The complete set of 198 Hints are available in paperback from the CYC-Net Press store.
Listen
We think a lot about the relationships between ourselves and the kids we work with. However, the relationships which exist between the youngsters and each other demand moment by moment attention. Their relationships with each other are far more numerous, complex and unrestrained, and while we may be thinking about our personal relationship with one child, our dyadic connection, tenuous as it is, is likely to be outnumbered one hundred to one by the real interactions happening within the group.
We know that each youth has come to us with a cluster of issues, together with their associated attitudes and behaviors. Think of the anxiety, hurt, inadequacy, failure, resentment, anger contained within even a small group of five or six kids – and imagine the hostility, revenge, blame and destructiveness – not to mention the despair and depression – which might attach to their experiences and perceptions. Into what an explosive interpersonal minefield we may introduce the next youngster admitted to our program!
While we (perhaps self-indulgently and romantically) consider the beneficial impact of our own role in the program, the kids are already using the social milieu they inherit and inhabit, sorting out the pecking order, giving expression to their immature survival strategies, trading their strengths and vulnerabilities in short-term accommodations, wreaking who knows what havoc in needy minds and souls ...
Add to this the fact that in most programs we dilute our adult potentials by being present for eight hours before going off for sixteen, expecting the young people desperately to stitch together our brief shifts, our periods of presence, in the hope that we will remember where we left off, while they cope with the abiding reality of their peer group of fellow-strugglers and sufferers ...
In our practice today we will be careful to recognize what is inevitable in a group of troubled kids, and careful to recognize our own lack of continuity and unity and training and skills in helping to make this bearable, safe and hopeful for their future.
