I had never heard of the WRETCHED Network or Todd Friel before yesterday, but now a video he recorded has gone viral in the adoption community. As anything viral, it evokes strong emotions; However, this video has been rather polarizing. Folks either really identified with it or found it untrue and offensive.
Todd’s delivery is drippy and sarcastic which is why I think viewers will react so viscerally. He is down right obnoxious. However, there is more truth than not in what he’s saying which is why it’s worth the watch. I’ve included my commentary below the video.
First, I have no idea what “yesterday’s” program contained. A basic search of his blog didn’t turn up anything.
An issue that accompanies every adoption.
This small phrase seemed to ruffle the most feathers. While getting a clinical diagnoses of Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) is not common, I consider attachment disorder a spectrum and present in some way, shape, or form in E.V.E.R.Y. child who has lost a primary caregiver. Regardless, don’t get hung up here. That’s not his point.
They [child] always need to be in control because they’ve always had to be in control.
Children from hard places definitely need to control things. However, it’s more about a maladaptive way to create felt safety than how he explains it throughout the video.
Reason #1: Full disclosure
As I mentioned above, every child who has lost a primary caregiver (even at birth) will suffer from attachment challenges. More importantly, statistically, more than 60% of children will have trouble adjusting and relating moderately to severely. The probability is that the behaviors he listed will more than likely effect an adoptive/foster family. While there are no guarantees of this, a family must be fully willing to check the “box” for every. single. one. of the listed behaviors. If they don’t present, GREAT! However, if agencies let families think that they can get away relatively unscathed (as they have been for decades), the results of damaging for everyone (as we’re seeing play out now with hundreds of disruptions).
Reason #2: Call to Churches
This is one of the few places I have seen the church called out so bluntly. It’s why we started the Grafted. The only part I take issue with is that it ends when the child leaves your home or that it will only take sacrificing weekends and money.
Not every person is equipped to parent an adoptive child.
We certainly weren’t. Moreover, families generally find themselves isolated and without the support network they need to fully address the needs of a child from a hard place. #churchfail. Also, living with traumatized kids will dig up any emotional dirt you thought you had buried making YOU reactive.
They want chaos out of you because that brings them peace.
This can be true, but is not always the case. Some kids want chaos because they are chemically addicted to cortisol and other stress hormones and chaos helps them get their “high.” Additionally a lot of kids are not necessarily after chaos as much as they are out to emotionally manipulate and control you. Remember, that all the “bad” and “scary” things that have happened in their lives (i.e., moving around, changing countries, watching a parent die) made them feel extremely OUT of control. In turn, they believe if they can be in control at ALL times, they can stop more bad and scary things from happening.
Shoe example. So true.
He missed some zeros. Try 752 MILLION times!
The Symptoms
Disclaimer: Rather than taking this as a list of “official” symptoms toward a clinical diagnoses of RAD, hear this as the list of behaviors every perspective family should fully expect. Any you don’t experience is a “win.” It’s much better than seeing each as a “loss” as they start to appear. While I know not every child has all, all have at least a few.
In our house, our older kids have all but 2 and Ty has had more than half. He nailed some of these so accurately. It was kind of like he’s been hanging out in our house. We laughed until we cried. It felt so great to have a voice for families like ours. There were some thoughts I had along the way…
#15. Cruelty to Animals On the flip side, animals can be therapeutic to kids who have trouble attaching to people.
Return from commercial break. So true. If anyone had remotely shown that they had done some research into what our family might be experiencing and had cracked that door open, they would have gotten a flood from me. Yes, we showed up regularly at church looking together, but we were silently drowning while the entire church looked on and even gushed over that cute, multi-cultural family that always paraded in and sat in the second row. And, NO, we’re not going to REALLY tell you how it is in front of THE KIDS.
#9. Poor peer relations. Generally just poor social skills (unless they’re wooing an adult as per #20 and #19). This is also not the only reason these kids struggle in school, but that’s an entire post in and of itself.
#5. Persistent nonsense & chatter. Attention vs. attachment. A phenomenal distinction. Our kids definitely want our attention on their terms and without actual attachment or relationship.
#2. False allegations of abuse. I know a family walking through this right now. It’s debilitating every time I really stop to think about it because we know it could happen at any time to us. I just keep singing Psalty’s I Cast All My Cares Upon You.
I certainly will never deny we have joyful times or that we see breakthroughs in our kids. However, we are not linearly moving forward, and it is easy to doubt if the light at the tunnel will ever appear this side of heaven. With 18 of the 20 listed “symptoms” assaulting us 24/7, it’s a spiritual discipline to keep getting out of bed every morning and to keep remembering that we believe in God’s providence and sovereignty and greater purpose. We press on.
As a mother of three adopted children with RAD, I can say from my own experience, Todd is not making this up. His very direct information is very real and needed for people who think about adopting. We dealt with social services and a well meaning therapeutic foster care agency. We knew some about RAD and had training. We knew enough to request no RAD children. In the past 12 years we were given three.
Social Services did not honestly disclose information about the first two children. They said to us “No behavioral problems”. Being the people we are we could not re-home them. Plus we have an abnormally high tolerance. So we have gone through much hurt, and a twelve year nightmare.
Our third adoptee was different, From the beginning, a different Social Services office was very honest with us. They gave full disclosure. We adopted the third child only under the agreement that this agency would give us total support of services until she was eighteen. We knew what it takes to help these children and we knew we could not do this alone. We agreed only under those conditions to adopt. One year after the promise almost all services were taken away. The state would not even consider a 50 page report why we needed case management, There is more to this story.
To some Todd may come across strong. This is a ridiculous judgement. If you have gone through what we and many people we know go through every day risking the safety of their home, families, their health, their marriages and their own emotional and psychological health, you would not think he is he is coming across strong enough.
RAD is serious business.
As I was attaching the video and then read your take on it, I too kept thinking that Todd has invisibly walked through our home. I have seen almost all the signs of RAD as listed by him. Our psychologist gave her a primary diagnosis of ADHD but not RAD. We are now ADHD meds. I am wondering if I should discuss RAD with the doctor and try EMDR and/or neurofeedback. Our kids have gone through a deep rooted psychological trauma. I am feeling such a sigh of relief knowing that there are others in the same boat as me. She is our only one and we love her to death. Hopefully she will understand this someday.
Namita, For professionals not familiar with the effects of complex developmental trauma, they often pigeon hole our kids into the incorrect diagnosis. This chart may be helpful. http://come-over.to/FAS/PDF/OverlappingCharacteristics.pdf.
Such great wisdom in your commentary. I watched the video when it was shared a lot, but couldn’t bring myself to endorse it. And I love that you bring up RAD as a spectrum. Not all children have every symptom and not every symptom is severe Thank you, I will share this article on FB rather then just the video!
Thanks, Jenni!
Thank you for writing this response! So true for us – my DD does not have ALL of the symptoms he listed, but quite a few. Friends and family don’t see it because she is so charming with them. If I had known more, I still would not have been ‘prepared’ in the emotional sense. Not sure that it would be possible to truly prepare, except for having experience directly with it.
We have started EMDR therapy recently and are seeing amazing results with that. Neurofeedback is another therapy that is able to touch the areas of the brain that are inaccessible through normal ‘talk’ therapy. We’ve seen immediate, positive changes as a result…thank you again for being willing to talk about this openly!
We have a PJ at our house, too! We’ve also used EMDR. I’ve been looking into neurofeedback as well. Best wishes, Melissa.
I wish my child did not have so many of the symptoms. It’s true that most adopted children will not get an official diagnosis of RAD, but they will display some to many of these symptoms at some point in the process. When professionals and well-meaning people downplay RAD and claim it is overused it hurts all adoptive families. It is also hard that our adopted children can only take tiny steps in healing, and the dreams of family bonding time, snuggled together watching movies, etc fall so far from reality b/c our adopted kids can only take affection in the tiniest of bits.
I have some very similar feelings about the video and I blogged about it, too! I always find your posts so interesting and helpful. Thanks so much for all the great info you give!
Your post was a good read as well!
Melissa, this is so phenomenal… You have answered it so perfectly, I was cheering as I read each word. Our girl exhibits more than half of the “symptoms.” I love her to pieces and people do think its “sweet” what we are doing, but this video delivers some “truth” that others might need to hear. THANK YOU for your words!
Courtney, I was hoping that our friends and family would be able to watch the video but wanted some disclaimers to go with it 😉 It’s affirming that my reactions connected with you as well.