The complete set of 198 Hints are available in paperback from the CYC-Net Press store.
Listen
No Fancy Steps'How do you get kids to do that?" "How do you get kids to stop doing that?"
How often we hear those questions when we care workers get talking. As if there were certain pocket skills (or tricks?) to make kids’ behaviour less irritating or more compliant.
Group situations and reluctant children do bring out the worst in us – a desire to do crowd control or achieve performance by "quick fix" methods. We hear people replying to these questions: "Oh, I just tell them ..." or "I simply make them ..." Zap! Magic wand stuff.
When we economise on method we limit ourselves to short-term (and often unworthy) goals. When we use standardized and hand-me-down tools to "manage" kids we limit our own learning. When all we want is for kids to do this or stop doing that, we subvert our goals into what we want rather than what the youth might be able to make of their own lives. When we look for instant skills we focus on ourselves rather than on our being-with-kids.
We are, with the youth, in the painstaking process of rediscovering, reassuring, rebuilding and relearning after a difficult start. We do this with open minds, with patience, with respect and with optimism. We do this in dialog and partnership with the children and their families. We will all see where we are getting as we review our days and weeks and months. We are often unsure, we doubt, we listen harder, we risk.
There are no fancy steps.
