attatchment disorder

[babybear5]

Hi there..I am new to mumsnet so i am hoping you will all bare with me. I am trying to find out about attatchment disorder. I have a 9 year old who has global developmental delay with no diagnosis of anything. She was adopted by us when she was 2and half and after asking for help with what i felt was a declining relationship social services got involved (long story..but not detremental to child). They say it is emotional abuse and i am now going down the road of attachment disorder but would love to hear from anyone who has knowledge or understanding of this.

Well done. I had forgotten Barnardos. I hope they are able to help.

babybear and others, for another perspective, you could look at the work of Holly Van Gulden. I've recently borrowed a tape 'living with an angry child' of a conference seminar she held. It was really interesting perspective on children who have missed certain developmental experiences and how it affects them.

She advises against labelling and also against describing children as 'controlling'. They are living in a state of chronic anxiety and when they get scared and go into survival mode will do whatever it takes to make sure you don't abandon them. She struggled with her adopted son for many years using punishment/reward style approach and got nowhere (his fear/anger was so great he threw knives and threatened to kill her) But once realising she needed to treat him a s a much younger child - because he'd missed the experiences he should have had at, say 18months - she made a brakthrough and he began to improve.

check out her website or borrow the tape from adoptionuk (once they get it back from me good luck..

Ok, sorry for the late reply, I only just joined and found the thread!

I have worked with several students with a dx of Attachment Disorder, both with and withouta dx of ASD. In all cases, the children had been severely neglected - think cot, dirty nappy, empty bottle for days at a time - before the age of 2. Their behaviour was very different between individuals, but the one common one was rejection. They had to reject you before you could reject them. So you could spend a pleasant hour doing some good school work, then have your hair pulled, be spat on and bitten by a crazed child who had been calm literally 5 seconds before. Like PDA, very hard to predict and find new strategies all the time, and I speak as part of a staff team - ie, 6-8 people all thinking of stuff, and I get to go home at the end of my shift!

Babybear, I have a book called Inside I'm Hurting, which is about strategies in school. It was inherited from a job I had a couple of years ago now, and if you'd like it, message me your address and I'll post it on.