OREM — Nancy Thomas has very specific routines for the foster children she takes into her home.
No television. No Nintendo. No videos or movies. No Harry Potter.
And every bedroom door is outfitted with an alarm.
Thomas learned her lesson the night one of her charges slipped out and set fire to the family home. The double-wide trailer was destroyed.
"They have to be into reality, and so do we," Thomas said.
Thomas, author of "When Love Is Not Enough," is coming to Salt Lake City April 27 and 28 to talk about her parenting experience. It is based on years of gritty experience.
An elementary school teacher who became interested in helping severely distressed children in college, Thomas was a "professional therapeutic parent" for the Attachment Center at Evergreen from 1985 to 1996. She trained and worked with Foster Cline, a psychiatrist and founder of the center.
He praised Thomas' work highly.
"She has been acclaimed by national as well as local audiences. She has taught both professionals and front-line workers," Cline said.
Thomas and her husband have spent the past 30 years taking children who've killed into their home in Glenwood Springs, Colo.
Most have recovered and gone on to live responsible, rich lives as adults.
Some, like Maria, have killed pets. The blue-eyed 6-year-old who lives on the Thomas ranch killed her own family's two Rottweilers with a butcher knife.
Others, like 9-year-old Joey, have killed family members. Joey stabbed his baby sister to death.
Still others have murdered a playmate with little or no show of remorse.
Thomas believes most of the children who commit such crimes are suffering from an attachment disorder, a condition created when a child is denied the basic nurturing a baby needs during the first two years of life.
"Children raised with incredible pain in the first two years develop an absence of empathy. They don't learn to trust or to love," Thomas said. "They're the killers you see on TV smiling after they commit their crimes. They have no empathy for others, for animals, for anyone."
Thomas said few people realize that cuddling a baby, making eye contact and cooing to an infant is more than fun for baby and mom or dad or grandparents. It is vital to the brain's development.
"Without this kind of contact, there are big holes in the brain. The conscience doesn't develop," Thomas said. "The brain development is stunted. They need to attach."
To repair the damage done by neglect or abandonment and to develop a full conscience, parents and caregivers need very specialized parenting training, and the child needs in-depth therapy, Thomas said.
The Thomases take the children in and offer them a farm lifestyle abundant with responsibility and tangible rewards.
"Love is not enough because these children don't want love. They, in fact, despise those who try to give it."
The Thomases ban all non-reality from the house because a person who is not empathetic and has an unrealistic view of the world is dangerous, she said.
"The input has to really be monitored to help them be safe. They've been so hurt."
Thomas's two-day seminar, sponsored by the Orem-based Hope for the Children organization, at the South Towne Exhibition Center, 9450 S. State in Sandy, is open to the public. The fee varies from $25 per day to $80 per day for parents to professionals. Reservations need to be made for an early-bird discount at 229-2218.
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