Wanted: Warm, Loving Parents for Future Homicidal Maniac

The folks at the Amer­i­can Psy­chi­atric Asso­ci­a­tion have added a new wrin­kle to the tro­phy baby competition.

Don’t adopt an African infant.  Avoid the Ori­ent.  That’s old hat.  Everyone’s got one now.   They’re more com­mon in Hol­ly­wood than guru col­leges. And right now is prob­a­bly not a good time to go baby-​​shopping in Haiti.  Bus­loads of babies headed for the fron­tier have left them a lee­tle techy.  But despair not.  You can have your very own future ser­ial killer.  Maybe even a can­ni­bal.  Because there are always going to be par­ents who aren’t quite as lov­ing nor as fear­less as they ought:

Pio­neer­ing in-​​house treat­ments have been devised to help will­ing par­ents learn the most effec­tive way to deal with these self-​​sabotaging chil­dren.  One mother of a RAD child had to learn to ignore her daughter’s chill­ing notes. One the girl taped to the foot of her bed read, “I’m going to slash your throat with a butcher knife.”

Well, hey.  All kids get a lit­tle ram­bunc­tious some­times when they are put out with their par­ents and do things to get even, like glu­ing lit­tle Joanie’s pig­tails together, or dying the dog blue.  Or pout­ing.  Or cut­ting mom’s throat with a butcher knife.

But fear not.   These peo­ple aren’t experts for noth­ing.  They have a solution:

Instead of react­ing neg­a­tively to that [note] as she tucked in the child, the mother learned to say instead: “Yes, I see that. Now, hop into bed. We have to get you off to school in the morning.”

I know I’d cer­tainly be up for a lit­tle tucking-​​in action after get­ting a note like that.  After a thor­ough frisk­ing.  And then I can see read­ing an appro­pri­ate bed time story, like Bar Bar the Ele­phant, or Uncle Wig­gly, or Attila the Hun’s Favorite Pillages.

Some­thing the child could relate to.  And, if some­thing should, say, hap­pen, then there is always Plan B.

… RAD ther­a­pists rec­om­mend remov­ing the chil­dren to a more nur­tur­ing envi­ron­ment. Fos­ter and adop­tive par­ents are often these kids’ best hope.

What WOULD we do with­out experts?  They even gave their new dis­or­der an appro­pri­ate acronym:  RAD.  See for your­self.

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Tags: experts, RAD