RAD Love

Many children who come through the foster care system, or have just plain had a rough first few years, may be diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD). These are the children who never learned to trust adults simply because their needs weren't being met as an infant or a small child. The example they gave us in foster parent training was the baby who would cry and the mother (or "caregiver") would respond by feeding, changing, or holding them. Children who are later diagnosed with RAD may have simply cried until they were exhausted, and fell asleep--needs unmet. I don't know much about my son's first ten years, let alone the first three. I just get bits and pieces. From what I can figure from the stories he tells, he was on his own quite a bit.

In the sermon our priest delivers to the children following the Gospel reading, he delved into a topic that--once again--hit close to home. He spoke to the children about love, and how it was Christ who made us aware of love--first for God, then for our families, our friends, and our enemies. We all know that love is a feeling, but today he shared with us how love is also an action.

For example, he told the children that parents put love into action when they discipline them. Of course, the feeling of love is there, but teaching children how to be safe and responsible is an act of love. Children can put their love for their parents into action by listening and obeying them. For family, love is a feeling and an action.

Friendships work the same way, and friendships made within the church can last forever, into the next life. He used the saints as an example. We feel love for our friends, and we love them through our actions.

When he came to how loving our enemies was different, he indicated that this is where the "feeling" of love goes away, and we must rely solely on the "action" of love. This isn't easy, but it's what we're called to do.

Love has been an issue in my home. The definition of love is one that I'm afraid my son struggles with, as he has for so long equated love to the amount of "things" a person can give him, or how much that person can do for him. Love, for him, has been totally "conditional." I've spent the past four years trying to show him through my actions how to love. While I think--on some levels--my son has developed an attachment to me, I question what that attachment is based on. He doesn't understand loyalty. He cries when I suggest that he should form friendships with children his own age (instead of looking for adults to amuse him when he's bored), and while there are hugs and an "I love you" every night at bedtime, I still wonder what he really means when he says it back. I'm not being critical here. I'm being honest.

I don't think love is an easy thing to teach people how to "do." Just like I've been unable to teach him how to feel remorse, or want responsibility. I know I'm years away from being out of the woods with him, and we now have a fantastic counselor who truly understands this condition and has a good way of making sense out of some of the behaviors that continue to puzzle me. I think my son has learned to trust me, but still doesn't see the importance of being trustworthy. He's getting there, but it's been a dreadfully slow process.

From the time he first got here, I was conscious of the fact that he might not attach to me (or anyone, for that matter), and that if he didn't, it would be understandable. I would engage him in activities that would rely on his trusting me, or vice versa. For example, I'd give him piggy-back rides pretending to be "Yoshi," able to "fly" through the house and get him anywhere he wanted to go. Even more daring was when I would allow him to blindfold me with his hands, and guide me. I had to trust he wasn't going to run me into a staircase, and he had to make sure he didn't so he wouldn't fall. Chicken fights in the pool pit as a team us against my sister and her children. "Sock wrestling" was a hilarious time around here, where the goal was simply to get a sock of the other's foot. A double-header would occur when we weren't quite worn out yet, and would go for sock number two. I tried a lot of the "sensory" things that were suggested in a RAD seminar I attended a couple of years ago, including providing straws to drink warm drinks from (to subconsciously give him what he may have missed out on as an infant), sitting close with an arm around him when we would read or watch a movie together, keeping a hand on the back of his neck so he knew I was always right there with him when we were out, and holding his hand when we crossed a busy street together. "Horsey" rides on my back across a 40-foot swimming pool (and back!) would exhaust me, but it taught him to hang on, and I think he knew I wouldn't let him drown. When he hurt himself, or even thought he hurt himself, I did something, even if so much as a band-aid wasn't necessary. I did draw the line at x-rays when it was clear to me that he really didn't break his finger, wrist, or ankle. But I at least made sure I "examined" his injury before making that decision.

Letters from me to him on the anniversary of the day he moved in would confirm for him that I'm happy that he's here with me, celebrate successes of that year, and set expectations for the coming year. March 7 is "DDB Day," the day Don, David, and Barney became a family.

In short, I'm trying to make up for a lot of what he may have never known before. And it may be too late for him to benefit from it. A sign that he may be attaching includes his desire to be very close to me at all times. It's not unusual for me to be perched in my favorite easy chair with both Barney and David sharing the ottoman on either side of my legs. 2,000 square feet in this house, and there we are, occupying the same corner of the living room, but pushing him away wouldn't be the answer, I don't think. At foster family picnics, he'd have a hold of my belt loop as not to lose me in the "crowd" (I hadn't noticed this, but a social worker brought it to my attention). It feels sometimes like he's reaching out, and I don't want to do anything to discourage that, so I reach back.

I hope that in time he will actually know what love feels like. Please pray that he will. How lonely will his adult life be if he's still unable to truly attach, and as a result, completely unable to love?