Listen to thisWhile it is certainly true that we have learned a good deal during the last fifteen years it seems to me that our problems have become not easier but more difficult. It may be that these issues are not as evident here in Canada as in the U.S.A. but it seems to me that changes in our society during the past fifteen or twenty years create new challenges for the child care worker. Let me give you a few examples:
1. The adolescent has depersonalization and
role freeze against the adult.
Bobby likes you, the child care worker. But he can’t like you too much
because you set the rules. He must freeze his role because you are the
one in uniform (not literally, of course, but in effect). Even if he
likes the worker a lot he may have to give him or her up. These children
may abandon you, sometimes when you least expect it. Always one way of
dealing with authority, it seems to me that more youngsters are using it
than previously. It is not the worker but the role they are battling.
The more they have a positive relationship, the more they have to give
it. As I said, we have always seen this but it seems that adolescents
are now more of a society unto themselves than was the case 40 years
ago.
2. The adolescent has an inability to
deserve.
In my view many adolescents suffer from the fact that they cannot come
to deserve their earnings. Penalty and reward systems do not always work
well in a society where cadillacs are simply won by parents. Our whole
culture feeds into this illogical dispensation of goods. There is a
difference between finding $10.00 on the street and earning $10.00. Many
adolescents (and adults) do not care whether or not they earn the money.
But they become indignant at the end of the week if the reward is not
forthcoming. The problem, from the perspective of the child care worker
is: “How do I help this youngster enjoy fulfilling the contract?” Workers need to learn how to be able to help the child experience how to
deserve.
3. There has been an increase in the suction
power of rituals.
We adults have all sorts of rituals, everything from handshakes to
carnivals in New Orleans. We also enact rituals with the children in our
care. The threat is a good example. Take, for example, the kid who gets
bounced from the dining room. To be sure this was a friendly bounce. The
child knows he deserved to be bounced. Five minutes go by and all is
fair. But after five minutes he begins to wonder if he deserved twenty
minutes. What will he do for the next fifteen minutes? The child care
worker is patrolling up and down in the corridor.
Of course we have to make children aware of the consequences of their behaviour. But sometimes we as workers lose sight of these consequences. We resort to threats we could not possibly want to carry out (if we were in our right mind at the time). But to return to our John who is now getting bored after five minutes have passed. He puts his foot into the corridor. The worker ignores it. He does it again putting it out a little further this time. Again the worker more or less ignores it. Now he puts it out even further still. The counsellor is now worried about his own prestige. He says to John: “If you do that again you'll have to go to the quiet room”. (Where you can make as much noise as you like and even try to wreck the place). Now if only the worker had not said this. He has thrown down the gauntlet. We might as well be looking at two four years olds or we might well be working ourselves up to fight a duel in 19th century Germany. One man makes the slightest suggestion that the other has erred in his manner. The other replies suggesting that the other, not he, was in the wrong. Finally, it escalates into one saying to the other: “You are lying”. Now they have to choose weapons and shoot. Now they are puppets on a string, nothing can be done to prevent the duel for honour is at stake. Too bad it happened that way but ...
Our therapist has succumbed to the suction power of the ritual. Now he will get into trouble from the chief counsellor. It was not necessary. Under what conditions is a threat reasonable? Under some circumstances it has to be a help but not under those outlined above. We should remember that the adolescent’s need for ritual is great. The power of the reference group is strong. Which kids have high vulnerability to suction? Most of the data we get on the children may be very helpful for combatting disease but they are of limited value compared to a knowledge about a particular child's suction power of rituals maintained by the peer group.
4. There exists a group code cassette.
In trying to make my point I am in this instance going to turn to modern
technology. I wish to make an analogy between the adolescent’s behaviour
and the operation of a modern-day tape cassette recorder. In using such
a comparison I suppose I am only following in Freud's footsteps in the
sense that he too used a pressure system loosely based on the physical
sciences in order to describe his theory of mind. In seems that sort of
physical analogy is the only sort that people will entertain ...
Not uncommonly a youngster will make a violent attack on me. He is in a rage and he lashes out. It is as though the “group-code system” has suddenly been switched on. Many youngsters do not actually want to hit anyone but they have to face the question. “What will happen to me if I don't?” The code does not permit a youngster to “take it” from an adult. Even children who have a reasonably settled superego are likely to have trouble. The child care worker has to know what the dueling code is. Kids are dependent on the group code and the worker has to know about the group’s values.
From the child care counsellor’s perspective it is important to remember that it is not so much that the adolescent rejects you or your rules but that the child has now come under a new code. Has the child “blown” or is it that the “Group Code Cassette” has come into play. This phenomenon of group code cassette would appear to be different from the breakdown of controls.
Let me close by commenting briefly on something we need and on where we are as child care workers today. One thing we need and often don’t have is data on a given child. Is this particular child allergic to the usual calming techniques or not? If I put my hand on his shoulder will it work or will it make matters worse? Everyone who had the child before me had to figure this out and many people know the answer. But now when I need the information there is no one who will give it to me. We have got to learn how to generate our data and how to transmit it to colleagues.
Where are we today? The role of child-care worker is emerging out of a sort of poorly-paid baby sitting job into a new profession. It is not just a composite of nursing, social work, psychology and so on. It has started to emerge. We are beginning to be able to offer thoughtful suggestions to the people who count but who often think the issues surrounding disturbed children are simple. Can we help people get over the idea that it is not a matter of either/or, for example, either all these children should be locked up, or they should be on the street. What this means is that we should have a variety of programmes. We have more children in need than ever before. And all too often only one or two of their needs are met in a programme. Often there are a dozen or so needs left over. We as child care workers must become experts in creating life spaces for children.
This feature: Redl, Fritz. (1982). Child Care Work. Journal of Child Care. 1 (2) pp.6-9
