My Daughter Has No Arms (and Other Survival Tips for Parenting Through RAD)

Someone recently asked the question: what is your best tip was for staying calm during intense moments with your adoptive kiddos—especially when Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) showed up like a freight train with no brakes.

My first thought?

Shouting “WTF?!” while hyperventilating.

Just kidding. (Mostly.)

The truth is, those moments are hard. Like, cry-in-the-shower, hide-in-the-pantry, question-everything hard. So what did we do?

We prayed. A lot.

We took deep breaths (when we remembered).

And Beaver and I had a hand signal—one that meant, “My daughter has no arms.”

Now, we didn’t actually have a daughter with no arms. But we did have kids with invisible wounds—trauma you couldn’t see. The hand signal was our quiet reminder to each other that just because something didn’t look broken didn’t mean it wasn’t. We’d say “daughter” to throw people off in case we ever slipped and said it aloud in public (because… survival tactics).

That little phrase helped us recalibrate. It helped us pause. It helped us choose grace instead of reaction—even when our insides were screaming and the situation felt out of control.

Parenting through trauma requires creativity, faith, and humor in equal amounts. Sometimes you need clinical tools. Sometimes you need a prayer. And sometimes you just need a secret code that reminds you that the battles your child is fighting aren’t always visible—but they’re real, and they deserve your gentleness.

And maybe, just maybe, a whispered “WTF” into your coffee mug.