03/05/2026
Not all children who push love away are trying to be difficult.
Sometimes they are trying to survive.
I read something today that truly moved me.
I have a very close friend who adopted a child with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), and it is something I’m still learning about. But the fight it takes to raise a child with a condition like this — when all you want to do is show them they are safe, loved, and worthy — is something I cannot even begin to fully imagine.
RAD can develop when a young child experiences severe neglect, abuse, or inconsistent caregiving in their earliest years. When the people who are supposed to love, protect, and comfort a child instead bring fear, instability, or absence, a child’s brain adapts in order to survive. Trust can feel dangerous. Closeness can feel unsafe. Love — something most of us experience as comfort — can actually feel threatening to them.
Children with RAD may push caregivers away, reject affection, sabotage connection, or create chaos because chaos feels familiar. Many appear completely regulated outside the home but unravel within the safety of their family.
It is not simple defiance.
It is not bad parenting.
It is not something solved by stricter rules or softer hugs.
It is a deep survival pattern created in the earliest years of life.
I think about my friend when I read things like this. She has loved this child through more than most people could imagine. Through trauma, struggles, therapies, and incredibly hard seasons. I truly believe that many foster parents might have returned a placement like this within weeks — if not days — simply because of how overwhelming it can be.
But what I admire most about my dear friend is that she never did.
She kept showing up. She kept fighting for this child. She kept loving a precious child who never asked for any of the pain they experienced early in life.
At the end of the day, they wanted what all children want and crave — to feel safe, loved, and protected.
Instead, their early life gave them the opposite.
What struck me most about the story I read was the honesty of parents who spent 13 years fighting for their child — advocating, documenting, attending therapy, calling crisis lines, navigating systems, and pushing for help — only to reach adulthood with a child who still carries wounds that love alone could not fully heal.
That reality is something many people don’t understand.
Trauma doesn’t magically disappear because a child is adopted.
Love doesn’t automatically undo survival patterns that were built for years.
Parents raising children with RAD are fighting battles most people will never see. They are loving fiercely in situations that can be heartbreaking, exhausting, and isolating.
So today I just want to bring a little more awareness to Reactive Attachment Disorder.
If you know a family walking this road, please offer compassion instead of judgment. Many of them are doing everything humanly possible just to help their child feel safe in a world that has already taught them not to trust it.
If you have a moment, please take the time to read the story that moved me so much. The more we understand trauma and conditions like RAD, the better we can support the children and families living it every single day.
In 7 days, our oldest turns 18. Currently, they are incarcerated for a violent criminal conviction and will spend their 18th birthday in a state correctional facility.
Yet, this week, I keep replaying the first day we met.
A park in Crescent City, CA. The social worker walked them toward us. 5 years old. 2 of 9 siblings... and a life that had already required too much survival.
She introduced us.
They looked at us.
And they immediately ran.
At the time, I told myself it was nerves. A big day. A new place. A new family.
It was not nerves.
It was trauma.
Later, we would learn the name for what we were living inside.
Reactive Attachment Disorder, also known as RAD.
RAD can develop when a young child experiences severe neglect, abuse, or wildly inconsistent caregiving in the earliest years of life. The brain adapts to survive. Trust feels dangerous. Closeness feels unsafe. Love does not land as comfort. It can land as threat. Control becomes protection. Pushing people away becomes survival.
A child with RAD often resists attachment to caregivers. They may reject affection. They may sabotage connection. They may create chaos because chaos feels familiar. They can appear charming or regulated outside the home and unravel inside it. They can test loyalty relentlessly.
It is not simple defiance.
It is not a parenting failure.
It is not solved by stricter rules or softer hugs.
It is a survival pattern built early and carved deep.
And it is under researched. Poorly understood. Frequently minimized. Especially in systems already stretched thin.
They ran that first day in the park.
And in many ways, they have been running ever since.
Not always with their feet.
Sometimes emotionally.
Sometimes relationally.
Sometimes from accountability.
Sometimes from the very safety we were trying to build.
Before anyone assumes we were unprepared, hear this clearly.
We did not walk into foster care casually.
In both Oregon and California, we were considered strong foster parents. The kind agencies trusted with complex placements. We mentored other foster families. We supported parents working toward reunification. We did the trainings. We did the therapy homework. We partnered with caseworkers. We believed in the system enough to keep trying to work with it.
We were prepared for hard.
We were not prepared for what RAD can do inside a home.
For 13 years, we did what you are told to do.
We documented.
We reported.
We called crisis lines.
We sat in waiting rooms.
We pushed for higher levels of care.
We navigated county mental health.
We navigated juvenile court.
We navigated state systems.
We were told to call 988.
We were told it was not severe enough.
Then we were told it was too severe.
We were told there were no beds.
We were told to try again next month.
Over and over.
More than 1 professional inside the system told us privately, “You have done everything you can.”
Everything.
And still, in 7 days, they turn 18.
They have made it clear they want no contact. No celebration. No parents present. We are going to respect that.
But I will not pretend it does not hurt.
Because there is something uniquely painful about spending 13 years fighting for a child’s safety and stability and then being told you are not wanted in their adulthood.
Here is the truth people do not say out loud.
18 is an accomplishment.
There were seasons when survival did not feel guaranteed. If you have ever lived in the constant stress of a child in deep crisis, you understand that without explanation.
So today I feel 2 things at once.
Relief that they made it to 18, alive.
Grief for the family story we thought we were building.
Foster care is not clean.
Adoption is not a tidy redemption arc.
Trauma does not evaporate because paperwork becomes permanent.
Sometimes love looks like advocacy.
Sometimes love looks like boundaries.
Sometimes love looks like letting go while still hoping.
In 7 days, our oldest turns 18.
And even with everything that has happened, I can say this clearly.
We showed up.
We fought.
We asked for help.
We stayed.
We did not quit.
I do not know what adulthood will bring for them.
Our hope is one day they decide they will be able to stop running, even for a moment…
