The Challenge RAD Children Have with Making Emotional Connections with Their Mothers

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While many mothers of young children receive smiles, hugs, and beautiful hand-drawn pictures, it’s common for mothers raising RAD children (reactive attachment disorder) to be physically and verbally rejected daily, lied to, manipulated and so much more. This ongoing rejection makes it challenging to make emotional connections with RAD children. 

“I hate you! I hate this family!”

“You ruined my day . . . you must hate me.”

“You’re not my mom.”

“You’re the devil.”

“Stranger danger! I’m being kidnapped by a stranger!”

If it looks and feels like a RAD child is DELIBERATELY sabotaging her relationships, it’s because she really is, whether she’s conscious of it or not.  

Why? Why would a child deliberately sabotage making positive emotional connections with family and friends?

On the surface it may appear counter intuitive and completely illogical.

From the point of view of a severely neglected or abused child, however, it’s completely logical. 

A LENS OF DISTRUST

When I was younger, I was bit on the hand by an extremely vicious, possible rabid, poodle. No matter how hard I shook my hand, the ball of curly, angry white fluff wouldn’t detach itself from my hand. 

Ok, the poodle wasn’t vicious, or rabid. The fact of the matter was, my annoying younger brother and his friend thought it would be funny to throw rocks at the dog and got it all riled up. 

Funny, right? Of course not. I also don’t find it funny that the dog thought he would take his revenge on my brother out on me and treat my hand as its chew toy. I mean, I didn’t even like my brother at the time, so how was biting me supposed to be some kind of pay back? Was I supposed to bite my brother’s hand when I got home and say, “This is from the dog?” 

As a result of the “poodle incident,” though, I’ve been terrified of dogs for decades (not to mention resented my brother for quite a while for throwing rocks at the dog.) Over time, my fear has eased a little with some positive experiences with a couple of dogs that family members have owned, but my fear hasn’t completely gone away. I can’t unsee the poodle latched to my hand. And that one negative childhood experience is a lens through which I see dogs. 

I’m also happy to report that my brother doesn’t throw rocks at dogs anymore so I like my him more now, too.

This same lens concept also applies to other areas of life and early learning. When a young child is severely neglected and/or severely abused, they may come to the conclusion that their primary caregivers, people in general and the world around them can’t be trusted. The child learns that their needs won’t be taken care of by the people closest to them. 

Once in a safe environment, the RAD child continues to see people and the world through a lens of distrust. There’s no such thing as giving others the benefit of the doubt. Instead, the child looks for reinforcing evidence that their belief that people can’t be trusted is true and they ignore any evidence that is contrary. 

ATTACHMENTS REPRESENT POWER TO HURT

To a RAD child, attachments represent the power to hurt. The more you let someone into your heart, the more power you hand over to that person for them to hurt you. In their early life experience, attachments led to pain and hurt. Their primary caregivers having had the most power to deliver that pain and hurt. 

It’s only natural, then, that the lesson the child learned is to do whatever it takes in order to never give that kind of power over ever again.

PRIMARY CAREGIVERS ARE THE GREATEST THREAT TO A RAD CHILD

Enter in a new mother figure, whether she be foster, adoptive, stepmother, grandmother, aunt etc.—a woman who is stepping in to take the RAD child’s mother role. It can even be the birth mother stepping back into the child’s life after an absence. A primary caregiver is the greatest threat to a RAD child.

Why would this new woman, a woman who has chosen to love and nurture him be viewed and treated as a threat? Why would she be emotionally, verbally, and physically abused by the child for years despite treating him with love, patience, and kindness?

Not only because of the lens he looks through, but also because as his primary caregiver she knows him at his best and worst. She knows his strengths and weaknesses. She knows what makes him vulnerable. And that gives her, out of everyone he knows, the most power to hurt him. And he doesn’t want to be vulnerable. 

Not in any way.

Therefore, he MUST protect himself and stop any emotional connection from developing if he’s to stay in control. 

Emotional connection means giving power over to another to be hurt.

Emotional connection to him means weakness. 

Emotional connection to him means connectedness, and he must stay separate in order to stay in control of himself and his choices. 

In order to stay disconnected, then, he must continue to say and do things to damage the relationship, to sabotage himself over and over. And yet RAD mothers continue to take their children to therapy, continue to do their best to help their children, and continue to make every effort to express their belief in the child’s ability to change. 

A RAD MOM CAN BE TRUSTED

A RAD mom faces countless daily challenges including remaining patient and extending opportunities again and again to her RAD child, knowing that her past efforts have been rejected time and again. A RAD child learns early in life she can’t open herself up and be vulnerable. It’s a RAD mom’s job to be that consistent adult who shows over and over that she can be trusted. 

A RAD mom can be trusted to express love. 

A RAD mom can be trusted to provide rules. 

A RAD mom can be trusted to provide boundaries to protect her child, to protect other family members, and to protect herself. 

A RAD mom can be trusted to be the best example she knows how to be of expressing thoughts and feelings. 

And a RAD mom can be trusted to own up to her mistakes when she makes them—to be an example of how to be vulnerable and take accountability. 

It can be difficult to see in the short run whether the consistent efforts of a RAD mom to emotionally connect are penetrating through a child’s determined efforts to stay disconnected. 

But on the toughest days, when my child is most determined to do the ultimate damage to our relationship, I ask myself, “If I don’t care about him, who REALLY will?”

And I show him one more time that I can be trusted.