Hi 2Stressed~well, I don't blame you for choosing that username. You really sound like you've got your hands full there and my heart goes out to you. Although I don't have any first-hand experience to offer you, I wanted to let you know that your family is in my prayers.

     Also, I wanted to make sure you were aware of our counseling service. I know your son has already had some input from a professional, but I thought it might be helpful for you and your husband. They have a lot of experience in this area, and they'd be happy to give you some encouragement and advice.

     Another thought I had was concerning some of our articles. We've addressed RAD and ADHD on our Web site and you may want to look through some of this material. You may be up to your ears in resources but just in case...

     And, so you know you're not alone, there was actually a similar post on this topic. Although it's a little old, some of the advice offered may still be useful. Just a thought!

     Well 2Stressed, I really hope we'll hear from some others. But, until then, hang in there!

Jessica

Forum Moderator

I can definately relate to you on many levels.  I am an ER nurse for 10 years and we see a lot of ADD/ADHD kids.  But it wasn't until I had my 2nd child I experienced it 1st hand!  It took me nearly 2 years to get a Dr to even look at my son.  They said "He's young, he's a boy, he will grow out of it."  Well after getting "kicked out" of several pre-schools because they "didn't have the resources for the 1 on 1 attention he required for continued redirection"  it wasn't funny anymore!  As a parent we are often forced to take matters into our own hands.  I did a lot of research, finally found a doctor to treat him, and reluctently put him on medication.  However, as he grows older it has gotten much worse.

It wasn't until very recently that God shown an AMAZING ray of light on EVERYTHING for us!  One that I am so excited to tell the world about, because it is just that AMAZING.

I suffered from several chronic and a couple of rare illnesses for the better part of the last 15 years.  This past fall it had gotten so bad I thought I was going to have to quit my job and go on diasbility.  I was terrified!  That is until I found the doctor that saved my life! 

Now, over the years I had seen what felt like every Dr., had every test imaginable, and had been on literally dozens of different medications - and all only to find myself getting worse with every passing year.  From my very first visit with this new Dr., he knew exactly what was wrong, had a plan of care, and was ready to get going!  I had more hope with this Dr that all the doctors I had seen in the last 15yrs combined!  I have since been going to this Dr. 3 times a week for the last 3 months and I literally have not felt this good in 15 years!!!! 

Basically it all comes down to what we put into our bodies!  For all of the meds, and processed food I took in over the years - my body was completely toxic and my liver could not keep up.  So they detoxified me, tested what my body was sensative to, and treated the sensativities.  I don't really understand how it works - all I know is that it DOES work!!!  It is called B.E.S.T. - Bio Energetic Sensativity Testing.  They test the energy fields in your body to see what you're sensative to and then treat them with accupressure.  I, and my kids, had been through allergy skin testing and nothing ever showed up.  It is not that we are necessarily allergic to something, but we may be very sensative to it.  (I have read this to be very true with ADHD kids)

God did not create our bodies to be able to handle all of the processed garbage we put into it.  We are literally killing ourselves!  I actually went in for my chronic pain, but came out with SOOO much more, my GI issues have cleared up, no more headaches, my skin has cleared, my depression is gone, my menstrual cycles are 28 days on the nose for the first time ever, and I have more energy than I have ever had in my life!!!  We now eat very healthy and try to stay away from anything processed, including no gluten, and no dairy.  It was very tough at 1st, but it has become so much easier - and quite frankly - it is not worth it to me to go back to how I was eating before.

SOOOO back to our children. . . . Since all of this has happened to me I started doing a lot of research on diet and ADHD, and have found those very same things are setting off ADHD (i.e. preservative, additives, artificial this and that, etc)  My whole family is now going through the energy testing and treatment with my doctor, and I have very high hopes of getting my son off of his ADHD med!  I know it will be tough once we start in with the diet changes for the kids, but I know it will be worth it!

A couple of other resources for you with a ton of great information:

-adhdawareness.com

-feingold.org

Keep your chin up and keep praying!

The thing that still shocks me most through all that I have been through, especially given the fact that I have worked in medicine for 10yrs, is that not one single MD EVER said anything about a relationship with foods and my condition in the entire 15 yrs I suffered with all of this - and what a simple answer it is!  They just simple don't know.

Now that I know - I want to shout it from the rooftops!!!  I see so many people suffering needlessly on a daily basis when I go to work, and all we have to do it change our eating habits, test and treat what we are sensative to!  (Well for some with more involved health issues they also need detoxing)

I praise God for my healing, and I know he will heal our children too - if we only listen to him and respect the amazing bodies he has given us with the natural foods he has provided us!

God Bless and good healing!!! 

When I read your post my heart ached for you.  I too am a mom who (attempted) to adopt a child who was diagnosed with ADHD/RAD/PTSD/ODD.  I say attempted because my girl was 12 when she ran away and decided she did not want to come back and be adopted by us.  She had been in our home for almost a year.  Not as long, I realize, as your child, however, I thought if I shared my stuff it may give you encouragement. I now have a daughter we are adopting she is 10 and she is also diagnosed with ADHD/RAD...though not as severe as the first child.(She has attached to us and won't be running away I don't believe any time soon! EEK!)  My first girl, was very severe. 

I wanted to before I forget let you know that I agree with the other mom who recommended the book "Building the Bonds of Attachment" by Daniel Hughes.... Every parent that I counsel in this area I always first recommend this book.  The other mom mentioned that it is scarey, and I agree, however, what I usually like people to know about it is that I think they need to read it with an open mind....children with these kinds of disorders are not all the same, there is such a wide spectrum of disorders as well as the severity of the issues that they have, you cannot wrap every child up in the scenario of this book.  Read it and take from it what you can use in your situation, not everything in the book is going to relate to your child.   My first child, severe as she was, was not as severe as this child in the book, though there were sooooo many similarities in sooooo many areas, it was extremely helpful!!!! Next I would recommend "Attachment Focused Parenting" also by Daniel Hughes.  This book is awesome because it is filled with dialogue between parent and child.  Acting out situations that actually happen.   Sometimes I just wish I knew how to respond to my child when they do or say certain things!  This book addresses that.  Those would be the first two books I would read, then I would read, "Parenting by the Book", by John Rosemond and of coarse "The New Strong Willed Child" by James Dobson (both of these men are Christian authors)  And personally I believe that the only book we actually need to raise our children is the Bible itself, so lets not forget that!  I Treat all of these books as text books and keep them at my nightstand.  I read them over and over.  The Bible I just read everyday anyway!(wink)  I have found that it is extremely important to keep a healthy balance between the World View of Psychiatric Dr.'s and the Christian View, as the worldly Dr.'s rely on science for thier philosophy and I rely on God's Word for mine!  It makes a huge difference when seeking guidence in the Pyschiatric arena, to parent your child...after all we are called to raise up our children God's way.

In the beginning of my adoption process I learned early on that there were not nearly enough resources to help me know what I needed to know to raise a child with special needs.  I wanted to educate myself as much as I possibly could, armed with the Sword of the Spirit, I knew I also had to be educated about the special needs of these children.  And I had to do it on my own, the system was almost no help at all.  I was blessed to have an awesome godly friend that had adopted 3 girls (all with special needs) and also another friend that had experience with an attachment therapist.  Those two things were instrumental in my ability to survive!  My first recommendation for mom's who have children with special needs, especially RAD, is to find an attachment therapist.  The attachment therapist ideally should be there seemingly more focused on educating you and helping you interact with your child as well as helping your child build trust for you.  One of the gals that replied to you said that traditional therapy sometimes doesn't work with these kids, I might even go further and say that it would almost never work.   Pshyciatric Dr.'s want to medicate your children to slow them down (I was told this by two Dr.'s) so that they can begin to work on the individual needs and those might entail, dealing with trauma, as well as learning social skills and developmental skills etc...only after they have slowed them down and worked out some of these other issues (which could take years) do they think that attachment therapy would MAYBE help.  In other words, (from my experience and others I have spoken to) they don't believe in the attachment process, or that attachment is necessary for these kids to heal or succeed.  In fact they are not interested in healing them, they are interested in teaching them how to survive living with their disorders. My God is bigger than that. 

In my opinion, they have it backwards.  Until your child trusts/attaches to you there is no way they will ever respect you or your rules, they won't learn right and wrong from you.  The attachment process can also take years, it depends on each individual situation how long it will take.  However, working with a therapist will definately speed up the process.  I believe working with an attachment therapist will strengthen your relationship with your boy and the attachment he has for you.  The books would serve to be an invaluable resource for you as well.  As a result his behavior will change. One of the hardest things for me and sometimes can still be, is that whenever I feel like we have overcome a hurdle and haven't seen a certain behavior for a long time (month) all of a sudden it will start happening again! UGH! It's like ' are you kidding me, didn't we already deal with this?'  But, with special needs kids I have learned that holding on to bad behavior is control, and when they overcome one thing they might reach back and grab something they used to do just to stay in control.  I'm strick, the boundaries are strong, going back isn't an option, there are consequences.   I'ts just like us and the new man reaching back to grab something from that old man we burried at the cross.. sometimes we are so weary it's easier, than to move forward in the hope of the promise of what Christ did for us.  And whenever we go back, there are consequences. Anyway, I feel like I am rambling.  I am passionate about these kids and what we can do to help them heal. 

I feel your pain and I pray that you will find strength and hope, to love your boy, I sooooo know how hard it is to show love to a child who is screaming at you and hitting you and arguing constantly with you saying how much they hate you. I have some consequence things that we do and they do help if you are interested.  They do give me a break too, and like the other gal said, I too spend every evening reading with my girl not long just about 20 min and my husband and I do this thing where when she goes to bed at night we go in her room and kneel at her bed and ask her if it was a good day or bad day, and then we ask what was so good about it or what was so bad about it, we don't discuss it we just let her tell us, and then we pray for her.  EVERY day, except for Friday which is the other thing that my husband and I do is go on a date every Friday.  Without our daughter.  On that night it gets too late for good day bad day, and prayer time, so we pick it up the next day.

Please know I will be praying for you and am here if you need to just chat.

Tami D.