blog, is running an excellent series right now about a position statement that was recently issued on RAD by a national child welfare group. Please go to her site to read more.

I don't think I have ever weighed in with my opinion about Reactive Attachment Disorder. I imagine that I always come off sounding like a centrist in much of what I write, as if I don't have strong opinions about anything one way or the other. That's not true,... more

Wow. I just read Debi's post on R.A.D.ically Overdiagnosed and I have to admit it scared the begeezus out of me! Imagine that. I, a licensed clinical psychologist ("trained and educated to perform psychological research, testing and therapy") with gezads of clinical experience in all kinds of settings, was rattled by the post. Why? (Here I go again. Being the centrist wimp in a controversy.) Because there are folks out there who engage in all kinds of untested, unproven, dangerous and, as the links reveal, sometimes fatal pseudotherapeutic practices for kids with and without formally diagnosed Reactive Attachment Disorder, many of whom are adopted or foster children.

It... more