When Love Is Not Enough: A Giude to Parenting With RAD-Reactive Attachment Disorder Author: Nancy Thomas | Language: English | ISBN:
0970352549 | Format: PDF
When Love Is Not Enough: A Giude to Parenting With RAD-Reactive Attachment Disorder Description
Review
This version has even more ideas to help my child. I am a much better Mom because of this book! --
Helen B., Colorado parent, Jan 31, 2005About the Author
Nancy Thomas is a Therapeutic Parenting Specialist. She and her husband, Jerry, have shared their life and home for over thirty years with severely emotionally disturbed children, children with RAD, ADD, ADHD, Bipolar and Asperger's. Nancy specializes in bonding and conscience development. She has a very high success rate in working with these high-risk children. She is renowned, internationally, as a leader in the field. She has authored three books and eight training films. Since her work was highlighted in the HBO documentary Child of Rage in 1999, Nancy has been a guest speaker on television and radio programs around the world. Her quest is to give each wounded child a chance at a happy life, each wounded parent hope.
- Paperback: 141 pages
- Publisher: Families By Design Inc; Upd Exp edition (August 11, 2005)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0970352549
- ISBN-13: 978-0970352545
- Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 0.4 inches
- Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
As a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in working with families (I'm also a licensed marriage and family therapist), I am always looking for resources for parents to read on their child's condition and, thus far, haven't been very successful on finding material on RAD. I also always make it a practice to never recommend a book that I have not first read for myself. This book is the closest that I've come to a RAD parenting guide, but with a lot of the pros that are found in its pages comes a lot of cons. I recommend Thomas' book to RAD parents with a lot of caution, and here's what I've noticed while reading this book.
The pros: the book is small, user friendly, is written in everyday language, presents an excellent primer and overview of the conceptualization and treatment challenges of RAD (from an object relations perspective) and is chocked full of specific parenting ideas for all types of behavioral problems. Clearly, it is evident that Nancy Thomas has been doing this for years and I have no doubt that she is successful in her efforts. If this were all that this book had in it, I'd give it a 4-5 star rating. However, the cons in the book bring the rating down significantly.
With respect to the cons; first, some of her advice is impractical, especially if you are a single parent and have limited time and income (i.e. paying for regular respite care and her suggestion that "[therapeutic parenting] dedicates a minimum of six months to a year full time commitment to caring for the child (p. 24)." How many parent(s) can do either of these options realistically?
An second con is that many parents, including myself, do not agree with many of her core philosophies.
I purchased three different books on children with trauma. The first one I tossed aside after 2 pages. The second one I stopped after several chapters. I needed a "HOW TOO" approach not just information on children who have been through a trauma. This book is a wonderful "HOW TOO" book. It gives advice on how to deal with different behaviors. Exactly what I needed. A child who has suffered trauma NEEDS to be in control EVERYTHING in thier life to feel SAFE. This book is helpful for children with reactive attachment disorder, attachement disorders, post traumatic stress disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder. It is also good for general parenting principles. There are many techniques so it can be overwhelming but if you start with using one or two until you perfect them then add more it's much easier. Carry a cheat sheet in your pocket to take a sneak peak at the beginning (don't let your child see it) to help you remember the techniques. The techniques are a lot of logical and natural consequences for misbehavior. Exercise to help the child's brain focus on what needs to be done. It's not difficult once you get started. It took my husband and I about 2-3 months to use most of the techniques with our child. Behaviors WILL get worse at first but as your child learns that you are NOT giving up and that you are CONSISTENT (this is key!) they behaviors get less and the child begins to feel safe. The smiles, laughs and overall emotional health of the child is worth putting forth the effort. I highly recommend using the techniques for a minimum of a year (which sound hard but isn't once you get good at using them. We let up a couple times only to have our child's behaviors get worse. CONSISTENCY is so IMPORTANT!!!!
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