Mama Bear

Atkinson Youth services is a non-profit organization providing out of home care in the form of group homes and foster families. We believe in working with the whole family, as such we work with the natural parents of the children in our care. I had been teaching Choice Theory for about three weeks this particular group of parents. However, they were not getting the idea. One mother said, "I don't understand why they keep taking my kids. I never did anything wrong. It was the men I married that abused the kids." She was not understanding that it was her choice to marry the men. I thought for a minute and then asked "If you were a Mama bear and someone tried to hurt your children what would you do?" She puffed herself up and said, "why, I'd chase them off - if I were a bear." From that day on I began to teach "Mama Bear Choice Theory." I began to realize that what we needed was to teach this same thing to little children, so that they grow up learning the choices a parent has to make.