Hitlers vs. hippies

Michael Ebner, writing many years ago when he was at the Child Care Treatment and Assessment Certificate Program, Marylhurst Education Centre in Oregon, USA, takes an intriguing look at some “worst-case scenarios" in the personal styles of those working with younger children and with adolescents.

Child and youth work is an enormous field. The sheer breadth of what we work with leads to all sorts of little “holy wars” among ourselves. We hassle each other over our conflicting philosophies:

whether its better to work from the inside out or from the outside in ("structure the environment” vs. “develop self-acceptance")
whether we should teach people how to be “appropriate” or how to be “authentic";
whether to take a “hardhat” hard-nosed approach or a “soft-heart” empathic supportive approach.

This paper is about yet another area that we hassle each other about, namely the differences and reactions between child care workers and youth care workers.

Different strokes
What it amounts to is that what smaller kids need in the way of event-opportunities and experiences is different in some rather basic ways from what adolescents or teens need. In a nutshell, kids need an in loco parentis approach (parent-substitutes or supplements) while youth need an empathic older sibling, a wiser-for-the-effort guide.

As a result, these two populations end up with different types of programmes, and the staff that are attracted to the two age groups and their associated programmes are in some ways distinctively different from each other. It is to the differences involved in all this that we now turn.

Younger children
To work with kids, you have to set up a compensatory environment because in effect they are still so externally dependent and concrete-minded. Kids need to learn the ropes, to take responsibility for their own behaviour, to anticipate the consequences of what they do, to develop basic skills, and to be educated in the subtleties of social and emotional life.

They are open in their behaviour and feelings, to the point where, without external structure, they plunge into things recklessly As a result, those who work with them must themselves be value-settled role models and consistent representatives of reality. Such workers are socializing agents and controlling factors creating a rational environment in which children can live and grow, and learn about the basics of life. They are authority figures, protectors and nurturers, while at the same time teaching and treating.

The kind of people who are attracted to work with younger kids tend to be those who are firm in their commitments and life decisions, settled into a systematic set of operating principles and value-beliefs – at least for the current part of their passage through life. They also tend to be “chronic parent" type people who have in effect been functioning as parenting people most of their lives in one way or another. They tend to form intensely close nurturing relationships, and then to feel accountable for everything that happens to the youngster. A major battle that develops among them is around the “hard-hat vs. soft-heart” issue, which translates at the extremes into a critical parent judgemental “papa (mama) knows best” approach, versus a nurturant parent overprotective child-shielder approach. Both frequently feel that the world is insufficiently resourced, and they have to personally make up for that for their kids. They tend to react to their superiors and the surrounding systems as (hopefully) allies in a joint effort to protect and project the kids into life. They want respect for their autonomy as associate parents.

There is sometimes another subpart within a given child worker – a kind of perennial child, a “Peter Pan” whose motto is “I won’t grow up and you can’t make me!” These inpersons (or parts of persons) tend to want to play with the kids and to avoid responsibilities, requirements and restrictions.

This makes for another of the “holy wars” in child care. At their worst, child workers can become either authoritarian personalities or impish irresponsibles. To the outsider youth worker, the whole scene looks like Nurenberg, 1936, and they snort and mutter, “bunch of Hitlers!”

Adolescents
Meanwhile, to work with youth, you need to set up a different type of environment, one which allows them to test their wings without getting them clipped off. They need to find out the consequences of their self-expressive endeavours. They already know the ways of the world and the requirements of life to a considerable extent – how and why to be self-responsible.

They are abstract thinkers who see way beyond the ends of their noses to the broadest possible social and philosophical-ethical-theological implications of everything. They need emphatic understanding and some room to rebel and rumble, while at the same time working out for themselves a realistic relationship to society, to each other and their future. They are working out the heavies of pre-adulthood: identity-formation, separation from childhood and family, and intimacy-sexuality.

And they’re scared to death and hanging onto each other like people clustered in a sinking ship. To reassure themselves, they tend to be very defensive and denying of feelings as they draw upon each other for resources and supplies – and the last thing they need is to tie up to to a falling star. They also need role models, but more in the form of those on the next step up the developmental ladder than parent figures. At the same time, they need some one who can keep one foot in each camp – youth and adulthood – so that when they start to do something foolhardy, their moments-ago pal is suddenly a bastion of sanity and authority. The kind of people who are likely to work with adolescents are often still working out their own identity, separation and intimacy issues in the next passage point, namely, young adulthood.

They provide relevant role models for various lifestyles and the resolution of their own earlier issues. At the same time, they are still struggling with similar issues – worth, contribution, competence, connectedness, vulnerability, etc.

They seek to be a relevant resonator for the adolescent, while sometimes lapsing into the role of co-conspirator. They tend to have their own authority hassles, and they want a lot of distant structure from the top, not a lot of involvement from them. They bitch about the boss, but they want them there subtly setting the standards and the society of the programme. They want them at a distance so they can free-wheel, wing-test, gripe, rebel, etc.

They tend to be people who feel that no one understands their kids like they do, and who want to rescue them from the world and the system. They form intense alliances with their teenaged clients, and at times get into joint rebellion things.

At worst, the “hard hats” want to be Big Brother or Sister and to “talk reality” (put in heavy critical parent messages), while the “soft hearts” avoid confrontation, power and aggression and are overidentified advocates.

The parallel to the “perennial child” worker is the “perennial adolescent” worker. They want to do a “never-never land” (adolescent version) involving experience-seeking and excitement-seeking – such as doing drugs.

They want to avoid restrictions and responsibilities and requirements and to “have a good time”. This also makes for another little “holy war”, between those who want to advocate for their youths and those who want to “let it all hang out.”

At their worst, youth workers become either “Burn the Bastille!” revolutionaries or directionless drifters. Seen by the outsider child worker, the whole thing looks like Haight-Ashbury, 1966, and they sneer and mumble, “bunch of hippies!”

An incredible job
The whole thing is of course a tempest in a teapot – looking at the differences and the hassles rather than the commonalities and the achievements. It takes all types to run a world, and it requires different kinds of programmes and people to make children's and youth’s lives work for them.

In addition, everything is always a double-edged sword. The very things that make a care worker successful substitutes can make them autonomy-underminers, and the things that make youth care workers meaningful mentors can result in a subversive irresponsiblity-encourager.

In addition, the personality patterns that can lead people to select the particular client population and then get in their way can also provide rich resources for personal growth and modelling of maturation. The issues and situations that they set up make for much meat in the stew. As for their relationship to each other, perhaps a good idea would be to mix 'n' mingle so they get their feet wet in each other’s worlds, and thus learn each others' resources and realities. The fact of the matter is that none of us ever stay where we are any longer than the kids and teens do. We are all constantly growing and changing, and what is relevant today is likely to be part of the past tomorrow.

What is true is that we are all doing an utterly incredible job, accomplishing the impossible with very little.

This feature: Ebner, M. (1994). Hitlers vs. hippies. The Child Care Worker, 12, 4. pp. 14-15.