The complete set of 198 Hints are available in paperback from the CYC-Net Press store.
Listen
A good timeThe way each day turns out in our program is usually a compromise. We adults bring a number of expectations and requirements to the table, the kids bring along their needs and wants, and through a hundred minute transactions the river of the daily timetable finds its course. We hear each others’ verbal requests and messages, whether these may be whispered, spoken our yelled, and we "read" ten times as much from the non-verbal cues – the raising of an eye-brow, the look of reluctance, the encouraging gesture, the acquiescent nod.
According to how the kids respond, we may become authoritative {"That must be done now."), we may do some horse-trading ("OK, We’ll do that if you do that first ...") or we may back down ("I can see you really don’t want that.")
We know that we are often on shaky ground, because there are times when we are honestly alert to a child’s capacity or lack of capacity to undertake a particular task today, and we pace the child; but there are also times when in the rush of things we relent because it will be less trouble all round; anything for a quiet life!
This may be more serious than we think. We find that there are many children and youth, especially those who suffered early deprivation, who simply look each day for stroking and satisfaction. They are ‘stuck’ in an infantile stage where they ‘cry’ to be picked up or to be fed. Of course at nine or fourteen they might not actually cry, but in some way (during all this busy daily timetable) they convey their neediness and restlessness, and we reach for a ‘comforter’. This comforter may be candy, it may be compliance with their demands (or relaxation of ours), it may be a movie or some other "good time" which satisfies them.
There’s nothing wrong with this – unless we lose sight of every child’s developmental urgency -- especially the child who is already "behind". Today’s "good time" must never simply be followed by tomorrow’s "good time", because then we are drawn into the voracious spiral of the well recognised "bottomless pit" phenomenon of the continuing needy child.
Our task lies in building today’s good time into a growing sense of security and trust. If we are using the good time simply to appease, to relieve, we reach evening having not made progress. Our team has to find ways to verbalise, reflect on, debrief and consolidate the daily good experiences so that the young person makes new meaning of them, an increasingly more mature construction about the safety and reliability of his or her world, and so can move on.
If the child is still needy next week, next month, then we have not yet succeeded in this. We have more thinking and work to do.
