The Eagle Has Flown

Two years ago, we learned about Nancy Thomas and her special brand of attachment therapy.  Our daughter, Elle, had been diagnosed with Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) and we didn’t know what to do to help her.  With the help of an attachment therapist, we struggled with changing our parenting style in order to combat Elle’s RAD behaviors.

After a year of seeing little progress, we decided to attend one of Nancy’s family therapy camps.  Nestled in the Colorado Rockies, Nancy and her staff started the process of our understanding RAD and how it was affecting our daughter.  We learned parenting skills that would help us to help Elle understand what was going on in her brain, and help her identify her emotions and how to share them with us.

The staff of the camp was made up of dedicated volunteers who believed in the attachment therapy because they had seen it work on their own families and countless others.  Not only did they address the issues of Elle’s RAD, they addressed the stress it was causing on our marriage and relationship as a family.  They told us we were awesome parents, they fed us chocolate, they treated us like royalty, and they told us we were not alone.  They understood.

Nancy’s series of lectures and family activities were based around the American Bald Eagles and how they mate, raise a family, and teach their little eaglets to survive in the world.  As parents, we were given a sheet of eagle wing and tail feathers.  We were to give our child wing feathers for little things they did, and they received a tail feather when they really went above and beyond in demonstrating their control of their behavior.  During camp, Elle earned a number of feathers, but she didn’t earn all the feathers needed to earn an eagle pin.  Receiving an eagle pin would signify Elle was no longer an eaglet, she had all the feathers she needed, could fly on her own, and that she had her RAD behaviors under control.

Colby and I always knew Elle would receive her eagle pin one day.  We didn’t know what exactly it would take, or when it would happen, we just knew when the time was right we would know.  Recently, Colby and I took our annual “alone” vacation without children.  Elle knew this was her chance to show she could handle herself and the responsibilities she had while we were gone.  Although her grandmother was staying with the girls for the week, Elle had many animal related responsibilities such as caring for cats, dogs and horses, in addition to her normal school work and chores around the house.

When we arrived home, all the animals were well taken care of, nothing was out of place and Elle showed she was responsible to take care of so many things while we were gone.  The time was right for Elle to receive her eagle pin.

The day after we arrived home, we presented her with a box, and inside was her eagle pin.  Her eyes got huge and filled with tears as she realized what she was receiving.  She has worked extremely hard in the last year to earn our trust and show us she is a responsible, thoughtful young woman.  As the tears streamed down my face and the pride shown from my eyes, I knew my little eagle was capable of flying on her own.  She will always need us, but the skies are hers to conquer now.

Photo Credit.

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