INDEX OF QUOTES
 |
We have to respect, among other things, the child's deep involvement in the difficult task of growing up. Often in Korczak’s works we find descriptions of children contemplating their problems and the decisions that are confronting them. One of his very early works, Children of the street, is characterized by the recurrent theme of the central figure and other youngsters facing the choice between this or that way of life: good or bad, free or submissive. In How to love a child we are often reminded that the educator has to take the child’s decisions into consideration and is indeed dependent on them. The well-known bets Korczak entered into with children is another illustration of his conviction that the children themselves are the makers of their progress. Why is this element in Korczak’s view of child development so important to modern residential youth care? In our view, because a disturbed child in residential care runs the risk of being seen as an object and a product of different internal and external factors, rather than as an actor him/herself. At best the child is seen as a person who reacts to negative factors as an explanation for difficult behaviour, and who reacts well to our therapeutic measures when developing in a positive direction. On one occasion, Korczak’s basic idea was effectively summarized by a Dutch residential worker when he said: ‘I am often impressed how intensively my children are trying to make something of their, very disturbed, lives.’If psychological development is also an active process, and if the child is an actor in its own right, the essence of educating, bringing up children and also of helping those in disarray, lies in communication with the child. This is not a superfluous reminder for residential child care. |
 |
|