Family Experiences with the Florida Institute for Family Attachment

"I did research and found a group called Insight Counselors.   I took these four children to see Carol Crow, who diagnosed them with RAD (Reactive Attachment Disorder) and started a whole different approach to therapy.  These kids started to flourish.  These kids whom I was told would never get very good grades were now getting A/B honor roll and advancing from SLD classes to Honors.  They started bonding with the family unit.  Their nightmares disappeared and so did the bed wetting.  They stopped their physical violence towards others and instead expressed it in her office: stories which they hung in their rooms.  Insight Counselors' techniques are different and they work.  My kids showed signs of improving immediately but within 18 months I was confident that they were well.  All of my children except one are out of therapy now, thanks to Carol Crow and Insight Counselors.

I believe to develop good mental wellness in our youngsters we must initiate the right steps: 1. Fix the broken bond with counseling like Insight. 2. Proper medication and dosage for the child when needed. 3. Have an ad litem worker assigned for the child's legal voice and rights.  And 4. The most important of all: give the child a loving, kind, understanding environment to grow up in.  Remember kids are our future, now I never worry about my kids helping to take care of me when I get old.  Insight Works!"

**************************************************************************************************

"My husband and I were trying to handle things like we would a “normal” child.  We also were told of a few “key” words to stay away from and we did that too.  We weren’t trained to handle violent anger etc.

My husband and I met with Carol for the first 4 sessions or so for training.  We learned what RAD was and that our son fit “the bill” and also learned some techniques to get us started.  The first thing I started doing was rocking my son and telling him what life would have been like had he been born from “my tummy”.  Within a week the anger was gone.  Not that he doesn’t get mad but it’s totally different now and I don’t have the fear I did.  We have done things with our son that I would not have thought of doing with a child his age.  Not remembering that he has never experienced some of this stuff.  He loves for me to rub oil or baby lotion on his feet at night. This is something Carol suggested which gives us a few one on one moments that we can share something special.  It was then suggested we have our son evaluated for ADHD and BINGO.  He was, so we put him on meds and that helped his school behavior.  Working with Carol has also helped hubby and I “stay on the same page”.  As with any child these children are great at getting between the two of us and manipulating. We have learned a greater level of communication and staying together like glue. When we separate in the slightest our son figures it out and moves us way apart, so we work every hard in keeping together.

I could go on and on about the ways this therapy has helped our son and us.  Another great thing about Carol is not only does she know about attachment problems and can work through the trauma, she has “been there done that”.  She has walked the walk and knows exactly how we as parents feel and she validates those feelings.  She tells you when you’ve done something wrong, but turns it around and also lets you know you’re doing a good job and to just keep it up."

**************************************************************************************************

"My husband and I both attended a seminar weekend where we received training from both Vicki Hummer and Carol Crow.  We were amazed and relieved to find out that our children's behaviors fell into the category of attachment disorder.  We were not familiar with attachment disorder before the seminar.  Our observations were later confirmed by Carol Crow when the children were evaluated during the pre-adoptive months.  Through further training by Carol Crow, and research on my own, I started to see improvements in my children’s behaviors.  

I would also like to add, that with the improvements in the children’s behaviors, our family relationships have also improved.  Since our adoptive children’s behaviors have been emotionally draining us on a daily basis, we were not able to focus enough attention to our older son.  He has also shown improvements.

Because of our experiences before training/counseling and our experiences because of the therapy sessions, I highly recommend attachment disorder therapy to all adoptive parents.  When our therapy ends, we will still continue with our adoption support group.

I highly recommend the services of Carol Crow and Vicki Hummer.  Through my research, I have found that they are recognized as leaders in the field of attachment disorder and I feel extremely blessed that they have been able to bring this information and training to us."