She asked her aunt, Theresa Hikes of Keizer, to take care of Richard "for a month or so," but as it turned out she didn't really want him back at all.

Theresa, who at the time had four children of her own, figured she could handle one more.

She didn't realize that Richard was more than just the child of a meth-addicted mother; he was a victim, suffering from a post traumatic stress disorder that threatens to ruin the rest of his life.

Theresa doesn't know exactly what happened to Richard in those first two years of his life, but the effects were terrifying.
He was "nearly catatonic when we got him," Hikes recalls, and didn't respond to hugs or other signs of affection. He also hoarded food as if he weren't sure when, or if, his next meal would come. He defecated on the floor. He banged his head on the floor when he was frustrated. He broke toys belonging to the Hikes children. He suffocated a child-care provider's cat with a pillow and on another occasion tried to lure the Hikes' pet dog, Princess, into a microwave oven. In an apparent pantomime of his earlier life, he would wrap a ribbon around his arm and press a ballpoint pen into his flesh to mimic a drug injection.

"It broke my heart," Hikes said. "I had never seen anything like this before."

But those familiar with the meth epidemic say Richard's symptoms are all too familiar.

`Thousands and thousands'

Dr. Manya Helman, a family physician who treated Richard, says there are "thousands and thousands" of children in the Salem area alone who have similar problems as a result of their parents' addition to methamphetamine.

Helman is a member of NO METH, Not in My Neighborhood, the Salem-based citizen group set up to mobilize support for anti-meth efforts in the community.

She says it's time the community takes a new step toward improving the chances that kids like Richard can be saved.
Helman wants the No Meth organization to lead a drive to create a local treatment facility that could serve as a daycare center, a school, a respite service for haggard foster parents, a boarding school and a research laboratory.

In her proposal to the No Meth board of directors last month, Helman wrote: "Anyone who has spent time with children from drug affected homes will agree that these children are not well.?They are often physically ill -- too thin, too fat, both stemming from poor nutrition, irregular eating, and deficient diets.?They are often hypersensitive to physical sensations, and use physical ailments to attract attention and comfort. In some cases, this can stem from the trauma of physical and/or sexual abuse. In other cases, in which there has been simply neglect, they may lack a richness of imagination, vitality or joy. There is some data from studies which indicate their motor and cognitive functions have been interrupted. Such deficits in development of the mind can influence their ability to think, solve problems, and care for themselves."

Kevin's world

Richard has not had his symptoms categorized into a formal diagnosis, but others with similar behavior problems have.
"Kevin" was born to a woman addicted to methamphetamine during her pregnancy.

She turned to prostitution to support her meth addiction. Kevin was neglected and, on occasion, sexually abused by his mother's boyfriends.

As his mother spiraled out of control, she abandoned Kevin at age 4.

Placed in one foster home after another, he tried the patience of those who sought to help him.

According to caregivers at the Salem treatment facility where he now lives, Kevin was suffering from one of the most insidious afflictions a child can inherit from a meth-addicted family, a condition called reactive attachment disorder, or RAD. Kevin suffered from an uncontrollable temper, was unable to make eye contact, had difficulty concentrating and was hyper sensitive to sound.

What caused these symptoms?

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (AACAP) says its causes are not known, but the Academy states that "Most children with this disorder have had severe problems or disruptions in their early relationships. Many have been physically or emotionally abused or neglected. Some have experienced inadequate care in an institutional setting or other out-of-home placement (for example a hospital, residential program, foster care or orphanage). Others have had multiple or traumatic losses or changes in their primary caregiver.
Welcome to the world of children born into meth-addicted families.

Stuck in a playpen

Kevin is lucky. After seven years in a succession of foster homes, he was placed with a family that saw beyond his afflictions and wanted to adopt him. But before doing so, they decided to enroll him in a residential treatment facility south of Salem called Nehemiah's Ranch for Youth.

Nehemiah's Ranch was founded by Troy and Charity Skeen, who base their care on the notion that RAD children were denied the normal experiences of early childhood and must go back and learn them at a later age if they are to outgrow their destructive behavior patterns.

"When Kevin first got here," Charity recalls, "he was always angry. It wasn't something he'd chosen; it was just the result of his meth background. He would bang his fist into the wall, throw chairs across the room. It wasn't always physical, either. He might cry, saying he hated himself. It was so sad."

Now, a year after he arrived, Kevin is beginning to show signs of recovery. He understands that the staff there cares for him even when he gets angry. He sees that they trust him, and he is beginning to trust them.

Much of the work at Nehemiah's Ranch involves what staff members call "neurological rehabilitation work."  Susan Scott, a neurological practitioner there, explains:

"A child in a meth household may be stuck in a highchair or playpen all day and ignored while his mother gets high. So the child doesn't get a chance to crawl. We know that crawling does more than just develop a child's muscles; it stimulates certain areas of the brain and is part of the normal growth process. So we do exercises -- like crawling -- to restore and develop the processes that were missed earlier."

Another part of the therapy at Nehemiah's Ranch involves the use of animals. Whether it's petting the Skeen's 4-year-old Labrador retriever, Lady, or feeding a horse or bottle-feeding a newborn calf, the children learn trust and build self-confidence when they relate successfully with animals, Charity says.
Counseling rounds out the program at Nehemiah's Ranch, and there again trust and self-confidence are stressed.

"We need to undo their past traumatic experiences," Troy says, "and make them understand that what happened to them was not their fault."

Unintended consequences

RAD children have learned that the world is unsafe, and that the adults around them can't be trusted to meet their needs, according to RadKid.Org, a Web-based resource and support group for those parenting children with the disorder.

They develop a protective shell around their emotions, isolating themselves from dependency on adult caregivers. Dependent only upon themselves for protection, they come to see anyone who is trying to remove this protective barrier as a threat, not just to their emotional well being, but to their very lives. They turn on those who seek to help them the most.

That's why such children bounce around in the foster care system. And as local law enforcement agencies become better at finding and shutting down meth operations, more meth users are sent to jail and more of their children end up in the foster care system.

That has highlighted what retired auto dealer Dick Withnell, a leader in Salem's anti-meth campaign, and others have termed the "unintended consequences" of the war on meth.

As enforcement and public awareness increased, Marion County's already high child welfare numbers soared. In 2006, 934 Marion County infants and children were taken into state protective custody.And while that total is well below the 1,237 infants and children taken into protective custody in 2005, law enforcement officials say that doesn't mean the danger to children is decreasing.

Sarah Morris, a deputy Marion County district attorney who last year became the state's first Drug Endangered Children Prosecutor, said there are two reasons for the lower totals in 2006:

• The shortage of foster care homes has forced state officials to find alternative ways of caring for these children.
  
• Many of the women arrested on meth charges are repeat offenders whose children, while living at home, are already technically in state custody.

"In fact, as public awareness has grown, I think we are seeing more enforcement activity."

Some of the children taken into protective custody suffer from a post traumatic stress disorder, and others bear the neurological and psychological scars that could be symptoms of reactive attachment disorder or some other affliction.

But the state Department of Human Services isn't set up to treat kids with those kinds of symptoms, and private facilities such as Nehemiah's Ranch are small (they currently treat about 40 children) and relatively costly (outpatient charges average $45 for a three-hour session and residential treatment costs about $3,400 a month).

Adding to the problem, there are no easy ways to diagnose these meth-related illnesses, and, as Withnell notes, few "proven outcomes" on which to base treatment.

For their sake and for ours

That lack of proof is one reason Manya Helman wants to see the community get behind efforts to rescue the damaged children of meth families.

She is convinced that the need is urgent and immediate.

"Each day," she wrote in her proposal to the No Meth board, "these children grow older and closer to the time that they will have to leave even the scanty shelter of the public social services system.? They strike me, on the whole, as woefully unprepared to make a living, choose good relationships, marry, or raise a healthy family of their own."

Sarah Morris, the deputy district attorney who handles drug-endangered children cases, says failure to help these kids now will only worsen society's problems later.

"A lot of the adults getting arrested now were drug-endangered children when they were young," she said. "We systematically failed that whole generation. I hope that doesn't happen again."