Anybody on here who has a child with RAD or AD?

[Andy6]

I have just joined this forum and would love to hear parents experiences on how they deal with the behaviours shown by a son or daughter who has AD or RAD. My son has AD (will start special school full time in Sept) and I have been on many other SEN parent sites and I am beginning to think I am the only parent in the world who's son or daughter has this condition as I haven't found one person on any of the other sites who has experience of parenting a child with RAD or AD.

Hi, sorry I have no useful advice, this is the first time i have heard of this but didn't want to read and run. I am pretty sure that you probably already did a google search but I just came across this.. Maybe it is of some use for you.

[[http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/main.asp
webtag=radkid&nav=start&prettyurl=%2Fradkid%2F]]

Hopefully someone will be along with a bit more experience and useful advice.

Sorry link failure earlier... Try this one..www.radkid.org/support_forums.html

Hi my DD (9yrs) has AD and very much in evidence at the mo. We adopted her and her younger brother aged 2.5 and 1.5yrs. AD is mixed in with learning disabilities and attentional difficulties

Amazing (!!!!!!) finally heard of somebody in this country who has another child with AD. My son is 7 in a few weeks and I adopted him when he was nearly 3. For the 1st 2 years of his life he had to fend for himself as he was not fed or nappy changed etc. He had to steal to survive and drink out of the girble bottle to be fed (even got Scabies). He actually nearly starved to death hence the reason he has AD. Yes, AD children have underdeveloped cognitive skills, understanding of relationships and very poor attention skills and distructive (especially if a boy). What help have you had? What support has worked best for you? Does your daughter go to special school? Has this helped her? Do you have more than one child? If so how do you balance the interests of your daughter with that of your other children? What disapline techniques work best for you? Sorry, so many questions but I am really interested in your experiences of dealing with AD and helping your daughter.

Whoops, sorry, started writing the previous post then had to sort out my son and posted wrongly - how do you balance the interests of your son and daughter? Do you have to watch your daughter all the time?

Hi have just drafted a huge long response to you and then my pc decided to close down of its own accord DD went into foster care at 9 months and then to us at 2.5 and DS went into foster care at birth and then to us at 1.5 years.

DD currently has a dx of a combination of dylesxia, dyspraxia, cognitive impairment, AD, attentional difficulties and a poss enduring brain injury from a head injury as a baby. Our main source of help came from CAMHS when she was finally referred for poss ADHD. School have always struggled with her behaviour but always put it down to being adopted. We have also had a little bit of input from post adoption services but they just duplicated CAMHS. We have only had her dx for the past 18 months. We have just got her a draft statement but it is for mainstream school. However we fear she will not cope with mainstream secondary so are pushing for special school esp as they work to a key stage below chronological age. She operates at age 6/7 yrs mentally but emotionally much younger.

Typical behaviour is stealing, lying, destructive play (she is very fond of a screwdriver!), poor peer and social relationships (over controlling) however she is very empathetic. She is overreliant on adult attention and her average time span away from me is 7 minutes although this is improving. She is prone to huge rages and currently hormones are not helping. She has very limited short term memory and also some speech delay particularly receptive speech.

She is extremely hard to discipline as nothing seems to affect her. We are currently grounding her and taking away TV privileges but all that means is that she gets more of my attention (!) however it has certainly calmed her down. The main frustration is that she seems completely unaware of consequences and can repeat the misdemeanour immediately - these are usually around going into things that don't belong to her etc. She is a magpie and loves anything shiny and metal. And we are currently considering a GPS tracking system for her!

Thankfully she is DC1 and her younger brother seems to 'know his place' ie. in her shadow. Most of the time he doesn't seem to mind and having a bossy older sister who insists on doing everything for him can work to his advantage. We do try to do separate activities - he football with dad, her horse riding or shopping with me but I am aware that she takes up the majority of my time and energy and attention.

I have 2 friends both of whom have adoped children with AD/RAD so our little group is growing.

HTH

The problem with professionals using attachment disorder as a primary diagnosis is that it can make the professional feel inadequate, helpless or distressed. A teacher who sees a child as emotionally scarred may be less able to teach them than one who looks for smaller, more easily remedied issues eg poor visual memory affects which strategies they can use in learning to read.

Obviously severe neglect can damage a child's brain, as can head injury, genetic factors, drugs or alcohol in pregnancy etc. In practical terms, RAD is in BESD category of special educational needs which often means less help than if she has MLD plus complex needs. Looking at the symptom list for AD, they're very, very similar to those of other neurologically disabled children... the main difference seems to be people's acceptance of a poor prognosis.

CAMHS are often very good at 'their' stuff but they're not the experts in children with brain damage, for that you'd need a neurodisability specialist paediatrician or a neuropsychologist. There's a book called the velvet bulldozer which is worth a read, the author adopted 4 children with brain issues, some with attachment problems as well.

Thanks for all the replies. A specialist paediatrician has also recently sparted working with my DS as well as CAHMs. I have messaged you Jakadaal with more details and questions!