Special Needs Parenting

One of the questions I hear a lot is “What is Reactive Attachment Disorder?”

I remember sitting in one of my first adoption and foster care classes and having the instructor take out a packet of Post-It notes. She gave one to each of us and asked us to stick it to one surface and then another and then another. She encouraged us to stick it on surfaces such as a blanket or clothing where it would pick up lots of gunk or on the floor where it would pick up pieces of dirt as well as sticking it to smooth surfaces such as a table.

Then she pointed out that as we moved our Post-It note from one place to another, it became less sticky, particularly after it was placed somewhere that it picked up a lot of stuff that stayed with it.

She used the analogy of that Post-It note to explain how children have a harder time attaching the more placements they have been in or the more trauma they have experienced.

Just like how the sticky part on the Post-It note didn’t adhere as well with more moves or more gunk, the child would also have a harder time attaching after multiple moves and having picked up some “yuck” along the way.

While it’s not a perfect analogy for RAD, it’s one of the best ones I’ve ever come across.

What is Reactive Attachment Disorder?

Attachment issues fall across a spectrum. Reactive Attachment Disorder is the most extreme in that spectrum. Children with RAD feel unsafe attaching to a primary caregiver or parent.

These children were unable to form a healthy attachment due to neglect, early childhood trauma, insecure or disorganized attachment style in the parent, multiple placement such as foster care or multiple caregivers such as in an orphanage, or abuse.

Reactive Attachment Disorders and other attachment disorders take place when a child has been unable to form a consistent connection with a parent or primary caregiver.

If a young child feels that their basic survival needs are not met, they perceive that they cannot depend on others.

The child feels threatened by attachment and that people who are supposed to love you are not to be trusted.

If you suspect that your child or a child you know may have Reactive Attachment Disorder, you can read how to recognize the signs of it here. Of course, that is just a stepping off point. You will need to consult with a professional in order to get an official diagnosis. 

Risk Factors for Developing RAD:

• neglect
• loss of a parent at a young age
• early and lengthy hospitalization due to prematurity or health concerns
• severe postpartum depression in their mother
• living in an orphanage or institutional care
• bouncing around from one home/foster home to another
• physical, emotional, or sexual abuse
• early childhood trauma

Regardless of what the cause of Reactive Attachment Disorder is, it requires treatment and the development of trust within a nurturing relationship in order to heal.

You may also want to read:

Is there Hope for Reactive Attachment Disorder? 

Books for Reactive Attachment Disorder 

For many kids, making eye contact comes fairly naturally. For kids who are on the autism spectrum or for kids who lacked nurturing in the early years or have experienced early childhood trauma, eye contact is far from natural. Some kids find it uncomfortable while others can find it downright painful. If your child struggles with eye contact due to RAD, autism, SPD, or FASD, there are some simple activities you can do that help promote eye contact in a non-threatening way.

I want to share one comment before I get started with the activity ideas. It’s important not to say “look me in the eye” during these activities. You are looking to foster natural connection and get your child comfortable with eye contact.

You are wanting to get your child used to eye contact and build up their tolerance for it. It is important not to increase their anxiety or make them feel like they are in trouble for not complying.

I remember well the days when making eye contact was painful for one of our sons. It was hard to watch. It’s so much easier for him now, but it will likely never be as easy as it is for most people.

But there has been tremendous process. I really believe that much of that progress was due to us repetitively doing many of these activities.

Activities to promote eye contact:

Face painting – This is my favourite one. It is so subtle. While painting your child’s face, you will create natural proximity and be looking into each other’s faces. Try having them paint yours (that takes courage, but mama, I believe in you)! Be sure to use washable face paint.

Silliness – Make funny faces or use silly getups such as clown noses, glasses with funny noses attached, or stick-on moustaches. Those pictures above are from a Family Fun Night we had. You better believe there was a lot of eye contact practise happening that night even if the kids had no idea there was a purpose beyond laughter! 

Stickers – Put stickers or googly eyes on your face. Gradually put them closer to your eyes.

Peek-a-boo – Even with older kids, this game works. With older kids, you’ll have to infuse more silliness to get them to play along. Another way is to teach them to play peek-a-boo with a baby. Ask them to entertain a baby this way and they will be rewarded by smiles and squeals from the baby.

Push them on a swing – Stand in front of them while pushing them on a swing. This encourages eye contact and is great vestibular sensory input.

Secret handshake – Inventing a secret handshake with your child fosters connection and family identity. It also encourages eye contact. Major bonus points if your secret handshake ends with your foreheads touching!

Butterfly kisses and Smurf kisses – Butterfly kisses are when you touch your eyelashes together and blink quickly like butterfly wings flapping. Smurf kisses are when you rub noses. These will obviously be too vulnerable for kids who are at heightened stages of their attachment journey (?).

Board games – Connect 4 is the best one for this if you sit on opposite sides of the board. Because of the level of the board, accidental eye contact is inevitable!

Bubble gum – This is a trick I learned from the late great Karyn Purvis. Bubble gum is good sensory feedback both for proprioception and gustatory (taste). Keep hoards of bubble gum in your child’s favourite flavour. To get a piece of gum, all they have to do is ask “may I please have some gum?” with some degree of eye contact and the answer is always “yes”.

Count freckles – If your child has freckles on their face, count them and assign names to them. Or have them count and name yours. There’s bound to be some eye contact here and there.

Have a staring contest – For kids who are older or further along in their eye contact progress, a staring contest can increase their tolerance for it in a fun way. Don’t attempt with kids who are

Play an eye signal game – Have your child stand a few feet in front of you (or closer if they’ll allow). Signal to them with only your eyes to move to the side (by looking to that side), the other side, stepping back (eyes up), or taking a step forward (one blink).

Join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents.

Parenting a child with RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) is not for the faint of heart. It can be a discouraging, uphill battle. One of the questions I hear from parents most often is: Is there hope for a child with RAD? As the mom of two children who are diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder, it’s a question I have asked myself often over the years as well. 

Living with the effects of RAD in your home can wear on the whole family over time, especially if you don’t feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel.

For many years, I heard therapists and experts and other parents parenting kids with RAD tell me that there was no hope. It felt like we had tried everything and things were only getting worse. I felt hopelessness and despair.

It wasn’t until my husband and I attended an Empowered to Connect conference in Minneapolis and heard Dr. Karyn Purvis speak that I had my first glimmer of hope.

“I’ve never met a child who can’t come to deep levels of healing.” ~ Dr. Karyn Purvis 

Listening to story after story of children who had been able to come to a place of healing gave me something to cling to. I felt like I had hope for our children’s futures, for our family, for the first time in a long time.

I wish that I could say that after we came home from that conference and put into practise what we had learned, all the negative behaviours magically disappeared and our children quickly learned that they could trust us. They didn’t. I wish I could say that the road got easier. It didn’t.

The road was twisty and long. We were exhausted. We went through harder times than we had before. We asked for help. We accessed services and therapies. We nearly got to the end of our capabilities and our sanity.

For the privacy of our children, I am not sharing specifics of just how difficult things got. But I know that if you are parenting a child who has been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder, I do not need to share specifics. You know. You live this. I hope that it helps you just even a little bit to know that others have lived it too and have survived.

There is hope.

Our son and our daughter are showing healthy and secure attachment. They turn to us when they are sick or hurting and need comfort. They trust that we will meet their needs.

They make eye contact. They talk about their feelings. They hug us. They ask for what they need instead of “asking” through behaviours. They are able to accept correction and follow our rules (most of the time).

They are choosing me. Our daughter no longer wants to go with strangers or “shop for a new mommy”.

They show empathy and compassion for others. They are gaining confidence in who they are. They are accepting our love and are reciprocating it.

It feels like a miracle.

Their journeys have been different. Our son’s attachment to us came sooner, but his trauma still affects many aspects of his life. Our son has loved us fiercely for a number of years now, but our daughter was not able to allow herself to accept our love or love us in return.

And then, eight and a half years after she came to us, we began to see signs. They were small at first. Sometimes she would grow closer to us and then catch herself and push us away. Tuck-ins became longer as she began to open up to us and share her feelings. She began to sit next to me on the couch.

She was making eye contact and asking for my help with things. She was singing more and dancing with me in the kitchen.

I felt like I was holding my breath at times, afraid that in a puff, the magic would disappear and the angry girl would return. But the content girl stayed.

One morning, I noticed as our daughter was about to go to school that she had written something on her shirt in permanent marker. (There was a time when such a thing would have upset me, but one of the many things I have learned on this connective parenting journey is what is really a mountain and what isn’t. I’m not bothered by permanent marker on an old t-shirt now.)

I asked her what she had written on her shirt and she told me that today was Superhero Day at her school and since she didn’t have a superhero costume, she had decided to make hers.

She pulled her coat open to reveal what she had written on her shirt. 

In case you can’t read that, it says, “My Mom and my Dad are my Superheros”!!!

I don’t have adequate words to describe the significance of that. There were so many years where she pushed me away, where she couldn’t accept my love, where she felt that she was betraying her first mom if she even smiled in my direction, where she expressed the depth of her hatred for me with nearly every breath.

I had tears in my eyes as I reflected on how far we had come. I also had tears in my eyes later that week when she wanted to hold my hand everywhere we went and tears in my eyes when I overheard her tell someone “I’m so lucky that I can love two mommies and two daddies”.

And the tears were streaming all the way down my face two weeks ago when she got baptized and shared her story in front of a building full of people, a story of loss and hurt, of sorrow and pain, of losing her first family and her first country and then of losing her hearing, but also a story of redemption and love.

Once she was able to accept our love for her, she was able to accept God’s love for her as well. That day felt like the culmination of our journey. It doesn’t mean that our journey is over, but having a symbol of how far we have all come was pretty special.

Our kids still have early childhood trauma that they are working through. Behaviours still rear their ugly heads sometimes when our kids forget to use their words or forget to talk about their feelings. But there are more good days than bad and there is a lot more joy in our home.

Things aren’t perfect. I don’t expect them to ever be. There is no “magic” cure for RAD, but there is hope. 
Join me for a free 5 part email series, Little Hearts, Big Worries offering resources and hope for parents.

You may also want to read:

What I Wish You Knew About Parenting a Child with RAD 

Reactive Attachment Disorder Books