God's RADlets

Some of my children have attachment disorder (reactive attachment disorder to be exact). We just simply call it RAD and our children who have it....RADlets:)

Children with RAD have not learned the love and trust cycle that most learn by the time they are three. You know....the child needs something so he cries, then mommy hears him and gives him what he needs. Some of our children came from foster care and were tossed from family member to family member before they entered "the system". Then they were tossed from foster home to foster home. There was no stable person in their life to teach them love and trust so they live life trying to make it on their own. We live life trying to give them what they missed out on when they were babies.

The behaviors our RADlets learned---lying, steeling, manipulating, cheating, fighting, hoarding etc.... kept them alive in the neglectful homes and institutions they were in but those are also the behaviors that keep them from attaching to a REAL family.

Those RAD behaviors can get really ugly at times which is why I was offended when I read an article that suggested that we are God's RADlets. It compared us to children who have not fully attached to our Father. "How can that be?" I thought, "I am not like that!" but then I reread the symptom list of RAD and was humbled.

Those with RAD are:
*superficially charming----some may call if being fake but we're not like that are we?
*controlling----OK, now you're getting personal! Yes, I do try to control things instead of turning it over to God.
*argumentative-----we would never argue with God now would we? or argue with God's other children about the Bible, TV shows, the carpet in the church building?!?
*hyper-active, yet lazy at performing tasks-----busy but non productive. Sound familiar?
*frequent tantrums of rage-----how many of us have silent adult tantrums when we don't get our way?
*constant chatter----if this weren't true God wouldn't have had to remind us to "Be still and know that I am God"
*hording----my kids hoard food, instead of trusting that we will give it to them, is there anything we hoard because we don't trust that God will provide it for us?
*have an attitude of entitlement----does this apply? Don't we sometimes think we deserve God's blessings because we have been a good Christian for so long?!
*fascination with blood, gore, fire, evil, etc...I would say...sin-----we too have a fascination with sin. We sometimes try to get as close to that line as we can without going over it. Sin is fun for a time....if it weren't we wouldn't be drawn to it.
So.....are you one of God's RADlets? I will leave it up to you to decided for yourself. I will have to say that I am, like it or not. But trying to learn attachment and love from my Father as I teach attachment and love to my children.