Parenting bipolar children and teens is tough. It requires a lot of patience, flexibility, creativity, forgiveness, the ability to forget, the capacity to always be teaching, the willingness to always be learning, sensitivity, stamina, openness, firmness, gentleness, empathy, physical strength, mental strength, emotional strength, and the capacity to provide an outpouring of unconditional love beyond what you ever thought you were capable of giving.
In other words, it requires therapeutic parenting.
There are other groups of children that require this same type of parenting. One of these groups is children with Reactive Attachment Disorder, or RAD. Typically these children have been adopted and the attachment disorder comes from the early childhood trauma they experienced before being with their adoptive family. With that, there are some very distinct differences between bipolar children and RAD children and by no means am I implying that children with bipolar disorder have RAD. In fact, if anything I know my son is very attached (he is mine by birth) and has a great deal of separation anxiety when he is away from me too long. However, interestingly, a lot of the behaviors that these two groups of kids display can be similar and more importantly the parenting techniques required in many of the circumstances presented by the two groups of kids are also similar. Because of this, I enjoy reading some blogs of families dealing with RAD as I can really relate to and empathize with many of the situations they encounter.
Some of the blogs I enjoy the most are:
http://www.welcometomybrain.net
http://www.watchingthewaters.com/
http://waldenbunch.blogspot.com/
http://goldtorefine.blogspot.com
http://peaceinpuzzles.blogspot.com/
Check them out.
2 Comments
My daughter is diagnosed with both early onset bipolar and reactive attachment disorder. She has also endured serious, multiple traumas in her life. So, I can throw in that I totally agree with you, that the approach to address behavioral issues that arise is very similar. Thank goodness for that! If I had to be combining any more and trying to straddle any more tightropes I would blow!
my son is also adopted and started out with attachment problems (not as severe as RAD). this is something that a lot of people ask me about. how do i know it’s not an adoption issue, or RAD? you are right that there are lots of overlapping symptoms, but there are distinct differences. and those main differences are the ones that count. my son falls very clearly in the BP category and doesn’t have the key RAD symptoms. for that I’m glad. this is from my one sided window in the world but it seems harder to raise a RAD child than bipolar. i could be wrong, but that’s what i gather from reading RAD blogs. but like you, i read them from time to time. we do endure similar behaviors. and the parenting styles are similar in some ways; picking battles, lowering expectations, keeping stimulus down, natural consequences, etc. Interesting.