Reactive Attachment Disorder World: Life is Never Boring
Emily Simmons days before leaving Russia for her new home in the U.S. Several of my children live in Reactive Attachment Disorder World. We're trying to teach them how to live in…
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Reactive Attachment Disorder
A Very Simple Explanation of Reactive Attachment Disorder
Emily was fifteen when she left her Russian orphanage to join our family and her biological younger sisters. (We had adopted them a year-and-a-half earlier.) The Russian social workers informed us that…
A Mistake Adoptive Parents Never Need to Make Again
As Seen on Huffington Post Oh, I talk the talk. I try to walk the walk. When it comes to difficult circumstances, I always try to focus on what is best for…
Reactive Attachment Disorder Measuring Success
Because some of our children have Reactive Attachment Disorder measuring success is hard to do and that leaves us, as parents, frustrated. My wife sprang a leak. Water ran from both eyes, down…
How to Fix Your Child With a Magic Wand
My oldest daughter hadn’t been home from Russia for a month before we noticed her pointing pencils or other objects at us while contorting her eyes and face. Emily had come from…
Get Close Enough to Help People with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
Psychologists call them triggers. They could be events, objects, sensory stimulations or even words. When a person who has experienced severe trauma is confronted with anything that they have psychologically associated with…
Whoosh! There Went my New Year's Resolution.
Jack and Emily Simmons The road to hell, good intentions… blah blah blah. I had a lot of things I needed maintain, even get ahead on over the next several months because…
Mental Illness Is Like Other Illness
Amy and I have three biological children and six adopted ones in our family. Parenting that many children should clue you in on the fact that there is some mental illness in the home, if…
The Family and Me
I’m John Simmons and this is my family. On the back row we have Steve, Emily and Cory. Middle row: Holly, Amy, me, Sarah and Annie. The front row has Mike, Celeste,…