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CandyWhile visiting a rural group home some years back to do some workshops with the staff, I observed a young girl, maybe nine or ten years old, walking around by herself, looking very dejected. I found myself routinely wondering what might be wrong; she appeared so alone and sad. It looked as though much time was needed and much work was to be done to bring her back out of her seeming depression.
Her care worker noticed me watching, and explained: "You can see," she said, "that there is still a lot of work ahead, but Minnie is making good progress. At this stage we are often tempted to pick her up and ‘hug her into happiness’ but she is at a point where she is taking more control of her feelings and her decisions – and where she can do some of the healing work for herself. She is at a critical point where if we indulge her and make a fuss of her she could easily relax her efforts at autonomy and slide back into the (easier) position of dependency."
I was deeply impressed by the team’s understanding of development, of something which parents practice naturally when they tell their child to "Do it yourself," but where agency staff often think that their job is to do everything "for" a child.
The child’s care worker went on: "All we are doing right now is lending her a bit of encouragement when she is struggling beyond her means, so that she can go forward with this stage of her growing by herself."
In our practice with troubled kids today, of course we will want to ‘hug children into happiness’, but we know that when they are ready we must withhold the passing pleasures which can keep them from achieving the maturity and independence which is our goal.
This is where the violins really play in our work: not at the easy and simplistic images of laughing children which the media would portray, but at the deeply moving courage and trust which we can draw out of children as they reclaim the reality and significance of their own lives. Our job is to give young people food for their journey, not merely candy for the moment.
