Chapter 6 - "N" is for Neutrality & Non-Defensiveness
When one understands that the child’s goal is control of others and of situations, it’s easier to see that when they are acting out, they are often trying to manipulate others’ emotions and reactions. If they can make the parent/caregiver mad, then they are the “puppet master” of sorts and can bend the situation in the direction they want it to go. If the parent/guardian (in cases of children with RAD it is usually the mother figure) becomes angry, frustrated, or vents about the child’s behaviors with others in a non-productive manner, the child likely becomes overlooked, and they might not receive a consequence for the thing that caused the reaction in the first place. It becomes more about the parent’s emotions and responses than the child’s actions. Parents/guardians need to channel their emotions into a neutral space so that they can calmly focus on the action.
The better you can remove your own emotions from the equation, the clearer you will see the child’s behavior and be able to ascertain their goal, which is to get what they want. Remember from Chapter 4, “I want what I want when I want it” is a child’s natural instinct, and children generally have less patience than adults. Some children have learned through experience (often unconsciously) that they can get what they want in the short term by creating chaos. It is much easier to give in to this chaos in the moment to placate the child, but the message sent when that is the reaction the parent/caregiver has chosen is that the child has the control. If they tantrum for 5 to 10 minutes before you give in, the lesson is they need to tantrum for that long. If the next day you can hold out for 30 minutes before giving in, they now know they have to scream, cry, and fight for longer. And then longer. This becomes the pattern of the day, with them constantly testing to see how long your patience lasts.
Because RAD kids tend to think of themselves as victims and prefer to blame others, it is vastly important to set a boundary and expectation where they are held accountable for their choices and actions. It can boil down to semantics, but when parents “take” things away from their kids, they are automatically the villain in the story, and then in the child’s mind they become the victim. If things are taken for a length of time, the child likely forgets why they have lost the item or privilege but hangs onto the fact that the parent has done something mean to them, so they are at fault and not the child. They have forgotten the “why” of it all and that the consequence was a result of their choices. It also becomes problematic because there’s no real reason for the child to “do better” until closer to the time the privilege or item is to be returned. If there are going to be no electronics until next Saturday, there is no real reason to improve until Saturday morning.
I prefer the carrot approach where everything is earned. If the child makes good decisions on Monday, then they have privileges on Tuesday and so on. If a mistake is made, there can be a short period of time where the child doesn’t enjoy the privilege, but work can begin immediately to earn it back. The younger the child, the shorter the time frame and then it can be extended as the child gets older and better at following the rules. In general, I think that preschoolers only need a few minutes, elementary age can handle a half hour to an hour and tweens and teenagers can wait until the next day before they are rewarded. It’s also okay to develop timeframes on a case-by-case basis. If the child can turn their behavior around fairly immediately, I believe this should be recognized and rewarded fairly immediately.
This fluid time frame not only allows the parent to “catch” the child being good, but it doesn’t require remembering to put stars on charts or to track the behavior inorganically. RAD kids don’t do particularly well with typical rewarding behaviors systems if it takes too long to earn the reward. Also, as mentioned earlier, they sadly don’t always believe they deserve the reward. If a teacher tells a RAD kid on Monday that there will be a pizza party on Friday they can attend if they get a star every day, that child will get a star on Monday through Thursday and then will often do something to sabotage themselves on Friday morning so they will not be able to attend the party, taking the victim stance. It is better to keep prompting and giving smaller rewards throughout the process, instead of focusing on one main thing at the end of a lengthier time frame.
Neutrality is important because it doesn’t give the child clues to how you are reacting to them. And since these kids often target the mother-figure, they can be very cruel and hurtful. Showing them that they have landed their mark with their hurtful comment or targeted behavior only gives them the incentive they need to keep up this behavior. Becoming defensive will only play into their subconscious tactics. Let me be clear here that I believe this to be more instinctive than planned by the child. I’m not suggesting they sit in their rooms with a checklist of how to be controlling, it’s that they have learned that method to be their preferred manner of being successful. Remember, they feel they need to have control over others.
There is no doubt that it’s easy to get angry and frustrated at a child who is trying to get under your skin; it’s just important that they don’t see that they might be succeeding. Give an award-winning performance and be a parent who is going to go about the task of parenting without allowing the child to see the chinks in the armor. Don’t react. Instead, be a gray rock. Then, when the child is not present, process the day with your partner, an adult family member, or your counselor/therapist. My own personal strategy in those situations was to pretend a reality show that my family was starring in was being filmed, i.e. if I didn’t want it to be heard or seen by a national audience, I did not react. You can count, sing songs, or do any number of calming or distracting things in your head.
You should let the child know you see and hear them, but this is not the way to get a reaction. For example, “I can see that you are very upset right now and when you quiet down, we can talk about what a good job you did with your breathing and to calm yourself down.” When they do, be sure to notice this and give affirmation that they did great, and you are so proud of them. Ask if they are proud of themselves and take a moment to ask them how they did it, so they can be sure to replicate that positive action in the future. You are role modeling the behavior you’d like them to use when they are away from home and interacting with others.
These same techniques help kids who are bullied in school. If they let the bully know that their arrow has landed, then the bully will keep up the campaign of terror because of the success they are having. When a child is able to not react, but instead act as if they don’t care, the bully will need to move on because they are not getting the reaction they yearn for, and the entertainment and satisfaction to them is gone. More often than not, the bully is likely another child who has some RAD traits, so they bore easily and like creating drama. Another point is that many of these kids come from chaotic birth homes so that environment of ever-present chaos becomes their comfort level. It is their status quo. For most of us, peace and serenity are the goals and our comfort zone, but for many of these kids that same peace is boring and dull so this needs to be taken into consideration when we see them acting out and choosing a complicated outcome rather than a simple one, whether at home, school, or other locations.
An example of how neutrality can be shown to work is the number of RAD kids who do well in school. While some may not, many children with RAD benefit and thrive in situations where the teacher always speaks calmly and doesn’t get too invested in the child’s behavior. The child can be sent to the office if they aren’t listening, but the teacher doesn’t have to feel completely hopeless because essentially, they get to go home at the end of the day. I’m not saying teachers don’t care; they absolutely do, but they are going to be more neutral than someone who can get too enmeshed because they feel completely responsible as a parent would.
Caregivers should know that if extensive damage has been done in the child’s early life, it will be because of their steadfastness if the child can grow to be a successful adult. The earlier we can intervene with methods and tactics that create better behaviors and habits, the better outcomes we can see in their adult lives.
