My wife and I have recently moved back to Maine after living in North Carolina for a couple of years, and I’ve been trying to catch up on things. Sorry for the delay in adding new stuff to the blog.
–ken
I thought I’d let you know that I haven’t abandoned the blog. I have been working some long hours and haven’t had a chance to add to it lately, but will make a point of doing so within the next few days, and probably tomorrow.
I have a couple of emails that I could get to, and a book that I’ve read but haven’t reviewed yet – An Unlit Path, by Deborah L. Hannah, another that I was in the process of reading until I mislaid it somewhere, and Dan Hughes’ new book which just arrived today – Attachment-Focused Parenting.
– ken
I’ve just finished reviewing an English novel by the name of Waiting for the Other Shoe. In her first novel, Maggie Handsley weaves a story around a young child with undiagnosed reactive attachment disorder, the result being a wonderfully constructed story of the people who tried to love this girl, and the devastation she caused. It’s not so much a story about reactive attachment disorder as it is one of the people involved. I was very much impressed with it, as you can see from my review of it for the RadKid.Org site.
– ken
I recently finished reading a new book on reactive attachment disorder. Written by Lori Oden and Anita Diener, who met through their adoption of biological sisters, both of whom suffered from reactive attachment disorder. The book is an honest story of their experiences while raising these children. Within the book, you will also hear from the kids, and even the biological mother.
The name of the book is Our Journey to Forever… Had Potholes Along the Way. It’s a good book, and an interesting read. I won’t do a full review of the book here because I’ve just published my review of it for the review pages of the RadKid.Org site.
– ken
I understand that it’s something on the order of a sin to neglect a blog for more than a few days, yet I have done this. Let me explain.
I’ve never been very good at multitasking when it comes to large projects. Oh, I can handle a variety of small things at once but once I get involved in a significant project, it consumes my time.
Not only have I neglected the blog, but I have all but ignored some of the tasks through which I derive an income, as well.
The project is a combined one, and I have finally gotten far enough in it to consider that maybe I can come up for air, if only for a moment.
The RadKid.Org Directory has become a huge project and, I think, an even larger success, particularly the treatment section.
As of this writing, I have worked my way alphabetically through the states as far as Washington, with only West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming remaining. There are 582 entries to the treatment section, mostly to attachment centers and attachment therapists.
Some of them, of course, will contain errors, or may point to people who are no longer providing attachment therapy, or who may have moved since my last information. That can be easily corrected, but only with the help of a lot of other people, both parents of children receiving therapy and therapists themselves.
Realizing that the directory format limited me to listing only those therapists, clinics and centers which had web sites, leaving out the bulk of people who are providing attachment therapy, I created the RadKid.Org AT Directory, using a wiki format, which would permit anyone to add a listing for an attachment therapist who they might be aware of, and which would allow the therapists themselves to greatly expand upon their own listings.
That last part hasn’t happened yet, but I am confident that it will.
Much of the listings that you will find for attachment therapists in the RadKid.Org Directory are linked to stub pages that I have added to the RadKid.Org AT Directory, providing basic contact information only.
It is my hope that therapists will avail themselves of the opportunity to expand upon their own listings, to multiple pages if they wish, or that I can replace these listing with links to the therapist’s own web sites, as they create them or I come across them.
At this time, I am listing only attachment therapists in the RadKid.Org AT Directory, which will include any therapist providing attachment therapy, not exclusive to those providing only attachment therapy. I chose not to include centers or clinics here because most of them have their own web sites that can be linked to from the RadKid.Org Directory, and I’d rather link to your site than my own.
Later, I might include a section for those providing respite, attachment training, or other services.
Anyhow, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past few weeks. It will never be done since there are always new things to be added, but I am confident that the RadKid.Org Directory is already the most comprehensive listing of attachment resources available, and that the RadKid.Org AT Directory has the potential to become a huge resource for attachment therapists and parents seeking attachment assistance.
Those of you looking for help in West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming … I’ll get to you soon enough.
Please let me know what you think. Let others know about it as well, and please don’t be afraid to link to it from your site. Better yet, I welcome you to participate in the project.
Soon, I’ll get back to posting more regular updates to the RadKid.Org Blog. I apologize for my absence.
– ken
Recently, we took steps to replace our old directory with the RadKid.Org Directory, which permits site owners to add their own listings, and allows anyone to bid on placement for these listings. In other words, anyone can support a site that they particularly enjoy by bidding as little as a dollar to increase its placement or ranking within the directory.
This directory was necessary because I did not have the time to maintain our old directory and, because of that, many of the links and some of the information was outdated. In some cases, site owners became upset with me because I was unable to make the changes that they requested as quickly as they had hoped. New site owners were sometimes impatient with the amount of time that it took me to add their sites.
While this may still occur with the new directory, it permits site owners to add their own sites for a nominal fee of one dollar, or to bid more for higher ranking within the directory. Anyone unwilling to pay even this small amount will have to wait for me to find the time to add their site, leaving me with nothing to feel bad about.
Additionally, any funds received through the bid process will help to compensate us for our server costs and other expenses. If people should ever begin bidding on placement, we may even receive some compensation for our time, although I’m not holding my breath on that one.
Still, this left one problem. In my old directory, I was able to include, not only web sites, but names and contact information for attachment therapists who did not have a web presence, thereby increasing the likelihood that visitors would be able to find someone near them, as many good attachment therapists have not created web sites for themselves.
In an attempt to alleviate this problem in the new directory, I have created a directory of attachment therapists using MediaWiki software, which will permit any attachment therapist to create his or her own listing in the directory without any cost to them, or to edit pages created by others.
This creates a page that can be linked to from the RadKid.Org Directory.
Every attachment therapist is encouraged to create a listing for themselves in the AT Directory. This listing can range from one small page giving giving little more than contact information to multiple pages describing their practice, and even including photographs. Attachment therapists who already have a web site can use this space to link to their own site, thus increasing their visibility on the Internet, while those without a web site can use this in lieu of one, at least to some extent.
If you know of an attachment therapist who is not listed here, you can easily create a listing for that therapist, offering as much or as little information as you have available.
Once a therapist has created an account for herself, she can take control of her own listing, at which point we can close that listing to editing by the public, thus permitting the therapist to limit the amount of information she wishes to include.
Additionally, listings included in the AT Directory will be linked to from the RadKid.Org Directory unless a more comprehensive site is listed there. Generally, when a therapist is employed by an agency or attachment center, we will list the agency or center site in the RadKid.Org Directory. A listing in the AT Directory permits the therapist to have an additional listing, one that they can edit and “take with them” if they should change agencies, this permitting patients to find them if their employment changes.
This also serves to make the RadKid.Org Directory a more comprehensive listing of attachment resources, which is its chief purpose.
– ken
Although the RadKid.Org Directory, in its own subdomain, has been around for about a year, I’ve been hesitant to recommend it since there really wasn’t much there. However, over the past several weeks I have built it up considerably, to the point where I have every reason to believe that it is the most comprehensive directory of reactive attachment disorder sites available.
At this point, every site has been added to the directory at no charge so you might want to consider that I threw in the minimum one dollar listing charge, at the same level that I added my own sites.
Website owners
Any web site relating to reactive attachment disorder, attachment therapy, attachment parenting, or other emotional or mental health issues relating to children will be added to the directory for free by sending me an email or by completing our web form. We have a place in our directory for traditional parenting sites as well, although our focus is on reactive attachment disorder.
Or, you can add your own site for a minimum bid of one dollar, with any additional dollars serving to place your site ahead of others in the listing, according to who bid the most.
Attachment therapists
If you are an attachment therapist, but do not currently have a web site of your own, we will create a one-page, no-frills, site for you and host it on the RadKid.Org domain, and we’ll do that at no charge. In order to be included in the new RadKid.Org Directory, you will need to have a web site but we can make that as painless as possible.
Send me however much information you’d like to have included in a web page and we’ll put it online for you. This might include details about your practice, such as your focus, philosophy, qualifications, and other information, but certainly address and contact details.
Send me the information by emailing me at ken@radkid.org or complete the form on our RadKid.Org site.
If you would like something more, please navigate to Laisha.com, which is my wife’s business, a large part of which is creating web sites. I’m sure that she can come up with something nice for you, which might include referring you to a dependable and cost-effective hosting plan.
However, if you are interested only in the free page, contact me about that, and I’ll provide you with further details.
Directory ranking
At this point, every site in the directory is listed at the base one-dollar rate, and the order of ranking is according to the order in which they were added to the directory.
I encourage you to take control of your own listing by bidding additional dollars on your listing, as this will not only place your site ahead of others on the list but will give you additional control over your listing, as far as modifying the description and making changes to it, as long as they are in accordance with our terms of service.
Additionally, you can list deeplinks featuring other pages of your site.
We’re not looking to make money out of this, but we would like to recoup our hosting charges, the cost of the software, and other expenses. I’d rather avoid advertising on the site, so this is the only way in which we can do this.
– ken
While it is still far from complete, the RadKid.Org Directory has been expanded considerably and should be considered a resource for people seeking an attachment therapist, training for parents or therapists, or simply for information about reactive attachment disorder.
– ken