Reply to If you have a child with RAD how has it changed your relationship with family?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP ---is your child biological or through adoption?  My experience as an adoptive parent is that therapists are far too quick to diagnose RAD when the real source of the challenging behaviors is FASD or other issues.  But to answer your question---any child with problemmatic behaviors makes it challenging to be with neurotypical family and friends.  [/quote]

I'm a child therapist and it would take a lot, I mean a LOT for me to diagnose RAD. It's almost unheard of in America in 2025. I would seriously question any therapist who used this diagnosis. Caveat obviously that I don't know OP's situation, but RAD is exceedingly rare. [/quote]

Do you never work with adopted kids?  Particularly with kids from Eastern European countries?  It is rare in most populations but less so in others. [/quote]

I think you have some really outdated information. There like 1500 international adoptions each year in America, total. Almost none come from Eastern Europe anymore. Not every child from Eastern Europe had RAD, not even close. So even IF a therapist specialized in seeing adopted children, the chances of them seeing an adoptee with RAD are slim to known.

The stereotype of an Eastern European orphan with RAD is just that, a stereotype based on a few sensationalized cases decades ago. [/quote]

I agree that EE is closed to adoptions at this point. But there are still lots of tweens and beyond in the US today who were adopted from EE. Presumably PP has been practicing for awhile. So whether PP treats adopted kids was a fair question. If she hasn’t ever seen RAD maybe adoption issues are not in PP’s wheelhouse of experience And expertise.

Also, current information about the state of adoptions is irrelevant to the therapy population. Russia closed to adoptions at the end of 2012 and very few adoptees were under the age of three at the time of adoption. Many and maybe most
Kids don’t go into therapy until their tween and teen years. So these kids were only coming into therapy after Covid even though adoption closed a decade earlier.

And as far as RAD being about a few sensationalized cases, even my anecdotal experience says you are wrong. If it’s about a few cases, statistically speaking I shouldn’t know any but I know many. And all of you should know one of my kids because they would be famous, but they are not.

Another issue that hasn’t come up yet is that the population at risk of RAD (adoptees from EE countries - not that they are the only adoptees at risk) are also at risk of FASD and at risk of addiction issues. The combination of these issues is so complicated. It’s so difficult for some families.

And PP is right. Puberty is a kick off to some very difficult times. I started an online group for families with adopted kids who needed support and the stories sometimes overwhelm me even though my stories are huge in and of themselves. PP I hope your friend’s family finds the resources they need. [/quote]

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