Ooops. I promised to talk about that and didn't do it yesterday. My apologies. Now first off I want to make sure you know my boys were 3 and 6 when they came, so this is some what speculation. I believe potty training with a child with RAD could be difficult for several reasons:
Other diagnosis (FAS, SID now being called SPD) can make it difficult. If you suspet your child has either of those you might want to read up on it. http://www.nofas.org/ and http://www.sensory-processing-disorder.com/ . I would also discuss it with your pediatrician to make sure all phsycial conditions had been ruled out.
If there are no other diagnosis and your child physically is fine it could still be very difficult to potty train a child with RAD. They missed stages of development during trauma that effected the way their brain works. Therefore they are physically and emotionally immature. Of course, there are the emotional control, fear based issues that could exist.
I would focus, if the child is a preschooler, instead on snuggling, tons of physcial touch, eye contact, snuggly type games like patty cake, this little piggy, singing together, dancing together. That sort of thing. This site has great ideas http://www.attachmentdisorder.net/Nurturing_Activities.htm Work on being attuned to their feelings and emotions and saying back what you think you feel. Take turns copying making faces at one another. These activities, as weird as it sounds will get you to the potty training faster than actually focusing on the potty training.
I'm sure it is frustrating to have a child that is old enough to toilet train and not having it go well. We cannot control what goes into them or what comes out of them unfortunately. So we have to focus on what we CAN do instead.
Good luck!
5 comments:
I wake up this morning - click on your blog and the first words I read are "Potty Training".
I'm going back to bed and start over.
Ricky,
Your almost to the age of needing retraining aren't you? ; )
Oh goodness these poor kids, it makes sense but it never occurred to me. I worked a shift in an inpatient adolescent boys unit and one fo the kids was wearing diapers. He was such an emotional mess. The other kids were calling him Mr. PeePee Pants. It was crazy that he was doing this, he probably is potty trained fine, but part of his distrubance is that he now wants to pee on himself. It was tragic. I finally found an area of nursing that is too hard for me. All the kids on the unit were there because no adult had raised them right. They didn't have loving homes, not one of them. It really was a place for throw away children and it was horribly depressing. Some of them were violent and will stay instutionalized for the rest of their lives.
Karen Deborah,
Unfortunately residential care becomes a reality for some RAD children. By the time they are that age they use urination as a way of keeping people away. It is very heart breaking. It expresses how sad and lonely they feel inside.
i'm so glad we made it through potty issues with our daughter at 7 finally. our son is 6 and just has night issues, but i can live with that! i sure feel for those having to do all the training though, it stinks!!! (pun intended) :)
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