August 7, 2022

85th Edition

Hello {First Name},

For families who foster and adopt, Reactive Attachment Disorder (unfortunately) isn't rare. All of the children who join our homes through foster or adoption placements have experienced some form of trauma and/or separation. 

“Breaks in attachment lead to feelings of anger and rage, grief and hopelessness, poor impulse control and a failure to learn the basic social and cognitive skills necessary for a healthy life” (High Risk; Children Without a Conscience).

If you know someone who needs to read this - pass it on! The more awareness we can spread about Reactive Attachment disorder the more resources and services we will be able to make available for families.

Happy summer and enjoy!

Risk Factors

“Trauma is not only the occurrence of events and experiences, but the absence of love, safety, trust, belonging, and connection.”

Risk factors experienced within the first three years of life (conception to around third birthday) that can contribute to Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) include:

• Unwanted pregnancy or maternal ambivalence toward pregnancy
• In-utero exposure to trauma, drugs, and/or alcohol
• Physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse
• Physical and/or emotional neglect
• Sudden separation from primary caregiver
• On-going/chronic pain issues
• Changing daycares constantly or using providers who don’t do bonding
• Mothers with chronic depression
• Several moves and/or placements
• Unprepared mother with poor parenting skills

Children experiencing one or more of these risk factors have an increased chance of developing RAD.

Behaviours and Symptoms

Children who displaying 50% or more of the behaviour and symptoms may meet the criteria for a diagnosis of RAD (along with one or more risk factors).

Behaviours and symptoms seen in children between 5 and 12 years of age typically include:

• Superficially engaging and charming behaviour
• Lack of eye contact on parent’s terms
• Indiscriminately affectionate with strangers
• Not affectionate with parent on parent’s terms
• Destructive to self, others, and material things (“accident” prone)
• Cruelty to animals
• Lying about the obvious/crazy lying
• Stealing
• Lack of impulse control
• Learning lags
• Lack of cause and effect thinking/ logic and reasoning
• Lack of appropriate conscience development
• Abnormal eating patterns
• Lack of/poor peer relationships
• Preoccupation with fire, blood, and/or gore
• Persistent nonsense questions and incessant chatter
• Inappropriately demanding and clingy behaviours
• Abnormal speech patterns
• Triangulation of adults
• Claims of false allegations of abuse
• Presumptive entitlement issues
• Hypervigilance (looks like ADHD)
• Urine and feces “misplacement”
• Running away
• Hypersexual behaviour

Each behaviour (and Reactive Attachment Disorder itself) is on a continuum, with some children displaying mild to severe forms of the behaviour. Behaviours are also likely to change throughout development, with some being displayed or more prevalent at different times.

Developmental Stages

Children with RAD tend to be developmentally delayed in areas of conscience development, logic and reasoning, and reciprocal behaviours due to the trauma and lack of relationship they experienced in early childhood. Many children seem to be stuck at the 18 - 24 month stage of emotional development.

"When children are unattached they lack an internalized object. Because of this, they do not mature but instead continue to be self-centered, impulsive, and “babyish.” Their concern is always “What’s in it for me?”" 

Very much what we see in the toddler years of healthy development! Many parents will continue to see "terrible twos" behaviours, including tantrums, impulsivity, and lack of remorse for "selfish" behaviours.

Primary Caregiver seen as a "threat"

Children with RAD view their primary caregiver (generally mom) as the primary threat to their survival. As the person providing the majority of the nurturing and care, the primary caregiver is seen as loving - and love is a threat to a child ho has been hurt and is trying to survive without any relationships.

It is very typical that the secondary caregiver (the one who is generally out of the home for the majority of the day/does not provide the majority of nurturing and care) will not see the same negative and chaotic behaviours that are aimed at the primary caregiver. This is due to the fact that the child doesn't perceive this parent as being as threatening to them as the primary caregiver.

Most importantly:

Is there hope for these children? YES!

Children can and do heal from RAD with a holistic approach that includes care for the whole family with Therapeutic Parenting, trauma-responsive care, respite care, and the help of a great attachment and trauma therapist.

Next month our newsletter will cover the aspects of therapeutic, healing parenting. Stay tuned!