I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!
I wanted to share with you a true success story. This is what we strive for here at the Ranch. We pray that each and every participant finds hope and healing in their own personal way, like this wonderful little boy.
Please read this testimonial from his mom regarding the program here at River of Hope:
"From the time our son was small he exhibited very aggressive behavior. It was not uncommon for him to have his older sister, by seven years, in tears from hitting, kicking or throwing something at her. While she was the most common target, my husband and I were not immune to his attacks. Needless to say, we were very frustrated. We had tried numerous methods of correcting him, all to no avail. I had read several books on strong-willed children and the most common theme was to be consistent. Well we had done that for weeks and months and finally years and his behavior did not change.
Several of our friends and relatives, even our own pastor, had labeled him ADHD and suggested we put him on medication. After reading several articles and white papers on ADHD and talking to our family doctor we knew that he wasn't ADHD. He was exhibiting aggressive behavior and was very active but at school he stayed focused with little effort and would play for several hours with his Lego's or toys.
Then one day last spring, I was speaking to the mom I carpool the kids with, Jody Morris, telling her about my frustration and she mentioned River of Hope Ranch and Josie Muterspaw. My husband and I talked about it. We were at our wits end and thought why not. It was the best decision we ever made. Over the next 3 months we saw our child go from this aggressive bully to this bright, funny, and fun to be around little boy.
How did Josie do it? I watched her week in and week out and I saw her teach him how to deal with the anger that pops up and wants to be out by using simple "horse sense"(that's our term for it). She showed him by working with the horses, how they react when you get mad, how to control your anger and then how to let it go so it doesn't control you. Every once in awhile now I'll see him start to get mad and then he'll say to himself "stop sign" and the anger will dissipate. Another time he and his sister were arguing and I saw him stop mid-sentence and turn and walk away. Soon he came back and apologized to her for arguing with her. In a nutshell, Josie taught him coping skills that he will use the rest of his life.
We will always be grateful to Josie for what she did for us and our son and I would not hesitate to recommend her to anyone."