Yes! But it's late, my bedtime, so I must go ... I'm very tired and know I won't be able to write coherently at the moment. I will check back in the am. :)

@FreeToBeMee -- thanks
@AloneOverseas -- hope you come back and talk some more! :)

@AloneOverseas

I am awful about starting threads then forgetting they exist! 

Anyway I am curious, if you don't mind sharing, as to whether or not your boys see a therapist who specializes in AD/RAD or not.  I keep reading that this is ideal but the only one in our area that takes DDs insurance (she's on Medicaid) is over an hour away.  We don't mind that but he is also constantly fully booked.   We have not taken her to him yet.

We have started the whole evaluation at school for special education and it has taken FOREVER.  The school psychologist is not familiar with AD/RAD issues and DD has him completely wrapped around her little finger.  I have brought him literature and had discussions with him but it's annoying to constantly be having to educate EVERYONE at every turn, you know?

We are still waiting on the official ARD from all of the school testing, they said hopefully this month, we really need the special ed services, or at least something official because we have so many issues with behavioral problems w/her at school that are directly related.

Anyway it's a lonely path, people just don't understand and I am tired of explaining if you know what I mean.

Well we don't know if she has "full blown" RAD or not either.  I don't think so and if she does it's a milder version, for lack of a better term for it.   From all I have read though it is important to find a therapist that knows their shit with regard to RAD and RAD like behaviors because of the issues with triangulation of adults, manipulation, lying, etc.   Apparently it's pretty easy for kids with these problems to convince a mainstream sort of counselor that they are little angels.  I can totally see that because the school psychologist was absolutely SHOCKED when he saw the answers to the questions on the evaluation forms he sent home.  He didn't believe we were talking about the same child!   We hear all the time "Oh, she's such a little doll, so sweet and well mannered."   Man, they have no idea.

She's not really outwardly defiant for the most part with us.  She is to a certain degree at school, she won't tell the teacher "No", but she will sit and sit and refuse to do ANYTHING.  And there have been a few issues with her fighting with other kids, she isn't picking on kids she randomly, but she will get physical too quick if there is an argument or disagreement.   We have had to explain over and over how just because someone makes you mad isn't reason enough to put your hands on them.

Her behaviors are more "underground" and sneaky.   She lies and hides stuff and takes things that don't belong to her, she is sugary sweet and shows signs of indiscriminate affection, hugging people she barely knows and being "nicer" to strangers than her own family.  She doesn't rage but sometimes I wish she would because it would at least seem genuine.  She always seems "fake".    She tries to control everything.

It's just hard because most people don't see it and think we are just strict. :(   I think the biggest misconception about this situation is that people don't see how it can happen with a biological child.  I talked to a mom before whose child was diagnosed with RAD and they linked it to multiple long term hospitalizations where he was separated from his family often and for a long time and underwent a lot of medical trauma.  That's the hard part for us, I guess;  we knew her before when she was well adjusted, attached, and happy, before her father took off with her.  It was bad enough that he took her and hid her but to make matters worse he told her her mother was dead, and she was abused and neglected during that time he had her, all when she was just starting to be verbal so we will never know all the details of what took place while she was gone.   It's a mess.

@ANW   Hi!  I didn't see this until now, sorry for the late response.

Is your DSD currently in any kind of therapy?  We are still wanting to take her for an evaluation but thought that the info from the school would be helpful too, to have input from not just us but also her teachers and others at the school including the school psychologist. 

I guess that comes from too long not being believed about her!

On a related note, I met a mom on a RAD-specific board once whose biological child had developed it after repeated hospitalizations and traumatic medical procedures when he was young and she was single and had other kids at home so she could not be with him the way she wanted to be.  So sad.  :(

I actually came to this thread to vent a little.  One of her issues, that is a hallmark of her problems, is a sense of entitlement.   I just get soooo damned tired of this.  She has no sense of appropriate gratitude and is often picky or complaining and I just get SO tired of it!!  Really.  Lately it's been food.  She doesn't like this, doesn't like that, all of a sudden she doesn't like apricot jelly, only strawberry.  Well tough, kid!  There are five of us to feed and you get what you get.  Gah.

I'm just a bit fed up right now from an incident yesterday evening.  I gave her a bedtime snack that was a TREAT, I mean, nothing she was "entitled" to have, a surprise, to be nice to her,  and the first words out of her mouth were a snotty  "I don't like that kind."  Me: "OK, fine, give it back to me:  DD  "Oh but I'll eat it anyway!"  Me:  "No, you won't.  Go brush your teeth, go to bed"  A lecture followed  from me to her about how we cannot meet everyone's whims / preferences always in this house, other people have to eat too and we cannot have 40 varieties of everything, how we need to be thankful when someone gives us something unexpectedly, not picky or rude...



...because I am tired of it (did I say yet I was TIRED OF IT?) and tears
followed on her part.  Don't know with her ever if they are tears because she feels
bad for being bratty/rude/arrogant, or tears because "we are mean". 
Usually it is the latter.



And dammit, this was, of course, something she has eaten 200 times before and LIKED.  when she complains it is not about the usual kids stuff.. you know, liver, spinach, etc.  It's always something she's eaten and loved in the past, or something benign, or this jelly vs. that one, grape juice vs apple (when she's loved both).. you know?  I know it's all part of the deal and part of her "issue", but I get so tired of it when I am used to how the boys are, you give them an unexpected baked good and they are THRILLED, don't care what it is.  I know she is not them and vice versa but sometimes it's hard not to compare.  And sometimes it is hard to remember she's not just "being a brat".   It is always about control.  This is why we have such trouble being out and about with other people... who would see this as us being controlling instead!  You know??

Anyway, hoping for some pro help soon.

Yes, my DH and I have adopted 4 with RAD from foster care.  They have varying degrees of RAD and very different problems.  Some also have FAE and other diagnoses from anxiety to ODD.