Why am I so adamant about the benefits of NR?

Because I have seen them myself in what might be record time, but I have clearly seen my child literally transform before my eyes. We were home 10 months before we started NR, and had done OT for about 6 of those 10 months. In 6 months of OT, we saw negligible improvements, if any. Our OT was very sweet, we really enjoyed OT, and did our “homework” at home, but we did not see any improvement in Violet’s behaviors.

In 10 months there was almost no change in our daughter from the day we met her, until we started NR.

To take a step back, here are the behaviors our daughter had PRE NR (in those first 10 months):

-abusive toward her older/4 year old sister

-abusive towards our animals- you would have thought our cats would be smarter than to stick around but...I guess they didn't have many self-preservation skills and were continually pounded by her.

-rages that would last an hour easily, triggered by nothing or by a minor "no, not right now honey."

-Would throw anything in sight if angry, taking her shoes off to throw if she couldn’t reach anything else

-slamming her head back and forth side to side in the carseat if angry, screaming at the top of her lungs.

-EVERYTHING was urgent, it had to happen THAT minute, period.

-getting in the car at the end of the day from daycare and acting starving and screaming the entire ride home

-inability to feel pain- would run into things and not notice, or fall down hard & not notice...once she even cut her fingers with scissors and we only noticed afterwards because she had blood on her fingers (minor, but still) and Maddie said Violet had been using her scissors. (She was not supposed to use them.)

-Inability to know when she was really hungry or not, she would stuff her mouth with any food in sight, and literally stuff her cheeks to feel the food, then chew & swallow before completely stuffing her cheeks again...

-abuse towards Mama- scratches, hitting, biting, almost ripping my earing out at least a few times, pulling my hair and holding so hard I would need to put her down to use both of my hands to unclench her hands, scratching at my face, my eyes, etc.

-abusive to other kids at school- we had accident reports multiple times a week, I would say average was 2 per week, some weeks less, some weeks more.

-EASILY jumped from "okay" to super angry, zero to sixty in 1.2 seconds....

-After a rage, would cry and be so so sad, so so scared- tried to get so close to me that it felt she was trying to get inside my body.

-NO compassion or empathy- she would often hit her stuffed animals and say "kitty sad...kitty sad...", then continue to hit and pull at them and twist ears, etc- even when I tried to model "we have to hug Kitty, help kitty be happy, no sad...."- nope, she would abuse her more then.

-Was also VERY jealous of her sister, if her sister got a hug, she would come and hit her sister or grab her hair and pull hard. It would take two hands to undo her hands from her sister's hair- sometimes she actually pulled chunks of hair out of her sister's head.

-Communication was difficult for her as well as she only had around 20-25 words, but we were using sign & she did okay with that.

I could probably go on...but that's the jist of it. We lived through 10 months of this- all the while being told by people around us “Oh you know 2 year olds…”, and “she’s only been here 6 months/8 months/etc.” and “oh she’s still adjusting” and “well just time and love! That will do it!” and “why can’t you keep your kid from screaming?” and….well…fill in the blank. Some of you may even have thought these things. But we knew inside our scared little girls was a beautiful soul waiting to come out.

Now 6 months into NR (and our weekly visits to the Attachment therapist)…this is where we’re at:

-We had our evaluation at the very end of August- and of course got the list of things to do every day! :)

Within two weeks, we started to see new words pop up in her vocabulary- a few a week and gradually increasing to now- she is picking up new words almost daily it seems. She is just beginning to construct complex sentences sometimes- her language is on this incredibly trajectory UP. It's astounding.

Within probably a month, the incident reports coming home from school started reducing and she was having fewer and fewer instances of hurting other kids at school.

By the third or fourth month, the abuse towards her sister started to lessened as well, and that continues to get better and better.

Within the last month and a half to two months, we have seen her start to show compassion and empathy for the first time ever, and it's just astounding. If other kids get hurt, instead of going over and hitting them or grabbing their hair and pulling, she goes over to give them a hug (at school.).

Before, other children crying would send her into instant fight or flight mode and she would go straight to hit them or pull hair or scratch- now, she goes to put an arm around them and pet them softly. She is starting to problem solve and instead of going from 0-60 in 1.2 seconds flat, she will ask calmly for something.

Whereas before if she was hungry after school when I picked her up, she might just start screaming "Snack! I want snack!!!" at the top of her lungs in the car, now she asks in this adorable sweet little voice "snack please mama?" and I can answer her and get her a snack and she is totally happy.... She would NEVER make eye contact before for more than a second or two, and she is starting to make eye contact for longer periods of time now. She still has some ways to go on this, but it's definitely improving.

Now when she plays with her stuffed animals, she says "hello kitty! Kitty sad, HUG kitty..." and holding the stuffed animals gently and hugging them instead of hitting them. Our kitties no longer get their tail pulled or hit with a fist on their backs, instead she runs up to them to pet them gently.

Her sister, who has been forever forgiving even when she was getting mauled by little sister, is happier and happier to play with her now, and always involves her. Even before, she would always involve her little sister, even when little sister would hurt her, but now there is less fear all around.

This week, we had two issues at school. The first one was Tuesday- her best little bud at school pushed her with two hands right in the chest. She instantly flew into fight or flight mode and went after the girl. The teacher was unfortunately alone in the room and did what he could, and eventually she calmed down, but it was a rough morning. In the afternoon, when I picked her up, another little boy said “Violet has been pushing me today!! And hit me!” So I told him I was sorry and she should not have done that, and she will do a payback for him. At home, she did a job for me (cleaned up a bunch of legos and things on the floor and put them all away) to earn a “payback” (a little plastic ring for each of the two kids she hurt). When she picked them out and I told her “Which one for Avery?” She told me “Avery hit me! Avery do payback for ME!”- I explained that YES, it’s true that Avery hit you first, but you also hurt Avery, so you have to give her a payback, and I will talk to your teacher and have Avery do a Payback for you tomorrow. The next day, when all the kids were there, the teachers gave Violet the two rings for the two kids, and Violet went up to each kid and told them “look my eyes” (just like Mama says!” and gave them their paybacks. And yes, Avery did a Payback for Violet that day too. We were a little disappointed that we had this slide back, but she had gone to sleep later Monday night due to Maddie’s dance performance, so it was not a HUGE surprise that she had a rough morning. Even so, it was a one time instance, out of a month vs. one time out of a week- a huge improvement.

Fastforward to Thursday, and I arrived in the evening to pick Violet up and she showed me two bandaids on her arm. The teacher told me that a little boy pinched her so hard that it broke the skin! And Violet….OUR VIOLET, did not pummel him! She just went over to the teacher and cried a bit and asked the teacher for help!!! Wow!

THIS is how much her brain has changed!! Because Brains are organized hierarchicly, input is first analyzed in the fight or flight portion of your brain (amygdala), and if your brain the stimulus a threat, then the brain goes into fight or flight mode. (ie: Fighting-hitting/scratching-saving yourself.) In a trauma brain, this part of the brain is VERY sensitive and can react to things as a threat even if they are not (ex: children laughing may be deemed a threat-this is also known as a "Trauma Trigger".) What happens then is that even if the incoming stimulus is not really a threat, the signal will not make its way up to the cortex or the thinking/reasoning part of the brain- it just sticks in the amygdala and fights like H3LL!

So THIS is how far Violet’s brain has come- she came on a real threat, where a child was being aggressive towards her, and the message actually GOT TO the thinking/reasoning part of her brain! To tell her to go see a teacher for help! Wow… or, as Violet would say… “Laaaaa!” (her verion of “Ta da!”)

On Wednesday night, we went out to dinner with some friends who were in this week from Taiwan. The restaurant was louder than I had expected, and our dinner went on for some time- it was already 8:30 when we were leaving, a full hour past Violet’s bed time. From time to time we had some fidgety girls, but really, the whole time, they were amazing! In fact, our friends said after we left that the waitress came over and said how impressed she was with how well our girls behaved! We could never have done that even 3 months ago! It would have ended in a rage in the first half an hour!  During the entire dinner, Violet did not get upset, she came to me for cuddles several times and cuddled up in her blanket to feel safe, but no screaming, no crying, not anxiety. And even the next day, nothing! Just fine! And Excellent day at school! (except for the boy pinching her…) We had (unknowingly) put her to a HUGE test, and she passed with flying colors.

We are by no means done with Neuro Reorg. We are hoping to be done by Christmas, we’ll see…the brain changes as the brain changes and you cannot predict it-but I can say that the changes we have seen in our girl in 7 months has been nothing short of astounding. This is not the same child. The fear is less, the love is more, and life is becoming sweet.

We have gained new confidence for our upcoming trip to Vermont, that our lives will not be a living H3LL for a month afterwards, that she can handle the flight, and she can handle the trip, and she will be able to handle what life throws at her as she moves forward through life!

 I wish more families with RAD (and ADHD kids, SPD kids, ODD, PTSD, ASD kids...etc...this helps in SO many areas!!!) would take this leap of faith. It really is a leap of faith- because there is just not that much “data” out there on NR, but there are hundreds and hundreds (if not thousands) of families who have benefitted greatly from it. You put the work in, you get amazing results. Lately I’ve been hearing more and more parents of RAD kids who are doing NR or have done NR with their RADlets say “We did years and years of therapy x, y, z, but NR was the Game Changer. The one real and permanent solution. The one that REALLY made a difference.” I have no doubt our girl is going to outgrow her RAD diagnosis within a few years.  Here is a little eye candy for those of you who have stuck with me to read this post to it's end...!