Question
What is your opinion about attachment disorders? Before joining our family, our 8-year-old foster-to-adopt daughter was diagnosed with moderate reactive attachment disorder. She's been with us five months. When she has a tantrum (1-2 times a week at this point, during a good week), one of the consequences is a time-out in her room (usually 30 minutes to an hour). Social workers advise us to keep her time-outs to less than ten minutes, and they don't like when I explain that, in my understanding, tantrums are behaviors that require a child to get zero attention; they see tantrums as the child expressing a need for closeness and connection.
At least in part due to how we've been disciplining her, her behavior and schoolwork have improved in literally all areas since she joined our family, so what we're doing seems to be working (although we'd love to have these tantrums behind us). Given that since age two she's hardly lived anywhere longer than 6-9 months at a stretch, though, do you think the longer time-outs could be a detriment to her feeling like she can bond with us? Recently the social worker sat my husband and me down and explained to us that, even though our daughter is doing much better behaviorally and academically, she thinks we're not "nurturing" enough (in spite of the fact that our daughter seems decently happy, when she's not having a tantrum).
Sorry, I know that's kind of rambling, but I'm curious to know your opinion. Thank you!
