Why the religion?

[greymaster98]

Since day one in my home, DS11 has been religious loving to go to church.  He reads the Bible and knows more than any of the other Sunday School kids there.  Bio family wasn't that way.  I assume he picked this up from one of the foster homes before us.  I'm religious, but don't go to church every Sunday.  My religion is with God, not in a building.  My in-laws are very religious and they take DS11 whenever DH and/or I are not going.

I'm curious if this is a normal RAD tendency to be religious and yet not follow the ten commandments.  If so, care to comment on why you think it is?

I have a couple theories, but don't know if any have any basis in reality.  One is that its all about appearances. 
Two is that he appears to be this upstanding young man to the congregation.  They coo over him.  They would never in a million years believe what he is really like.  They all think I'm way too strict.  Well, all but one fam who gave up a RAD child themselves when bioDad begged for custody again. 
Three is that he's trying to educate himself so he can make a better argument.  He can use the Bible as an argument to defend an action.

I'm the daughter of a person with mental illness.  I know with mental illness, religion can be a big part or belief during the worst of the psychosis even when they are normally not religious.  Is this more of that?

[RADishMOM]

Grey, that is an excellent question. Made me realize that my dd18 is the same way, church is very important to her, and she was always involved in the youth activities all through high school. In her case, I believe she likes it for the extra social opportunity it gives her, since she has no friends. But most importantly, there are sympathetic, kind people at church who are always willing to give her the "oh, you poor thing!" attention she so craves. She loves to pour out stories about her rotten childhood and her mean adoptive parents, so the nice, church-going people naturally feel sorry for her and want to rescue her.  That's what my daughter gets out of church. Last night's stint is proof that she certainly doesn't care about the 10 commandments, etc.
JL

[Geertje]

Hoi Greymaster98

One is that its all about appearances. 
Our ds took part on holysupper one sunday when he was about 14, my hubby was so glad (not me, because I know) at home, hubby asked if he let Jesus into his heart, his answer, no, but every one was looking (well, thats what he tought ) so because of
appearances (shame) he took part (not counting the importance of his action )
Somewhere they want the feeling that they are okay, if they have to lie for they do, it's very much chaos/mixed-up  in their heads.

[bijou]

Our experiences with dd were very similar to RadishMom's.  I believe that most people who go to church are by nature very giving, also enabling, because they want to do good for others and so for a child with RAD, it opens the doors to many that will be sympathetic to them and what they say.

The worst influences in our daughter's life came from people we knew from church, who had to rescue her from her "awful" family.  Be very careful if you find that families are too sympathetic to what they say and walk away, find a new place to go.  That was one of our biggest mistakes....that we didn't walk away and start over somewhere new.

People mean well, but they don't get it.

Bijou

[trying]

I think appearances are a big part of it.  Two of my three rads were going to be missionaries or pastors when they grew up.  It got them a lot of attention.  These aspirations occurred almost simultaneously with some of their worst behaviors.

I didn't put this together then because my ds14 had not done as much healing yet, but I'm learning from him and I have some other thoughts about this now. 

As ds14 has gone through his struggles, he has been able to articulate a little bit of how bad he feels inside.  He really struggles with believing that he IS a bad kid and that he deserves all that has happened to him.  Because he is rad, he could not talk about those feelings or show them to anyone.  Instead he raged at home and the rad brought out all this ugly behavior that only served to convince him further that he was hopelessly bad. 

In public he was Mr. Holy, the cute little boy who could charm the socks of everyone he met.  He knew (still does) all the answers in Sunday school, volunteers for anything anyone needs help with, etc.

I wonder if my ds's wanted to be religious because that eased the pain of thinking they were so bad.  If they became very religious they would somehow tip the scales the other direction and then they might be able to see themselves as good.  Maybe it helped them somehow to have some people (in surface relationships) who would fuss over them and only see the charming helpful side.  Maybe when it looked like they were trying to prove to me that I was the problem, they were really trying to convince themselves.  Who knows?

[traci]

No matter what the reason, it's really good for him to learn in the word and be around Christian people. His motivation may be quirked but oh well! Further down the road he may rely on the word instead of drugs/alcohol.

[Sparrow]

my family is not really all that religious, but the foster mother that tori stayed with was extremely religious, and took tori to church like 3 times per week.

we learned that tori HATED church. she was scared of god, and thought that he made her live with kim and michael because she was supposed to be hurt.

i guess someone told her in church that god does everything for a reason.

now, dont get me wrong, im not against religion in any way. ive even tried out church to see if i liked it. i guess im more of a self believer than a god believer. and i think it was a good experience for tori to try it out. and i will never stop her or discourage her in the future if she wants to try it out.

but it seemed to have the opposite effect on our dd.

[DianeM2]

On the ONE off grounds visit that my son has earned in 3+ years in the JCF, we took him to church.  He amazed me.  I thought for sure he would have forgotten all the prayers and responses.  He hadn't!  In fact he took an active part in the Mass and even SANG!  He had never done this before.  This might have been for appearances, or even that he was so incredibly happy to be off grounds after 3 years.  He was a complete angel that whole day.  (I take all the HIGHS I can get, I get plenty of lows.)

The other time I was amazed is when he was recovering from surgery for a broken arm.  Having 4 surgeries myself, I know that a person is still groggy and not really "with it" when you are first wheeled back to your room from recovery.  DS talked slightly, asked if he could have a popsicle, then said he was sleepy.  He started to fall asleep, then popped his eyes open for a second and them made the sign of the cross.  This is one time I really believe he wasn't manipulating or doing something for appearances.  I'm still perplexed. Maybe it's God's Grace?

[markie]

hope so Diane...
as good a thing to pray for as anything!

[karleen]

I've said before, I will say again.  I think (have to believe) God holds special people with special situations/problems in a special way.  We can trust that He will work through all of the ways our kiddos come into contact with Him.  Might be many years before we know the real result of this work.