I work with all kinds of families—adoptive, foster, blended, and biological—but there’s one story that I want to tell you about. It’s about a little boy who experienced a medical trauma when he was just a year and a half old. In an instant, his voice was gone. He stopped speaking, and from that moment on, his behaviors became his only way to communicate his needs.
His mom is a single parent. His father is not in the picture. At first, this seemed like a story I had heard many times before—but then something remarkable happened. This mom leaned in. She began learning and practicing Trust-Based Relational Intervention® (TBRI®). Slowly, she started to see her son for who he truly was: incredibly smart, but locked inside a world where neither of them knew how to connect.
The little boy’s behaviors were extreme. He often hurt himself—self-injurious behaviors that broke his mother’s heart. I met them when he was five years old, and by then, those behaviors had caused real harm. I worked alongside his mom for about a year, and then one day, everything changed. The moment happened and mom was able to separate her son from his behaviors.
This boy, who still had very few words, shed his first tears since he was a year and a half old. From the time he was a toddler, it was as if his emotions had been taken from him. He didn’t cry. He didn’t share feelings. He was stoic, shut down, and disconnected. But that day, he cried. It was the beginning of healing.
His mom was learning what he needed, and he was beginning to feel again—feel the things he had buried for almost four and a half years. Today, he seeks his mom. Yes, he still needs time alone, but when he hurts himself, he goes to her for nurture. When he’s scared, he goes to her for comfort. When he’s sick, he goes to her for care. When he needs reassurance, he reaches for her touch.
Healing happens when we see the need—and then meet the need.(TBRI®) So grateful and honored for having the opportunity to be a part of families stories.
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Visit Raivu Ministries at www.raivu.org to learn more about my work with families and individuals, “Building a community of people loving people- ensuring everyone is seen, heard, and valued.
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