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Listen to thisOften our program's timetable imposes its will on all who live in it. Just as often, the children and their neediness impose their own timetable. Writing from the UK, Keith White reminds us of a more enduring timetable – and stops to consider one of the day's seasons in more detail.
Each day has a rhythm. From dawn to dusk the day moves through its own seasons. It begins in winter (sleep and hibernation are natural comparisons) and moves through spring (waking, getting up, preparing for the rest of the day) to summer (noon, the heat of the day, with work, tasks or school), through autumn (homecoming, a gentle winding down as evening falls) to winter and sleep once more.
When recently we explored this relationship between a day and the four seasons in our group at Mill Grove, we were struck by the number of times significant events and outbursts occur at the points of transition between the seasons of the day. The waking moment is for some as cruel as T.S. Eliot's “midwinter spring". For others, leaving for school is a daily crisis. Homecoming, with the release of stored up tension, often proves a difficult time.
Transitions
We noted how gracefully nature manages its own transitions. Far from
there being friction and problems, the greatest visual beauty and
physical sensations seem to occur where the seasons interact. Our daily
transitions seemed abrupt and clumsy in comparison.
There are, as every parent or residential worker should know, certain rules of thumb about the different daily seasons. Confrontation is best avoided in winter and spring; a routine is vital in spring; a structure and purpose is necessary for summer. Autumn is the time when reflection, confrontation and shared experiences are most likely to occur.
The day seems to have its own moods. I only wish that we had the sensitivity to choose the appropriate seasons of the day for those times of sharing, decision making and open chats. (Steiner is one of the few educationalists who realised the need to organise timetables around the seasons of the day.)
Sometimes events will overtake us and leave us with no choice, just as the natural yearly seasons sometimes take us by surprise. Often we are just not aware of the rhythms of each day.
Bedtime
Bedtime is a unique moment of the day. How often a child who has acted
out a situation with bravado all day, will become relaxed and open at
bedtime; an emotional wound inflicted at school or earlier in the day
will come out quite naturally then; privacy is possible in the quietness
of the bedroom; questions, often deep and searching ones, seem to fall
naturally from the most humdrum conversation; longings and anguish,
anxieties and worries often come to the surface in a way that makes it
possible to share them.
It is vital that we are ready for the opportunities that each bedtime may present.
A starting point is, perhaps, the realisation of the potential of each bedtime. For younger children, prayers are an important part of this shared experience in many families and I have sometimes been moved to tears by the insights and transparent honesty of children's prayers. But equally important are bedtime stories – not just any stories, but bedtime stories.
Apparently little attention is given to books in many residential units, and I have been disappointed to find a lack of good reference books for homework, and poorly thought out selections on the bookshelves. Sometimes there seems to be a total absence of literature. Obviously television is now taken for granted as part of many evenings in residential units, but when it comes to bedtimes, only books will do.
Stories
A good bedtime story is one which adults and children can read with
equal pleasure – and one that has a clear narrative and is written in
such a way that the reader and listener can identify with characters and
situations at unconscious as well as conscious levels. Charlie and
the Chocolate Factory is a good example of a bedtime story we have
read recently. It has all the childhood wishes and the morality of a
fairy story. (And talking of fairy stories, when will we realise with
Jung and Tolkien how vital they are in the twentieth century!).
My personal favourites are the Narnia stories by C.S. Lewis. There are seven of them in all, beginning with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and ending with The Last Battle. For six to 14-year-olds they are as thrilling as they are moving to parents.
Let me give you an example of the effect they can have.
One of our staff, Mike, was reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe to two Nigerian boys (twins, aged 12 years) after much thought about how appropriate such English stories would be to children whose first language and culture had until recently been Yoruba. We decided that they were universal enough (as are all good myths or stories) to be worth a try. All went smoothly until Aslan, the great and mysterious lion, was cruelly tortured by the followers of the wicked white witch. They even cut off his magnificent mane before the final deathblow was administered by the witch on a table of stone. At this point the Nigerians seemed to lose interest.
Mike feared that they had lost the thread of the story. He continued reading, however, and came to the passage where Lucy and Susan are weeping beside the body of Aslan. They walk away. At dawn, the table cracks and the body is gone. Their sadness and confusion are compounded until suddenly they hear Aslan's voice. He is alive again.
At this point the two Nigerian boys leapt up, hugged each other, and for at least a minute rushed round their bedroom, jumping over beds, dancing sometimes in tandem, sometimes independently, shouting with joy “He's alive!"
Mike watched in utter (British) amazement until they finally sat down, eager to hear what happened next. The story continues and this is what it says: “A mad chase began. Round and round the hilltop ... It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia ... “
In a remarkable way, the Nigerians had entered into the story. C.S. Lewis would have been thrilled. Today I took the third Narnia story off my shelf for the same boys, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. They are now firm Narnia fans, and in the process have helped me to see the importance of bedtime stories.
As I heard the Christmas story this year in their presence I felt like crying out: “He's come!" Even though I didn't go any further, I'll always see Narnia, Easter and Christmas in a new light.
This feature: Reprinted with permission from: Social Work Today 13, 9.
