Therapy for a RAD child

[Guest Naida]

Hi I found this forum trying to research BIT. A few parents on a RAD board recommended BIT and also Brain Gym. I'm trying to figure out what would work best with my son's attachment issues that impact everything in our life.

 

If you have a child with attachment disorder please let me know if you have used BIT or Brain Gym and what worked best in helping your child.

 

I home school and we are getting nothing done because he digs his heels in and hates hates hates school. I have to get ahold of these issues so we can make progress in his education.

 

Thank you,

Edited October 3, 2012 by Naida

[walkermamaof4]

:bigear:

[Ottakee]

Feel free to take this for what it is worth..........first, have you ruled out any mood disorders or other mental health issues that could be interfering with his attachment?

 

My daughter was diagnosed as RAD but once we treated her bipolar with proper medication, she was able to bond to us. Out of our group of RAD support families, 80% of the kids had an underlying mood disorder which needed to be treated.

 

Mood disorders can go along with RAD, ODD (oppositional defiance disorder), ADHD, ADD, OCD, etc.

 

Treating the mood issues here did not MAKE her attach but rather allowed her to attach. Kids born to parents with untreated/unstable mood disorders often don't form good attachments and then if you add in a mood disorder in the child, they really have trouble attaching.

[dbmamaz]

just my 2 cents - RAD seems most common in non-biological kids, and i'd be suspicious if that was the main dx for a bio-kid. Are you familiar with this blog? She has been my big education on RAD, and she homeschools. However, she has made it clear in many posts that, for RAD kids, dealing with emotions comes before academics - way before. first of all, being able to read and do math is useless if you cant function like a decent human being, and second of all, there is no academic progress when your brain is in fight/flight.

 

so my (unasked for, take with a grain of salt) advice would be to read more about RAD, esp on above blog, and back off a LOT on the educational stuff. Play some games which teach in a round-about way, watch educational videos, see if he is interested in Time4Learning (worked for my very stubborn, hard-to-teach one).

 

how old is he and is he your only child?

[Guest Naida]

I will look into the blog. Thank you.

 

I agree with you on the attachment issues vs education. It's hard for me to wrap my brain around that though when I see him falling behind in school.

 

He's 10 and he's an only child.