Friday, May 22, 2009

Teen RAD



If you have a young child do not put off professional treatment for RAD. It does not age well. The older the child becomes the longer the brain has had to work on the incorrect thinking and the harder it becomes to change the brain works. We ALMOST had attachment therapy when our kids were little. I was in touch with one over the phone and was working on it but she was not returning calls and I gave up. If I knew then what I know now I would have been much more persistent. MUCH MORE. Now we have one teen with RAD and one with a weak attachment and possible other mental health issues thrown in. What a life. It is hard to keep teens with RAD busy and it is very hard not to let them disrupt the entire family. Taz has been a screaming yelling mess this morning. Laughing hysterically at every ones discomfort. I have been calm so far. He has done a lot of jumping jacks, a few at a time. I finally had him come kneel next to me and I hugged him and prayed about his fear. Of course, he said he doesn't have any but I told him that good moms can tell. It is OK to be a 14 year old boy and be afraid. I told him about our outing this afternoon to the library and then to a park/monument activity this afternoon. I hope he can go with us. We will be going either way. He may be sitting at dad's office in a chair while we are gone. We will see what he chooses. Our morning schedule is chores, working out and studying. He must accomplish those to join in the afternoon's adventure! Have a healing day! Go into expecting a miracle!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh my gosh..you just wrote about our morning times 2!!! WOW! I agree...all you folks out there who have smaller kids...get it now...13 and 14 year olds have a hard time getting pat this! BUT...hard as it may be...I can do ALL things through Christ who gives me strength" Phil 4:13
Have a good day!

Brenda said...

I am now hiding out at my favorite coffee shop sipping on a blended sugar free caramel comfort. The melt downs continue so there are no fun activities for them this afternoon. Bummer for them. Yummy for me. I'll write more about it tomorrow. Some interesting thoughts have come up in his meltdowns today.

Diana said...

Oi, yoi, yoi...and AMEN. My 9 year old has been an absolute PTSD driven RADical MESS today. My kids are 4 and 9 and have been in treatment off and on for 2 years - and completely on every week with an excellent therapist for the past year...and it's still hard as blazes sometimes. I can only imagine how difficult it would be for hormonally crazed teens (and their mothers) to get through.

Thankfully for me, there is a father and son's outing tonight. I told the hubs it needs to last a VERY, VERY, VERY long time. :-)

Brenda said...

Diana,

Think your husband would take mine with him? : )

BeckyJoie said...

What gives? Are they all calling up each other and saying, "Let's ganng up on those adults. There are fewer of them than us."

I have one here (age 13) who has been flaring all day long all week. He has so far chosen to stay safe at home most of the week and spend the majority of his time paying back time he took from others.

Well, then the other (15 years) decides to join in RAD-iffic behavior and so their little mamma has just about pulled her hair out this week. I've tried in vain to explain it to some of my friends who have said, "Well my children were oppositional sometimes too and they didn't have RAD-it sounds like normal childhood behavior to me." If they could only be fly on the wall! I so need an oasis. No wonder I am up til all hours of the night writing. It's my only down-time, although that is no guarantee either.

Brenda said...

BeckyJoie,

Oh that is such a maddening thing for people to say. There is no way they can imagine the level to which the anger/fear goes. Change causes them to go into fight/fright/freeze mode. Currently Taz is choosing fight....hmmmm. I think I will go for a walk.