Is This Your Story?

We believe that every child has strengths. Those strengths may be hidden behind oppositional and attachment behaviors inside the adopted child. But at CHBSM, we look for what’s right, not for what’s impossible.

We are a non-conventional private, parent-choice boarding school for girls ages 8-16 who have issues surrounding their adoption. Founded on the truth of Jesus Christ, our school takes a unique approach to integrating conservative Christian values with an individualized academic and counseling program. CHBSM is the adoptive family’s alternative to residential treatment centers, boot camps, drug rehab centers, or other boarding schools for troubled teens.

God lays it on your heart to adopt a child. You spend several years wading through the paperwork and praying over your soon-to-be daughter. You might even have a picture, and your expectations begin to grow…FINALLY, you receive word your daughter is ready to come home. You are so excited…your dream is about to become a reality, BUT what you may not know or have not been told is the emotional condition of your sweet daughter’s heart and the pre-adoption damage that was done to her to cause her to close that heart to trust and love.

As with many adoptions, especially international ones, little is known about the child’s birth to placement in your home. The abuse…the pain…the trauma…the broken heart that your sweet one has had to endure to survive the first years of her life. Things will start pretty well in the beginning, and your daughter seems to be loving, charming, and responding to you. Then something starts to change as she realizes you are serious about being her parents. Her behaviors start to escalate, and she begins to push as hard as she can against this love from you through her behaviors. It is of little consequence that her new home can provide her love, security, and nurturance. Her out-of-control behavior is usually not loving and trusting you, her new parents. Mom begins to feel threatened in her own home, and Dad can’t figure out why Mom is having such a hard time handling their new addition.

It is difficult to understand the heart of a child living in survivor mode before she was adopted.   Parents begin to put up walls with their daughter and with each other, and she usually ends up running the household due to her behaviors and mom and dad being exhausted. I have lived in this scenario, and I know the damage this unhealthy environment can cause the family. Most of my training and what I have learned has been by being in the trenches myself and coming out on the other side with battle wounds but wounds that have healed and that have taught me how to help other families in similar situations.  My heart is burdened for you, the parent, and your daughter. Our program is set up on an individual family base. What that looks like, for you, your family, and your daughter will be prayed over and discussed by you, the parents, and the team at Changing Hearts Boarding School and Ministries. So if you find your family caught in this seemingly unending cycle and feel we can help, please contact us. God created your family and wants to see you become the family He knows you can be.

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