Essie Johnson

Parenting Pandora: Understanding Your Child with Reactive Attachment Disorder Essie Johnson

Publisher Marketing: Why doesn't traditional parenting work for children with Reactive Attachment Disorder? What drives their obsession with control? What would make things better? Parenting an adopted child with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) is often a daily struggle with incomprehensible behavior. The child can be controlling and manipulative, with lengthy and intense tantrums. They do not seem to learn from consequences, making it appear they have no sense of cause and effect. Traditional parenting techniques backfire. Things typical children respond to immediately will either not have an effect, or will escalate a child with RAD. Parents feel it is their fault. They are overwhelmed and exhausted, with good reason. Parenting Pandora explores what motivates children with RAD, and how to use it to gain positive changes. It explains why standard parenting recommendations do not work and how the child perceives them. Practical tips and unconventional strategies for approaching common issues are described, as well as techniques to neutralize controlling behavior. Written by a mom who obsessively sought answers. Finding little more than vague concepts and ineffective or unrealistic techniques, she tried hundreds, possibly thousands, of ways to make things better for her daughter. With a little sarcasm and a little humor, she wrote down what she discovered.