Tough Love vs. Child Abuse

I don't feel that you are qualified to comment on anything regarding a child you know nothing about. I know this from my own experience, being a person who thought everything was so black and white until I was wearing the parenting shoes and not just any parenting shoes. I have raised brats, I have raised drug addicted babies but RAD is like nothing anyone can ever understand until you live it.

With that said, I agree it was abuse. Being in the midst of raising 5 children, whom I inherited, with severe reactive attachment disorder (one who is a sociopath and cannot come home again). I can see how a parent can get that lost, that desperate, that insane. Help is non-existent. Most therapists, social workers, etc...do more harm than help. I can even see shades of PTSD in that parent.

Dr. Phil got his ratings and he got people riled up...but did he help the family? Did he use his show as a tool to educate people about RAD? Nope he collected the green in his pocket and picked up stones with the rest of them.

I'm not saying what happened within that family was ok by any means, but really unless you've raised a RAD child you wouldn't even have a clue. Even with the 5 that I have. I can't even say anything about another RAD child because they are so different and so damaged in so many different ways by people who should have loved them. I continue to learn how evil people can be.

I was told to think of the worst things I could think of and that is what my children had been through. But as they've shared their experiences over the past 6 years. It's stuff I couldn't think of or beyond anything I could have imagined.

Nobody can be prepared to help a child so traumatized. There is no training for it no matter who you are. There is no cookie cutter answer.

I'm not discounting the abuse but I think awareness of this disorder is what should be the topic at hand so we can try to prevent additional abuse by those who don't understand the disorder and aren't getting the help that they need.

This author is obviously inexperienced in the world of special needs child raising. I pray that she has a healthy neuro-typical child, because she seems ill equipped to deal with the multitude of issues a special needs child brings with them. Support ranges from difficult to almost impossible to find, especially when state governments are slashing programs everywhere, particularly programs for the disabled.

I do not believe the mother was correct in how she was handling her child. But the fact she sent that tape in to Dr. Phil, looking for help, reflects that this was a mother looking for help. I give her much credit for taking this step. I just hope that the public outcry and the child abuse charges do not discourage another parent from seeking help BEFORE her child is seriously injured or killed.

I am not surprised that any mother of six burns out and feels like she doesn't know where to turn. I remember a slight tinge of that feeling of isolation and desperation with one child at times, and surely with two biological and healthy happy children. We all have those moments, hopefully most of us don't live stuck in those moments.

I think any parent or care taker who lives in a house of chaos because of any added stress to the family unit has had frightening anger moments, the sense of being overwhelmed, and perhaps the feeling of total helplessness. When I am yelling at my kids, I know it's because of my own frustration and that I'm not doing anybody any good.

I can't and don't judge this mother, I am intrigued that she sought out help in some form or another but I am relieved for the family that the State will intervene in some way. By that I don't mean round up all 6 kids and shuffle them through an endless system, I mean find some way to get this family the support system they need to learn to function as a healthy family.

I can't say I have any love for the world of TV psychiatry, I don't even own a TV, but I am glad that this woman found a way to reach out for the good of her entire family and moreover herself.

PS To the non-parent social workers, educators and child care professionals. You are the ones who see how families effect children, how disorders play out in society and how many kinds of children/families will either turn their wheels in counterproductive reactions or move forward together as a healthy unit in action. For what it's worth, I value your opinions as much as, if not far more, than any person who believes having children makes them an authority. We're all learning together. So thank you.

www.SaraInAkko.blogspot.com ( http://www.SaraInAkko.blogspot.com )

Life in the Middle East, with craft and spice

I agree with the other commenters in that a key part of this story is that the child has a history of being in an orphange and there are adoption issues here. I know how hard it is to parent children with mild RAD. Severe RAD is something I cannot imagine. I have lost my temper, more than I care to admit. Cold showers and hot sauce though? Abuse for sure. This family needs some TRAINED adoption therapy. Very hard to find. My heart goes out to all involved.

Mandy W.

FourAgainstTwo.com

Polish Mama on the Prairie ,February 2, 2011 - 8:04pm

"I don't watch Dr. Phil or any other daytime tv shows. I have better things to do, like bond with my children and raise them."

I was on bedrest for 5 months during my pregnancy and as a result lost my job when my family medical leave expired. After you are on bedrest for so long your body deteriorates to an astonishing degree and it takes times to get back up to speed. As I'm preparing to give birth and get ready for my husband to deploy I don't have a lot of options here so don't judge. Obviously if I was still working I wouldn't be watching daytime television.

I agree that this mother probably was doing the best she could with the tools she had available to her. I actually applaud her for her willingness to adopt (I can't wait to adopt myself); however, I don't think she should add to her child's trauma through her parenting.

She is the one who put herself out there by appearing on Dr. Phil. She is the one who asked for help. I think she put herself in a situation that the state had no choice to step in and intervene because that is what state social services are mandated to do. She actually seems like a mother who would benefit from social services intervention. Social services are not only about removing children from a family's home. They are also about teaching parents how to make better choices and to do things differently. Hopefully she has a good worker who will help her learn the tools/skills she needs to deal with her son's attachment disorder and also to help the family heal.

And to mommyneedstherapy, I've never had my children removed from my home before, I've never suffered from substance abuse, and I never was a teen mom, but that doesn't stop me from being damn good at my job as a clinical social worker. I always genuinely care about the people I work with and my goal is to always let people know that someone out there cares about them and has hope for them even when the world seems like it's against them and they have no hope themselves. I might not yet have my own child, but I've been a mother to hundreds of children, teens, and adults.

I agree with mammaneedstherapy. I also parent a post institutionalized child. While I would never codone the type of punishment that this child was given, we also do not have the right to judge this mother. Resources for parents dealing with reactive attachment disorder (which I saw in an article about this family that this child does have RAD)are non-existant. Instead of the world coming down to judge this woman, how about we give her a hand up, the resources that she and her children need, and help her pick up the pieces and move forward. I don't think that she is a bad mother. I just think she doesn't have the right tools to parent the way that she probably wants to parent. I can guarantee that she probably feels more shame and guilt about her actions that anything the world could put on her.

I wouldn't typically comment on this type of article because it gets me too worked up, but today I seem to be about getting worked up.

I don't in any way condone what this mother did. It was horrible to watch. She needs help, no doubt about it.

However, just because the author teaches parenting classes does not mean she knows what it is like to be a mother and feel overwhelmed. I used to think like she did too. I call it the Target Syndrome. "I would never let me children act like that. I would never yell at my kids in public, or even in private. I would never discipline mad. I would never..."

The missing piece to this story is that this boy is adopted from Russia, which means he spent time in an orphanage, perhaps years in an orphanage. He has suffered trauma and neglect. The chances that he has reactive attachment disorder are huge. That means he is emotionally and developmentally troubled, at a minimum! You can't begin to understand what it is like to parent a child with attachment disorder unless you have lived it.

That family is probably living in chaos. And if I understand correctly they also adopted his brother, which means they could have two troubled children in the family.

I will say again, you have no idea what it is like unless you have lived it.

So maybe we should stop judging and persecuting this mother and instead talk about what can be done to help her and her family. Let's talk about how families end up in this situation to begin with. And how families are drastically under-prepared and under-educated when adopting. And the incredible lack of support available to families with post-institutionalized children.

One last thing...as the mother of a post-institutionalized child myself who has actively been seeking help for my son for seven years, the last thing parents in this situation need is someone who has never walked the walk themselves telling us what to do.

Yeah, if someone is so overwhelmed or angry that they're reacting rather than thinking about the consequences of their own actions, there's a good chance they're being abusive. How do we teach our children to stop and think before they act if we can't do that ourselves? We are their biggest role models - they will learn more about impulse control by watching us control our own impulses than by getting hit or screamed at. And as far as screaming is concerned, when was the last time you thoughtfully listened to someone who was screaming at you? I tend to lose respect for people when they scream.

Judy Schwartz Haley is battling breast cancer while raising her toddler daughter. She is a full time college student, as is her husband. She blogs about it all at Coffee Jitters

I was never abused as a child, unless you count the times when the television was taken away because you decided that breaking your brother's trophy as a means to get your way, or swatted because you did not like the way that your mother disciplined you for getting a bad grade, and then sticking your tongue out in the process. Those were mild compared to this. I am not making light of this, because what I mentioned above was the two times I got into trouble with my parents. OK, so I missed Luke and Laura's wedding on General Hospital (I was 16), and now I stick my tongue out only in tease to my friends and to lick ice cream, I am not scared for life. I turned out fine. In this child's case, he will be scared for life. I do not understand the need to give pain with hot sauce, then make it worst with a cold shower. I also do not get Alaska's punishment for child abuse.
While I do watch Dr Phil, I do not understand why he has to meddle into everything. I understand if a person goes to him, but in the case of Ted Williams, the homeless guy from here in Columbus (yes, I live in that town). Ted did not ask for this, and a person in his condition has to want to get help, not forced on him, which what I viewed from the show. Once that person asks for help, you ease that treatment in, not telling them it is now or nothing.
I hope this mother gets the help she needs, but on her terms and not Dr. Phil's.

I don't watch Dr. Phil or any other daytime tv shows. I have better things to do, like bond with my children and raise them.

I have never heard of someone using such crazy discipline methods on children. Spanking, yes, I heard of that. I was spanked and so was my husband. But, we constantly work on never using that. What does that mean? We keep reminding ourselves how bad it made us feel as children and how it didn't work.

I want my kids to be able to come to me with a problem so that I can help them. I don't want them fearing me and then ending in worse trouble because the one person they should be able to turn to, their Mom, was... well, I won't say what.

Time outs work, eye contact and being at their level works a LOT, stepping in and talking to your kids works, never ever using fear even in play works, showing your children that telling the truth over lying works, and remembering that once you were a child and didn't know everything and that the world was huge and confusing. And you know that phrase "How would you like it if someone did that to you?", I apply that when I consider discipline actions. I wouldn't want a bully for a Mother. I know everyone is different.

But I don't want to pass away one day and be remembered as that ----- that screwed her kids up. I want them to remember me as compassionate, firm, fair, and loving.