From: https://www.socialworkhelper.com/2014/10/08/children-experience-early-childhood-trauma-just-get/​

Humans are relatively adaptable beings which is why we are thriving and not dying out like other species. Horrendous disasters such as the Philippines typhoon, the Boxing Day Tsunami, the nuclear disaster in Japan, the major wars of our time, and horrific famines see great suffering, but these events also inspires survival through adaptation. It turns out we possess a strong survival mechanism in our brains directly linked to our bodies, fight, flight, freeze, flop and friend (fffff).
In fact, the survival part of our brain, which is primitive yet effective, is the first to develop in utero starting at around 7 weeks. It regulates our breathing, digestive system, heart rate and temperature, along with the ‘fffff’ system which operates to preserve our life.
If we have to dodge a falling object, jump out of the path of a speeding car, keep very still to avoid being seen, run for the hills from a predator, or get someone potentially threatening ‘onside’ we need this to happen fast. If a baby is scared, cold, hungry, lonely, or in any way overwhelmed this triggers their survival system and they cry to bring an adult to them to help them survive.
If a baby is repeatedly scared and emotionally overwhelmed and they do not get their survival brain soothed, so they can cope, they begin to develop a brain and bodily system which is on hyper alert and the World seems to be a scary place. Sadly, this not something they can ‘just grow out of’. Far from it as what neuroscience is showing us from all the recent findings. An early experience has a profound effect on the way in which a child’s brain forms and operates as the survival brain is on over drive and senses threat everywhere so works too hard, too often, for too long.
Babies and young children systems are flooded with potent stress hormones which help in the event of needing the 5 fffff’s, but they are not good to have at high levels for too long. Imagine the feeling when you truly believe you have lost your wallet with all your cards and money in. You feel a bit faint, your brain is whirring, your heart racing, breathing is shallow, and you may get the urge to empty your bowels or bladder. Hopefully, this may only lasts for the usual 45 minute cycle for those who are not traumatised.
Then stress hormone levels drop and you can think more clearly and resume your day fairly unscathed. What if you are 4, 9 or 15 years old though, how will you cope, especially as your repetitive early childhood trauma of living with domestic violence, unavailable or rough carers, chaos and unpredictability has left you traumatised?
As I referred to at the start, humans are amazingly adaptable in order to survive, although not necessarily thrive. So a child’s system adapts to get whatever basic needs met it can and to live to the next moment, think soldier in a war zone kind of survival. In an abusive environment this will make sense but it is not something a child can just stop doing as their survival brain is in charge and has to do what it has learnt to keep them alive.
The kinds of survival behaviours they commonly develop are:
Regression
Presenting as helpless may have made carers frustrated, even angry and rough with them but will mean they sometimes had to touch a child who presented as unable to say get dressed or wipe their bottom or feed themselves – this can look like immaturity and ‘babyish’ behaviour in an 8 year old but it has previously served a purpose
Being held and touched kindly is a basic human need and tragically children in Romanian orphanages who were not, died. Almost ‘pathetically’ children often devise ways which can seem strange, given their age and previous capabilities, to get some physical contact, even if it’s unpleasant
Children often learn to survive by being ‘like a baby’ as they have either learnt that baby’s get more kindness and attention or have some inbuilt ‘memory’ of this – this can be negatively viewed as regression yet is often an expression of trust in carers as they feel safe enough post abuse to seek out kindness from them so it needs gentle handling and holding until the child is ready to move on. Imagine you had never experienced physical closeness and gentle touch but were driven to seek it out, that takes real courage.
Dramatic reactions
When a child is in the ‘I’ve lost my keys’ panic state most of the day, it’s like a pan boiling on the stove and the smallest extra heat causes it to boil over
The survival brain leaps into action at the slightest thing, an accidental shove from another child, a small scratch on the arm, a lost pencil, a ‘look’ from another child and the 5 fffff’s are triggered, for most children that’s flight but if cornered and unable to escape, or previously over used, it will be fight
Children may cry more readily and for much longer and louder as they do not have the ability to self soothe or to be soothed easily as their brain has not been exposed to this and is not wired that way so telling them to ‘calm down’ is of no use
They are feeling things as deeply as they seem to be at this point and are not just ‘attention seeking’
Disassociation
Disassociation or ‘zoning out’ is another way the brain and body copes with high levels of potentially toxic stress hormones for overly long periods. It can also be a learnt survival strategy, submit, switch off and wait for the frightening, painful, incomprehensible act to be over. This ability to switch off can look like defiance or non-compliance as a child may just stare ahead and not respond to requests from adults
Children cannot continuously cope with the muscle tension, nausea, thudding heart, racing thoughts so finding something to fixate on to soothe them can become a great coping strategy and again will look as if they are being non-compliant whereas they are escaping from their trauma the only way they know how.
How long until they do ‘get over it?’
It’s a fair question as why it’s so hard for traumatised children to trust caring adults. If they were removed from the abuse and trauma as a baby or even directly after birth, surely they should not be having these dramatic reactions?
Going back to our survival part of our brain, this is not designed to be the dominant part of anyone’s brain as we also have an emotional memories part and a thinking, reasoning, socially able cognitive part which should mostly be ‘in charge’. All three areas are interlinked and share info back and forth all the time but mostly we need to think before we act and then we do better. However, if your start in life has made your survival brain ‘hyper alert’ then to manage this is like repeatedly trying to get a squirrel into a matchbox!
Children need us to be calm, kind, to use rhythm, patience and to try to step into their world and emotional state and show empathy.As practitioners it can be helpful to research ways of supporting traumatised children, pushing for appropriate training and most importantly being very aware of the extra strain that comes with working with and caring for traumatised children. However, with the right long term acceptance, kindness and support children can get a better chance at eventually being able to manage their reactive survival brain which has, after all, got them this far.

This is a very good article on RAD.  A must read for anyone considering adoption.  Even with you adopt a baby, your baby can be effected by RAD.  You very well may not notice it at first, but as the child gets older,  symptoms start popping up.  And by the time you hit the preteen or teenage years....RAD may be rearing its ugly head and you may be pulling your hair out.  It is so important to educate yourself.  It is key to your families survival.   It is key for ANYONE adopting to understand RAD, so that you can make special effort to help your child bond and attach from the earliest age that you have them, which can ultimately lesson the effects on RAD at an older age.   This is not to be taken lightly.  RAD can turn your whole family's life upside down.

Original link  http://mommyhood-shivonne-costa.squarespace.com/the-blog/2015/6/26/my-kids-have-rad

My older two kids have RAD. 
            RAD stands for Reactive Attachment Disorder. What this means, in short, is that when they were babies through age 3, their needs were not met. They weren’t held a lot, nurtured enough, they were left to cry for large amounts of time, and, in my son’s case, he also had failure to thrive due to not being fed or given medical care. When these things occur, parts of the brain just simply don’t develop. RAD is, in a sense, a form of brain damage, as these parts of the brain only develop during the early years of a child’s life and cannot re-form later on. 
            How does this impact their lives today? Well, basically it affects the way they interact with others, the way they reason things out, how they process emotions, and the overall attachments they experience with people, things, places, etc. This type of diagnosis is seen a lot in adoptive or foster children. Growing up with parents of addiction who may have been present but not actually “present”, being moved from home to home via the foster system, or being removed from the home due to neglect or abuse… these are environmental factors that set the stage for developmental delays (at best), the inability to properly attach to others (my kiddos), and that can lead to very serious mental illnesses, even sociopathology (at worst).
     Being a psychotherapist, I had worked with children suffering with this diagnosis for several years. The families, adoptive or not, were suffering right along with the child, possibly more so in some cases! I’ve done research to help parents find ways to connect with their children, manage disturbing behaviors, and learn to express emotions appropriately. Friends, this is a tough disorder. There are very few techniques found to modify behavior or help families bond, and the process is looooong. There is no “quick fix”. No immediate gratification. Families spend years, even decades, working hard to attach and help their children grow into adults that are capable of contributing to society and building their own relationships.
     Remember, brain damage is irreversible. So, therapy, medication, and consistency from care givers over large periods of time is the treatment regime for children with RAD. And why, you may ask, does it take so long to see any progress (if any, in some cases)? Because the things that come easily to someone whose brain is working correctly, things like learning how to love, expressing your feelings, understanding right from wrong, learning from mistakes via consequences and rewards…. These things do NOT come easily to someone whose brain never developed in these areas. It would be like asking a man with no legs to walk, or a woman with no arms to hold a child.
     Can a man without legs walk? Can a woman without arms hold a child? Yes. Through the use of prosthetics and LOTS of physical therapy, the impossible can, indeed, become the possible. With countless hours of practice using these new tools, these new body parts, their brains will actually rewire themselves in a way to cause the body to function properly with the prosthetics.
     In the same way, children with RAD require a whole lot of work to help their brains rewire. How do you teach someone to feel an emotion? How do you show someone how to create a relationship with another person? How to you help someone learn right from wrong when consequences and rewards and relationships mean nothing to them? If you don’t know how to answer these questions, welcome to the life of a parent with a RAD child.
     Depending on the severity of the case, it can be done. But there will be a lot of tears, screaming, throwing your hands up, quickly pulling them back down, and throwing them back up again. There will be feelings of love. There will also be feelings of hate. 
     Folks, I’m being real, here. RAD is no joke. Parents suffer right along with their children in this disease. When we fostered our older two children, adoption was immediately put on the table for us. But it wasn’t long before my husband and I (he is also a social worker) recognized the signs. We had both of the children tested by a child psychiatrist and he agreed. The conclusion was what we had feared.
     Most days, you could find me in tears. I was angry at them, I was angry at myself for being angry at them, I was angry at my husband when he got angry at them, and then I was angry at him when he didn’t get angry and I was all alone in my anger! No one else lived with it. No one else understood the struggle. No one else could see the depth of the situation. And when I tried to explain it to them, I came off sounding like the most horrible person on the planet.
     Who could be mad at two little children that came from such a bad background? It wasn’t their fault. It wasn’t their choice. Why are you so hard on them? What kind of psychotherapist can’t figure out how to cure her own children? What kind of woman can’t keep her kids under control? How could you contemplate NOT going through with the adoptions? 
     These were the questions I faced. These were the feelings I experienced each day. I felt like I was failing them, my husband, my parents, myself, and my God. And to be honest, three-and-a- half years later, I sometimes suffer from those same feelings. I face guilt over not being more of what they need, over my lack of consistency, over my emotional ups and downs in our bad days, our RAD days. I feel helpless when I can’t find a solution. I feel overly strict when I try new and creative consequences, as I’ve more than used up the classic go-to’s long ago.
     But let me tell you something. When there’s a break-through, a tiny glimmer of hope, you will find me ecstatic with joy, screaming it from the roof-tops, beaming with delight.
     And let me tell you something else. There are more glimmers of hope today than there were last year, more than the year before, and more than the year before that.
     Despite my flaws, my lack of ALL THINGS, God has covered our family with a crazy amount of grace. My knowledge of RAD could only get me so far. My ability to be a good mother could only get me so far. My desire to show my kids the kind of love they’d never had could only get me so far. GOD is the one who is covering all of my failed attempts, my emotional lapses, my insufficient abilities – He does this day in and day out. It only takes a few moments in a difficult situation to recognize how ill-equipped you are to deal with the big things on your own. And ooohhhh, how aware of this I am! God has not made my children perfect. (NOPE!) God has not made my mothering perfect. (NOT EVEN CLOSE.) God has not healed my kids of their disease. (SADLY.) 
     But what he has done is helped us grow and learn and use more wisdom in the day to day moments. To find more teaching moments within the chaos. To manage our emotions (if even just a tad) better than before. To find emotional prosthetics to learn how to walk in this life we’ve been given. Preachy or not, GOD IS GOOD, friends. He just is. 
     I don’t want to make this post too long, so I’m going to turn it into a 2-parter. Later this week, I’m going to share something that I found that helped my children relationally and that forced them to address their own behaviors without me having to exert quite as much effort ( http://www.mommyhoodsfs.com/the-blog/2015/6/28/my-kids-have-rad-part-ii ). Until then, thanks so much for all your prayers and encouragement over the years. Your kind words, bits of advice, and shoulders to lean on have kept at least one family afloat!

​