Few things in life totally gobsmack me anymore. I have come to the cynical conclusion that there are just some really horrible people out there in this world and you deal with it and move on. Until this afternoon, while reading my daily dose of my favorite blog Rage Against the Minivan, and came across a post from an adult who was in the foster care system. She mentioned two names, one of them Angellika Arndt. So I googled the name and and found this A Search For Survivors – In Memorium. Here’s a picture of this sweet child, who’s life was taken at just 7 years old:

Those of you who know me, know that I instantly thought of my precious Sadie Rose when I saw this picture. The resemblance is striking and even though I was shocked by what I had read about the deaths of the 14 children in the story above her, I lost the plot when her picture scrolled up on my screen.

We have an EPIDEMIC in this country and we all must help do something about it. I had previously heard of RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) I didn’t realize there were actually people out there doing crazy therapies to “cure” it and often times, killing kids in the process! Children have died at or because of therapies taught at the Attachment Center at Evergreen, yet they are still open and have a web site showing happy families. How can this be? There are people out there trying to make people aware of places like this, such as QuackWatch and this is the outcome of a law that has passed called Candace’s Law, named after a 10 year old girl who died at the hands of 2 therapists at the above named “Center”. They were found guilty and sent to prison.

My question is this… how can this STILL be going on. How can this STILL be an acceptable type of therapy? And when you read the stories at A Search for Survivors, many of these kids died at the hands of the foster/adoptive parents that were supposedly “saving” them from their alleged horrible biological parents. Most of them had learned this Attachment Therapy from therapists or from books like this one: Martha Welch’s Holding Time and Ronald Federici’s Help for the Hopeless Child. The only holding a parent should do is hugging, with love and intention and with the PERMISSION of the child.

I was wondering what I was going to do when I came back to the States. I think I may have found what it is. Working with families to learn ATTACHMENT PARENTING not ATTACHMENT THERAPY. I have no idea where to begin, but I’m going to start working on it now.

I recognize that kids that have been in the system, abused, ignored, neglected, thrown away have BIG problems, but I can’t even begin to see where traumatizing them even more can have any positive effect, whatsoever.

Thanks for reading!

One more picture of Angellika:

And here’s one of Sadie Rose: