Reactive Attachment Disorder, RAD Blog

05/08/07

Beatitude House

Posted by : Nancy Spoolstra in Reactive Attachment Disorder Blog at 09:00 am , 382 words, 167 views
Categories: Attachment Therapy, Faith and Religion, Adjunct Diagnoses, Websites

I have a ton of really awesome resources sitting around here on my bookshelves, so I am going to start through them and share snippets of wisdom with you from some of my favorite attachment gurus.

Beatitude House in North Carolina is the ministry of Matthew and Fawn Bradley. I frequently have the pleasure of seeing them at conferences throughout the United States. Their ministry is just that—a Christian based approach to many aspects of attachment therapy and healing.

One of the booklets they distribute is titled Had we known then what we know now…

It is a great resource, chock full of misconceptions adoptive parents have going into adoption, with suggestions on how to redirect those misconceptions to line up more with the reality of parenting traumatized children. For instance, they write new Mommy and Daddy’s ideas going in…

“We’ll make it good; we’ll make it better. We’ll make him forget all about the sadness. A new mommy and daddy…sisters and brothers. A new house, books… Wait until we take him to Disneyland! It’s a new beginning, time to forget the past.”

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And then they suggest:

Disneyland and a designer bedroom won’t take away the pain of abandonment and/or trauma. For most of us, family represents safety and security. But for many adopted children, family may represent at best another potential rejection, or at worst a dangerous situation to be suspicious of. Can Disneyland fill this kind of void?

How many of us have had to backpeddle in terms of what we provide a child initially? And then we are the "bad guys" when we find it necessary to remove material perks. And everyone else condemns us for doing so.

The Bradleys go on to talk about overindulging a child and how that fosters a sense of entitlement. They suggest parents assess what personal need they are trying to fulfill when they overindulge their children. They discuss the pervasive propensity to feel sorry for the child rather than assess the child “where they’re at” and respond accordingly.

For those of you who have a faith-based approach to parenting, this booklet is especially helpful as it provides scriptural resources for each topic it addresses.

To order this booklet, go here.

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4 comments

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: CREAMPUFF_SUGAR [Member]

Nancy,

How *do* you seem to !!!know!!! what I've been musing about lately! Thank you so much for reminding me of this resource. In the recesses of my mind I think I have heard about the Beatitude House...

The material possessions and gift thing...oh, my. Our daughter is slowly earning some things in her room, but stuff gets in the way of relationship and we may go to a "revolving library" of things she may have in her room. Our son...well, he can't even have clothes in his room because I kept finding *packages* of ....well, in the interest of being tasteful, I won't describe. He does have a few books...

Are the kids more respectful, responsible and fun to be around with or without the stuff? It's a question I ask the kids and myself...and, dare I say, even people with attached kids might ask this question?

I have tried to *tactfully* say to people that we have ended up finding that giving our kids "experiences" rather than stuff has been better for them. We went on a maritime field trip that was a gift from my parents for Christmas. Rock-climbing lessons were a gift one year. And then there was trapeze lessons. If there ever is an activity to teach about trust, it would trapeze.

But I have to again say that I unequivocally agree that Disneyland doesn't fill the kids up; they are often the most ungrateful after a "fun activity". When are they the most fun? Well, I would say it is when they are doing yardwork with us or replacing a window or planting gladiola bulbs. There is nothing they glow about more than working with us. My daughter's eyes shine when I talked about building a compost pile.

Thanks again, Nancy!

patricia

Permalink 05/08/07 @ 11:37

Comment from: BEACHLADY [Member]

Checked out the website, jotted down some notes!
Thank you.

Permalink 05/08/07 @ 13:37

Comment from: Nancy Spoolstra [Member]

· http://attachment-disorder.adoptionblogs.com/

My prayers are with you. I went through this with Amy. Never had any impact. When she moved out, she took with her 11 bags of her worldly belongings, many of which were horribly stained, smelly clothes that hadn't seen the inside of a washing machine in months and months.

Permalink 05/09/07 @ 07:03

Comment from: Kelly [Member]

· http://fost-adopt.adoptionblogs.com

So right on target Nancy. We're dealing with the material thing with Shorty right now. She loves clothes, and I love to buy little girl clothes (SIGH!) but she won't hang them up and stuffs them in her closet.

This morning I removed all clothes from her closet and I am now choosing her outfits for her. She is NOT a happy camper. :)

Permalink 05/09/07 @ 07:08

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