The complete set of 198 Hints are available in paperback from the CYC-Net Press store.
Listen
"You didn’t come to watch me play – because you didn’t want me to win!" This is the double whammy. Not only are we reproached for missing Sally’s tennis game, but an ungenerous motive is assigned to us. Ouch! Missing the game requires no more than an explanation or apology; the assigned motive is harder to answer.
Young people in care are usually very sensitive about what we think of them. Their experience has most often been that people didn’t care or were not on their side. Our verbal assurance carries little weight. "Of course we love you" has in the past proved hollow in their significant relationships. And so "Of course I wanted you to win" isn’t going to buy much credibility for us today. But we listen to what the child has said, for we learn that, however untrue, Sally thinks we didn’t want her to win. This is critical information for us as we continue to work with her. True or not, what Sally thinks is a clinical fact – see Fact...or Fact?
We know that our motives may be challenged by a youth as a means of manipulation: "If you cared about me you’d let me go to the party tonight." We may know that it is because we care that we are not going to allow this, but it is nevertheless important that we listen to what is said, for we can learn much about this youngster’s vulnerable style of negotiating. More, we know that our positive motives will be accepted only when we prove them so by our deeds. Words are not enough. Had we been at Sally’s tennis match today, we might have shifted the odds a little from her distrust towards trust.
Instead of verbally protesting the negative motives assigned to us, we get an idea of what we have yet to work on in our relationship.
There’s more. We also have to examine our own real motives. So often we hush a tantrum or an argument – and we have to ask ourselves: was this for good process reason, or did we simply not feel like getting into the hurt or the conflict at that time? There’s a squabble over a ball. We step in, claim the ball and throw it to one or other group. Was this because we knew to whom the ball really belonged, or did we hand it over to the stronger or more difficult group just to buy some strategic credit for ourselves? We protect a youngster from a verbal attack from a group. Was this a considered action based on treatment goals we were working on for the individual or the group – or was this just an easy "peace-at-any-price" solution because we had the power to act peremptorily?
The thoughts, feelings and actions of the young people we work with are the feedback data in the daily life space work and the interventions we initiate. In our practice today we take seriously the motives assigned to us (however hurtful or untrue) and examine them in terms of the future interventions we must plan. And we are just as attentive to our own motives for acting the way we do.
