HopeRemains
New Member
Since I began my search on behavioral diagnosis's in children some years ago, Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) has always stood out to me, in addition to ODD. (Neither of which is difficult child diagnosis'd with.) When I mentioned Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) to the psychiatrist, she dismissed it right away because he didn't "hurt animals" and she said it was too extreme for what we described to her in the initial 1 hour meeting. This was 2 yrs ago.
Just over the past 5 months, difficult child has shown some new traits (hitting himself in the face when angry, threats to 3 yr old easy child of killing him *secret*, talk being a murderer and murderer talk, saying that I he is going to tell people I hurt him when we both know I didn't...) In addition to the normal meltdowns, bullying of me and easy child (and tries to bully husband, but husband is a big guy, not prone to being bullied) and the defecation and sneaking food issues; I am thinking that the psychiatrist should re-evaluate. Do any of you have experience with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) in a child? What were some of the behaviors that were real indicators for you? Is there a spectrum where Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) is concerned, or is it true that since he doesn't torture animals this should be ruled out?
difficult child's Mom was secretly a meth addict and (as far as my personal research goes) 100% narcissist. She raised him for the first year of his life while husband was at work and had nothing to do with him after husband got home. My thought is that she wasn't the most attentive while alone with him. If husband didn't realize that she was a meth addict for so long, what else was going on that he didn't realize? That throws red flags to me, along with matching almost every symptom for Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) that I can find.
Just over the past 5 months, difficult child has shown some new traits (hitting himself in the face when angry, threats to 3 yr old easy child of killing him *secret*, talk being a murderer and murderer talk, saying that I he is going to tell people I hurt him when we both know I didn't...) In addition to the normal meltdowns, bullying of me and easy child (and tries to bully husband, but husband is a big guy, not prone to being bullied) and the defecation and sneaking food issues; I am thinking that the psychiatrist should re-evaluate. Do any of you have experience with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) in a child? What were some of the behaviors that were real indicators for you? Is there a spectrum where Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) is concerned, or is it true that since he doesn't torture animals this should be ruled out?
difficult child's Mom was secretly a meth addict and (as far as my personal research goes) 100% narcissist. She raised him for the first year of his life while husband was at work and had nothing to do with him after husband got home. My thought is that she wasn't the most attentive while alone with him. If husband didn't realize that she was a meth addict for so long, what else was going on that he didn't realize? That throws red flags to me, along with matching almost every symptom for Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) that I can find.