In spending the last ten years parenting several children with Reactive Attachment Disorder, I see five basic reasons for why they engage in RAD sabotage.

Oh, What I’d Give for a Birthday Party Without a Meltdown

It’s not just birthday parties. My children who suffer from Reactive Attachment Disorder sabotage everything. Sometimes the detail they put into a planned destruction could rival army demolition engineers’ carefully calculated placements of explosives on a railway bridge. I call it RAD sabotage.

Smashing their own birthday cake fifteen minutes before the party is a perfect RAD sabotage, engineered to manipulate a situation by transforming the good intentions of parents into hostility.

The first reason we see for RAD sabotage in our family is for control. Because my children came from unsafe environments, they learned that things were often safer if they were in control. With actions, they could influence reactions that they had directed, themselves. When someone else was causing actions and reactions, my children had no idea what might happen, And because so much of what happened was bad, if they were instigating the actions and reactions around them, at least they had some idea of what the response might be. Also, control is power. When my children with Reactive Attachment Disorder are in control, they feel power. When anyone has set up something for fun, enjoyment or success, the easiest way to take control is to tear it down. Smashing their own birthday cake fifteen minutes before the party is a perfect RAD sabotage, engineered to manipulate a situation by transforming the good intentions of parents into hostility.

In circumstances of an overload of people or emotion, our family can count on at least one of our children utilizing RAD sabotage to cut an event short.

Overload is another trigger for RAD sabotage that we see in our family. Our children who have Reactive Attachment Disorder are hypervigilant. It was developed as a survival skill from a time when their well-being, if not their lives, were repeatedly in danger. They watch everything. They “feel” everything. They sense everything, waiting for the slightest sign that there could be danger. In situations that involve many people in our homes (or even worse, away from our homes) the children feel like they don’t have the ability to watch the environment closely enough to keep themselves safe. In circumstances of an overload of people or emotion, our family can count on at least one of our children utilizing RAD sabotage to cut an event short.

The third trigger for RAD sabotage kicks in and they cause the failure to achieve a win rather than waiting for it to fail; which would deliver a feeling of loss.

Sometimes momentum and history play along with Reactive Attachment Disorder and sabotage. We have had so many failures when it comes to great events like holidays and celebrations that I really believe our children often feel like failure in these circumstances is inevitable. I sense that often, my children are afraid that an event will fail whether they are the ones who instigate the collapse or not. And if they are not the ones in control of the demise, the third trigger for RAD sabotage kicks in and they cause the failure to achieve a win rather than waiting for it to fail; which would deliver a feeling of loss. Loss is something children from Reactive Attachment Disorder have experienced far too much and they can hardly bear it.

By using RAD sabotage to ruin events, cause anger, instigate fighting, or simply to cause discord, many of the feelings of developing attachment are nipped in the bud and the child is able to return to a level of weak attachment, where they feel less vulnerable and more comfortable.

The fourth bringer of RAD sabotage in our home is stopping attachment. Often when things are going the best, one of our children with Reactive Attachment Disorder throws a broom handle through the spokes of the family. Such RAD sabotage is by deliberate intent. When things are going well, these children begin to feel themselves attaching. Nothing could scare them more. They realize that they are beginning to love their family so much that they couldn’t bear to lose them. By using RAD sabotage to ruin events, cause anger, instigate fighting, or simply to cause discord, many of the feelings of developing attachment are nipped in the bud and the child is able to return to a level of weak attachment, where they feel less vulnerable and more comfortable.

When jealousy gets involved, RAD sabotage is unleashed to destroy happiness for himself and anyone around him.

The reason for RAD sabotage that breaks my heart the most is the fifth cause I notice. One of my children was in an orphanage because both of his first parents elected to end their lives. Every day, that child deals with the pain of wondering why he wasn’t good enough or important enough for his first parents to decide to keep living. Of course my son isn’t old enough to realize adult stresses and pressures, and realize that it had nothing to do with him. But even as he ages, I have a nagging suspicion that he will always beat himself up and wonder if things would have been different had he been or done something better. Often my son feels like he isn’t worthy of happiness or celebration. He feels that if he wasn’t good enough to keep his first parents alive, he incorrectly reasons, he doesn’t deserve to be happy. Worse, as my child feels the pain from his own unhappiness, he often allows his agonizing frustration to cause jealousy with others who are happy. When jealousy gets involved, RAD sabotage is unleashed to destroy happiness for himself and anyone around him.

RAD sabotage is so common with Reactive Attachment Disorder. And even though it is common, RAD sabotage is complex. I think we need to understand the multiple reasons our children use it before we can begin to work at turning the table to undermine RAD sabotage.

This is my favorite video about RAD. But I’m a guy who likes to know, why.

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