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9 MARCH 2009
NO 1410
Activities
Activity is as significant in developing relationship as is a relationship itself !
I’ve offered this idea before: “We are what we’ve done and become what we do”. It’s like the chicken and egg problem – which comes first, a relationship that then leads to a shared activity or an activity that initiates the relationship and guides how it evolves.
Here’s one of dozens of examples from this little trip of mine down Memory Lane.
Back to my “direct line” days when I was a milieu coordinator and right in the trenches daily, as the saying goes, with a number of large, aggressive adolescent boys.
I also was able to have individual activity sessions with this group. One boy in particular had chosen me as his target for provocative, acting out behavior. Around him I was nervous for good reason, since he was tall, muscular, explosive and impulsive. Interestingly, however, I heard ‘via the grapevine’ that he wanted – of all things – to make something electrical. Not my expertise, but I managed to find a little kit with which, by following some not-too-impossible instructions, one could build a little electric motor that would cause a small slab to rotate around an axle. We spent some time together each week in my activity room poring over the instructions putting this together. While he still gave me constant grief when I was out on the floor, his behavior while we worked on the motor was absolutely impeccable.
There was something in this mutually shared
activity that altered our relationship – towards the better.
When working in my crafts and carpentry shop for the youth in an old
‘state hospital’, many years ago, the youngsters would easily become
frustrated, often as not fling their project across the room and insist,
“I ain’t gonna do this any more!” There was no discussion of what their
anger might have ‘meant’. Rather, the rule was “Finish the project
properly before you get another one”. So eventually they’d come around
and finish (there wasn’t much else for them to do besides come to my
shop).
We traditionally think of relationships as a movement towards closeness and mutual understanding. Sometimes, and perhaps especially, with challenging children, a relationship can be formed if the adult maintains some distance. Here is where having an activity at hand can be a major asset for the worker. What does ‘maintaining some distance’ mean? Perhaps it means not letting the youth know that ‘you understand how he feels’. Rather, the focus is on dealing with the here and now and the surface reality of the situation. Why? This is less intrusive and threatening. I wonder if that factor is why so many child and youth workers mention how kids ‘open up’ when they’re doing something. It always helped me to have an activity at hand so we’d have something to talk about – especially when the kids were non-verbal!
So, paradoxically, using an activity focus to keep a relationship on more neutral ground so that it doesn’t get too close too soon – can actually enhance the relationship.
I emphasize here the essential connection between relationship and activity because while it is so obvious, it still seems as if the ‘activity’ dimension of child and youth work is not considered nearly as important as the ‘relationship’ dimension. If we can enter and develop a relationship through an activity, we get double the power from the relationship – the benefits of the activity and the relationship itself. An activity can also help to bypass the barriers to relationship formation that youth often offer us.
KAREN VANDERVEN
VanderVen, K. (2006)
Maybe you smiled for the rest of the day ? Some comments on
relationships and their infinite variety. Relational Child and Youth
Care Practice, 19, 3. pp.50-55.
