Unconditional Love continued

Unconditional acceptance and trust.

When I was the Principal of a large children’s centre which specialised in taking very emotionally damaged children and adolescent’s. I had a call to ask me to admit a twelve year old girl who had been contained in police cells for a three week’s. This girl had previously had over thirty residential placements and had a habit of “smashing them up”. The social services department concerned could not find another residential placement for her as her reputation had preceded her. I agreed to admit her and the next day she was brought to the centre with a police escort and in handcuffs. When the police brought her in I asked them to remove the handcuffs and after this had been done, I then asked the girl if she would like to go shopping in town with a house mother who was just about to leave. The police were horrified. The girl said yes of course. She set of with the house mother into town. She returned with the house mother after doing the shopping. Approximately an hour later she absconded. When she was brought back I asked her why she had not absconded when she was in town? Her reply was this was the first time that she had been trusted and did not want to let me down. When she absconded on this occasion it was not personal.

That evening the staff came to me to say that she was destroying her bedroom. I went upstairs and sat in a chair in the doorway of her room. I just sat and watched her as she damaged the furniture. She stopped and said “what are you doing?”. I replied “ I am watching you destroy your room and wondering what you are going to do tonight when you have no furnishing’s in your room, as I will be unable in such a short time to replace the broken furniture”. She stopped and started to bang her head against the wall. I said “ Now you are just hurting yourself”. This was the last occasion that she ever damaged our accommodation at the residential centre. On all previous occasions at other residential centre’s, they had reacted by forcibly restraining her. I should say at this stage the staff of my centre had all agreed that for a period of at least six week’s they would not read the young person’s file to avoid labelling and the danger of being judgemental. We had a rule that once a child was admitted we would not reject them. This was unconditional acceptance. This young lady developed other problem behaviour such as the ability to vomit over staff at will. Over approximately two year’s the young ladies behaviour modified largely because of the unconditional acceptance of the staff and probably for the first time in her life, she was accepted and cared for whatever she did. Bad behaviour of course was not condoned and reparation was accepted in a loving and caring way. She actually went on to marry a policeman and became a teacher.