Baking Buddies

Having siblings living in the same home with RAD is really tough. They feed off each others negative energy. In fact, Taz has done some great healing but the one time when he really reverts back is when he is alone with Bear. The rule is they are not to be alone in a room together. They are like magnets pulling together. They seek each other out. I think some of this is from the adrenalin rush they feel when they are interacting. I think they get the comfort of earlier homes when they are together even though that feeling was chaos. The worst is the car. I've done many things to try and repair or improve their relationship all of which have fallen flat. The other morning I was making cookies for someone at church that had surgery. It dawned on me that I have done very little baking since I started Weight Watchers. I was thinking that was about 3 years ago. I looked through my little Weight Watcher records and low and behold it was 2002!! My children have such emotional ties to food. It is something they really get excited about. They will refuse to talk to me all day unless I am cooking and then suddenly I am interesting. They sometimes refuse to eat. Other times they seem to not know if they are full and seriously over eat. I think it will be a problem for them when they are my age unless they get it figured out. Food is the one thing that was always there for them to comfort them. When we talked about motherhood and emotions in therapy food was often brought up. So I decided Taz and Bear are now in charge of family deserts. I baked cookies with the 2 of them, keeping them very busy and assigned tasks. They were very proud of their work. Someone just ate the last cookie so I need to bake with them again tonight. Sunday we are baking a cake. They may never be best friends but maybe this will at least give them one fond feeling for the other. Maybe. I never know until I try!

Siblings and RAD

We have a couple of inches of snow and it is 8 degrees. If I have to spring forward tomorrow night I'd like a little spring. Seems fair doesn't it? We always have a little wave goodbye from winter during March though. Sometimes even during April. I tried to send a song from You Tube to my site today and so if about 5 of them show up today I will apologize ahead of time and will delete some.

Siblings. We adopted a sibling group of 3 from foster care. Many of the attachment experts say not to have siblings with RAD in the same home. The chances of successful treatment are very slim. I have seen why first hand. Our youngest has had some tremendous healing from RAD. But when he is in the same room, car, hemisphere as his brother with RAD all of the behaviors come back. They have a trauma bond. The trauma of their past all comes up when they see each other. They give each other the adrenalin rush they cannot get from me (most of the time). It has been suggested I do not allow them in the same room unless an adult who knows RAD is in the room with them and between them. So that is what we try to do. They want this feeling of chaos and adrenalin rush so badly they seek each other out and try to get to each other. It is a constant battle to keep them apart. We also have the issue of one healing before the other. The remaining child is so jealous of the healing child. I can see why the therapists say not to allow a sibling group to remain together if they have RAD but I can also see it can work. It takes constant vigilance, stamina and much mother self care to get through it. For further reading on the subject see:

http://207.234.239.87/articles/siblings.html by Deborah Hage

http://attachment.org/pages_parents_articles19.php from Nancy Thomas' website written by Beck Malecki