Hi
Someone mentioned that Dr. HAre has a check list for children. Anyone know where I could find it?
Thanks
Val

Hi, thanks for joining the forum. If I may ask how old is the child you are considering having tested? There are some "threads" at the top of the forum you might read regarding RAD.

The new test from Dr. Hare is a Youth Version and it is a youth version of his adult screening. I think a professional has to take the training to be able to conduct the testing. It is for ages 14 - 17.

Please let me know if there are any questions at all you need specific answers to. Jan, one of our members who is also an Administrator is very familiar with the RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) diagnosis which is what seems to be the diagnosis given to children pre adult. The checklist for RAD reads like the same symptoms as the adult checklist.

Di

Hi Di,
The child concerned is going to be 10 years old soon. Has been diagnosed with reactive attachment disorder (5 years of age), ADHD and ODD.

I wonder if Jan has any experience with what RAD/AD looks like 5 years on with a lot of therapy along the way. Do children actually ever "recover"?

Is it common for ODD to be mistaken for attachment disorder?

I did look through the threads here and found some interesting information.

Thanks!
Val

Hi Val, Jan has been very busy but I am sure she will be around soon.

Just my own two cents I would be very careful with therapy (this only my opinion). It makes adult Psychopaths worse in most cases, Jan can probably let you know how it works with children.

Can you list some of the areas of concerns, i.e. the things he does so when Jan has time she can address those issues since she has first hand experience.

Di

Oh, therapy definately did not work.

Presents with complicated emotional and behavioural issues thought to relate to suspected neglect by birth mother from a very young age. Birth mother abandoned child at age 3.

Here are just a couple of things that spring to mind immediately:

- From about age 4 a lot of anger, rage and opposition.
- Inappropriate use of toilet (soaks bed virtually every night, will urinate on self during the day, hides feces, smears feces, not wiping properly, soiled self regularly up until about a year ago)
- Lies cheats steals inside and outside of the home
- steals things that do not make sense/ does not need
- Damages property (picks paint off walls of room and makes holes in walls of room, breaks windows, etc.)
- Never seems satisfied with anything
- insatiable needs (tends to overeat)
- inappropriate touching (sexual)
- no fear of strangers
- obsessed with minor injuries
- unusual interest in natural disasters (knows how long it would take to burn down a house)
- very guarded - does not talk much
- sneaky
- is a chronic non-responder to behavioural modification rewards based systems
- behaves as though developmentally delayed but is higher than average intelligence
- pretends he cannot read
- Is rarely present in the moment - appears to always have something else on his mind, waiting for a better opportunity, a new need
- verbal and physical aggression
- unmedicated expresses anger frequently as primary emotion
- medicated expresses saddness
- any emotions in between seem fake

All that and a bag of chips!

Thanks
Val

Whew, Val my heart goes out to you. Did you adopt this child or are you the foster parent? Your list sounds like the complete RAD list.

Do you have other children in the home or pets?

Di

P.S. They are doing some groudbreaking work on kids in the UK which Jan has been very involved with.

Thanks.

Please do not forget that he is not just a list. He is a real person, only a child, and an awful lot of people love and care about him. We have been seeking help for a very long time.

Stepmother.
A younger brother.

He has harmed animals but not in the last year or two (that I know of) so it is not included on list.

Has also hurt a child much younger than himself.

Requires constant supervision.

addendums:
- exhibits no intrinsic values (concerned primarily with self)
- clearly the perpetrator yet (strangely) the victim
- argumentative and oppositional (will hold out for days, weeks, years)
- presents as much younger than chronological years
- very charming, a gorgeous child (blonde hair, big blue eyes)
- always has something else going on (a misdeed on the flip side)

He used to do all the nonsense chatter, constant interupting type of stuff to the enth but is not so bad now.

The trouble is that despite countless interventions over the years he has not gotten any better and, in fact, has gotten worse - starting to lie, steal and do other odd stuff at school.

The REAL trouble is that there appears to be no treatment/ he evades it.

All that said, it will take a receiving line of every health care professional he/we has ever met (and there are at least a dozen), shaking our hands, telling us we have done our best, and saying it is time to give up before we do.

Appreciate your interest.

Val

Hi
Also curious if anyone has any ideas or experience with how RAD looks/exists on a continum of improvement/healing.

Specifically, what are the chances that RAD 5 years on would present as/ be described as abandonment issues?

Always thought that RAD and attachment issues had everything to do with things like abandonment and neglect.

Comments?

Val

Hi Val

Here is a link to one of many checklists, they are all very similar but I'll find as many as I can and come back to you.

http://www.reactiveattachmentdisordertreatment.com/childattachchecklist.pdf


I have loads of info on RAD/Fledgling Psychopaths and would be happy to search it out for you. I have put quite a bit into the resources section of this forum so you might like to start there.

If you would like to correspond with me personally just let me know. I am involved in a very similar situation to yourself and know how frustrating and lonely it can feel. I have also posted a lot of info about my situation so if you have the time and inclination you could go back over all my posts.

In the meantime please feel free to ask meany questions and I will answer honestly and totally objectively.

Best regards
Jan

**edited to make link clickable, Di
Note: If you click on a members name you can then select the option to view all their posts.

Hi again Val

Here is another link or a checklist.

http://members.tripod.com/~radclass/slide13.html

In answer to your last question, from my experience things get worse not better. I personally don't believe there is such a thing as "healing" although as the child gets older he becomes more adept at covert behaviour and knows exactly how to behave and what to say to get what he wants. Sorry if this sounds negative but it's how it is in my situation.

As for the abandonment issues-my partner's son rejected his mother from birth, nothing she did would settle him so my partner took over. By the time he was 6 years old my partner and his ex had divorced and she had sole custody but the child became unbearable and she told my partner she wanted rid of him so he then got sole custody.

While the child was manipulating him and getting away with it things weren't too bad but as soon as my partner excercised some control then the behaviours became all consuming. I now fully understand how his mother felt when she couldn't cope with him any more.

He is still wetting the bed and he is 14 years old. He is now away at boarding school (he is impossible to live with and resents me totally because I can see right through him and as controlling others is one of the main characteristics of RAD/psychopathy he has to work extremely hard on me).The school have complained that he not only bed wets but does it in other places too and the cleanres refuse to clean up after him. I have a feeling that the school are working up to throwing him out. That's his choice.

As for neglect-his mothet probably wasn't the best mother but what could be called neglegt by her I would argue that from a child's perspective he was spoiled. He was allowed to stay up till the early hours even on a school night, was allowed to watch anything on TV, went evereywhre she went, didn't have to go to school, was never made to wash (still doesn't!) could eat and drink whatever he wanted .....the list goes on.

I will look out those other lists for you but do let me know if there is any other info you are researching. I am in constant contact with Dr Essi Viding and have just had some recent info from her which I must post. If you ever want to get in touch with her directly you can look her up on the internet. She will definitely respond to you.

Best regards
Jan

Hi Jan
Thanks very much for your replies.

It is disturbing to us how well our child scores on these lists, a perfect 10, almost 100%.

In fact at this time I am not in disagreement with you regarding becoming more covert as this is what we have experienced too. We are still hopeful that there is some help out there or that someone may be able to reach him. We have not totally given up but we are close.

Our child steals things that do not even make sense, increasing our feeling that we are being engaged in some sort of game. Stealing, however, is the least of our worries.

He is so charming (presenting himself as much younger than his age). We are starting to accept that he does "well" everywhere except our home. Our home is probably the only place where he is known, realized and challenged.

We have recently become aware that he is capable of sustaining a charming facade for extended period of time, refraining from all out rages but still not complying with toileting or destruction of property issues (probably he is stealing and not getting caught, too). These things appear to be being overlooked/minimalized/ignored by his current caregivers (residential treatment) in favour of promoting his wonderful positive abilities. We never had any doubt the child could work a room.

We remain baffled by his behaviour and feel constantly required to overlook it as it remains unseen and/or unacknowledged by the professionals currently treating him. We consider this to be related more to their inability to treat the diagnosis.

Let's call it ADHD and abandonment issues. Easier than addressing other mental health issues that clearly prevent him from making appropriate choices.

In the past week we became aware that the facility where he is caters primarily to children who are developmentally delayed or suffer from learning disabilities. Neither of which apply to him. We are fearful that he will be thrown back at us with no resolution AND/OR that he is capable of keeping himself underwraps until he is out of the spotlight.

What do you make of the toileting issues? We consider it to be the first expectation that was put to him and, apparently, the last one he intends to fulfill, hence giving him the control and keeping him dominant.

He never talks much but was able to tell us how long it takes a house to burn down a house other day. 7-9 minutes - I think that's what he said - in case you were wondering. Doing some useful research.

I will look through the other threads when I have time and will be in touch.

Thanks again,
Val

Hi Val

My partner’s child scored nearly 100% on all the RAD lists I found, there were some questions I could not answer because unless I had witnessed the behaviour first hand I did not give a positive score.

I soon realised that the checklists for RAD were virtually identical to Dr Hare’s checklist but without the adult behaviours such as recidivism, alcohol/drug abuse and sexual activity.
This then made me realise what the Child Psychologist was inferring when she did not want to give a written diagnosis of RAD. If she had given that diagnosis then she would have to offer treatment but as there is no “cure” there was nothing she could offer and she did say that therapy would make him worse which is exactly what Hare says about adult psychopaths.

I have since had a meeting with Dr Essi Viding and she said RAD is an American euphemism that has been adopted in the UK and psychologists use the term “Children with Psychopathic Tendencies”. She also states the condition is highly heritable. I have posted links to her research at the forum but if you have trouble locating it I will find it for you.

I had to give up on my partner’s kid because it was destroying me as well as my relationship with my partner so the solution was to send him to a state boarding school. It is a normal school but with boarding facilities though they do take kids with behavioural problems. We did not tell the school about R because we thought it would give him a chance for a new and clean start but of course he didn’t take the opportunity and the school complain like hell about him now they know what he is like.
If only this P (my PC won’t even let me write the full word and keeps changing it to ASPD) problem was talked about more openly then we might get some support.

I can relate to what you say, the stealing – I will never understand that. R steals strange things, sometimes worthless things and things he has no use for although he stole a gold wedding ring from our friend’s house. When he steals my things it’s like a game and he often seems to tease me about it by letting me see what he has taken but then swearing on his life someone gave the item to him. It is not always easy to prove conclusively that it actually my belonging so I sometimes don’t even mention I have noticed. I think of the stealing as his way of depriving people rather than a need for the thing itself, or even getting one over on someone.

I find the lying one of the hardest things to deal with, he is so good at it that I often doubt what I know to be true. I can’t bring myself to speak to him anymore because everything he says is false. He can take lying to the ultimate even in the face of the obvious (like saying he has had a haircut….as if we couldn’t tell!!! then spending the money on sweets). He has an insatiable greed for sweets and chocolate.

Charming-well-where do I start? R knows how to play that one and people fall for it although I have to admit I used to because he appeared genuine like a normal person would. He also looks a lot younger than his age so gets away with quite juvenile behaviour and does the “cutesy” act. He can keep it up for as long as it takes to get what he wants but he is still doing all the other things behind our backs.

The bed wetting is something I see no end to as he still does it in the school dormitory with other kids around. He does like to be singled out as “special” but I don’t know whether that applies here. I think it’s more to do with control-it’s one thing we can’t take control of. We have had the faeces smearing a few times but his father and I went ballistic about that and it appears to have stopped but who knows?

There must be loads of other things he does that we just don’t know about, sometimes we think we are the mad ones even suspecting he could be capable of such bizarre behaviours.

R is obsessed with killing but as far as I’m aware only watching it on TV and small insects although when he was younger he played with action figure e.g. Lord of the Rings characters and each time he just laid them all out as though all had been killed in battle with swords/stakes or even cocktail sticks through them. He never had them “converse” like other kids do with dolls they were just there to be killed.

I can’t see a solution for this kid’s behaviour as it’s his choice to be like he is-totally selfish and self obsessed. He obviously knows what behaviour is acceptable because he uses it when he wants something. The more I tried to do for him the worse he got to the point I have nothing to do with him.

That in itself is a strain on my relationship with my partner as I will not have the kid in my house so during the few days he condescends to see his father during school holidays (stays with Gran and more recently with birth mother as he can manipulate them) we have to maintain 2 homes.

R never talks about anything and appears inarticulate but he is not as backward as he makes out. He has a slyness that is quite sophisticated. I have never, ever heard him mention feelings…..either his or anyone else’s. Nor does he discuss the past, dreams, plans or comment on anything of interest/beauty only what he wants to get next and that is anything and everything. He is avaricious and has hissy fits if he doesn’t get what he wants just like a toddler. Even the day his father was collapsing with pain the kid had a tantrum because he wouldn’t take him into the shop they were outside to buy him chocolate----he had seen the huge bar used for display purposes and wanted it. He was 13 at the time!

I have made no secret of the fact that I have allowed myself the luxury of despising this kid and I don’t know if I could honestly say I could ever get to like him IF he did “get better”, he is getting worse as the years go by. That sounds a terrible thing to say about a kid but all psychopaths were once kids.

I don’t mean to bring you down but this is just me being totally honest about my situation, your situation could be different as you are still willing to work on it and obviously have affection for your child.

Best regards
Jan

Hi Jan -
Boy, does your child EVER sound like ours. A photocopy of each other. It is amazing how much they have in common.

You are absolutely right about the dx. of RAD. Where I am they will not give it in writing either. Like I say, they prefer ADHD, ODD, CD, ASPD, CJS (criminal justice system). A doctor actually said that to me once about our child.

His last psychologist actually said she considered him RAD but for the purposes of documentation would put ADHD.

Why diagnose something you cannot treat? It does make sense. But then again the "treatment" for the other stuff ... well ... let's just say the best treatment is probably CJS (criminal justice system).

Professionals relate inappropriate use of toilet directly to CD - especially after age 10, I guess.

I totally sypmathize with you.

Please make no mistake, we have reached a point where our position with the child is you have A, B and C to work on. It is his turn to put in the work. Ability to show progress - actual progress - is what will determine whether or not he will return to our home.

I feel sorry for the child. A child without a childhood. It is quite sad. But you can be sure he does not see it that way. Not for a moment. I have learned that we are mistaken to place/expect normal emotions and reactions from him. His view of the world is quite skewed and based on the primary unilateral transaction of getting what he wants and controlling as much as he can in the process. Sod the rest of ya.

Thanks for your reply, and your support
Val

Hi again, Jan

Regarding lying, you know, we just got to a point where you just did not ask any questions that could illicit a lie response.

What happens then? "I don't know".

Ours is crazy for the sweets too.

In terms of the subtypes of AD ours is a nice match with ambivalent/anxious.

I think somewhere here Di actually mentioned ambivalence without actually calling it that. I believe it was in relation to the mother/child relationship. She mused that she was making no sense but, in fact, she was. It made perfect sense to me in relation to our child, anyway.

Val

Hi Val & Jan...

I feel sorry for you.
I try to treat the subjects together, even though I am well aware that there are differences!

I have seen several kids with similar problems that you describe, only that I didn't see what they were doing, but only the things outside in the World...

But he/she's young... 3 yrs old, I understand?
So many kids are crazy at that age. I was always wondering how kids become like that.
Some of them are really unbearable.

There could be some possibilities to this problem, some issues, I'd list a few maybe some could help...

-> Does anyone tell him stories?
Fairytales have very good educational effect, moralizing effect on kids, he need mroal examples.
-> What does he want to become when he'll get big?
Does he have any dreams, expectations?
-> You say he has fantasies and talks about burning houses, bad, sad things...
Where could he have learned that from? Did he see some ugly movies or a burning house? Maybe it seemed interesting to him, not necessarily bad... He should understand how BAD it is.
-> Did you try to make him connect with other kids?
Some kids wiht troubles beat others up, steal the toys of others and are hysterical... Just asking? Some just have communicational problems... Not necessarily an illness...
-> Can your kid be shy?
Using toilet unappropriately, etc. If I were you, I'd teach him to be really shy, but be carefull, don't make him feel humiliated, aggressed! Don't humiliate him, just ask him how he feels, etc. But don't exaggerate.
If he uses the toilet inappropriately, clean it up with him, show it to him that it's bad.
-> Does he feel loved? Does he give love back?
-> Does he have some favourite POSITIVE hero or example? Like mother, father, etc.?
-> He adores sweets. I understand that he's greedy and "wants to have it all"!
Don't give him anything more than he truly needs. He has to earn it, has to learn to give and some kids jsut learn this the hard way. But make sure he doesn't just fake it.
-> Do people outside the house love him too much and give him too many gifts, which makes him going?
The kid I knew was liek that. Parents would struggle to teach him, while he would profit from the love of others...
-> Does he see verbal fights between people in family?
I think kids who witness divorces, shouts, scandal tend to be more like that. It was the case with the kid I knew.
-> Just a suggestion: don't read too many books abotu illnesses trying to figure out what your kid "has", maybe you're more concerned about the books and specialists, not trying to influence the kid enough.

I know it is hard... and you know your case best.

Don't bring your kid to shrinks, unless it's really necessary.
Looking for a diagnosis might not help. You are actually seeking an illness and not the solution. If they cannot help him, maybe there is no diagnosis.
I read more details about diagnosees/illnesses and shrinks...

Growing kids up, teaching them things is a very hard job.
Please try to take more time, explain to the kid, teach him.
Eventually ask advices on teaching, motivating him, but don't isolate him from the society! And don't bring him to shrinks.

You might just destroy your own young child, who probably has some temporary problems...

A child evolves, it's never over. People become mature by 18-25, some a bit later...
Never close the chapter and say "he's this" or "he's that".
Try understanding what is going on and THINK FOR SOLUTIONS!

I wish al the best to you and your child,

James

...to add another thing:

You said he says he's younger than he actually is.

I'm pretty sure that people showed more love to him when he was smaller and cuter, it is always like that!
We all love 1 year olds more than 3 or sympathize 4 year olds more than 10.

He sees smaller kids in the hands of people and everyone smiles. They smile more than at him. People care more for smalelr kids than for bigger ones...

I think he wants to be more loved.
I'm not saying you should love him more, just make him understand that he's growing...

(this is only my intepretation, I might not be right)

James