If I look back over my own practice I can see what a drudge the work might easily have been. If we are going to work with children we have to dig deep within ourselves and discover the child within ourselves. We must also discover within ourselves what might be useful or stimulating to children. We are all different, and almost anything that 'hits' us will do. I scratch around on bookshelves and in libraries and find many things I can get excited about and make part of myself. For example, in a Life line course I found lots I could share, and interesting exercises I could do with the children.
Doing things together
I remember once offering to raise money for our home by putting on a
candlelight theatre with the kids. Others told us it would never work – and we weren't so sure ourselves – but we all grew so much through the
experience. I became engrossed in it, spent hours of my 'off-duty' time
scrounging for good bits of writing and lovely music, and the children
soon picked up my enthusiasm. But much more was to happen: youngsters
discovered talents in themselves which they never knew they had; they
discovered the joy of being involved in something that worked, of being
applauded, of trying something new (we experimented with ultra-violet
lights!). Everyone remembers it years later, the little ones, the
teenagers, even those who thought they weren't much good at anything,
but who, with great enjoyment, got to wait at the tables.
Growing beyond
Even the children who had personal problems or unhappinesses seemed to
leave these behind while they got involved in the creativity. I believe
that all new experiences help us to grow beyond something – a hurdle, a
hurt – and even though children don't realise that they are growing,
they find afterwards that they got a little bigger than the problems.
Many child care workers find it hard to get started with activities like
this. A good starting point is to ask yourself 'What is something that I
am interested in or good at?' This is immediately something of yourself
that you have to offer children.
Making it happen
Next, of course, is some structure. Where, when and how do we do things
with kids? There must be some expectation in the home that things must
happen for children. (Some places do not have this expectation, so
nothing does happen.) Our administrators need to make time, space,
resources available, so that somehow, in some planned way, things
happen. Daily routine is often blamed for there being no time for other
things. But things must happen in the routine too. I would have died of
boredom if we hadn't made the routine times 'special'. Even in homework
periods we could make time for a 'spellathon' or 'beat your own record'
quiz. You don't have to look too far for special occasions. Everyone has
one birthday every year, so we do the parties and play the party games.
These become things which the children remember as important milestones.
With older children a birthday is a good time to catch up on special
experiences they will perhaps otherwise miss altogether. They are, for
example, going to have to know about such things as taking someone out
(or being taken out) for dinner – so we would go out and eat snails or
real pasta! So there was the conversation and the fun, and relationships
moved into new stages ...
Engaging
Often children are reluctant to meet new challenges. They are afraid of
failing, of making a fool of themselves. (So are the child care workers – we also don't know if a new idea will work.) But child care workers
must risk engaging with children, and risk themselves in that
engagement. Child care workers are responsible for generating the
content and the interest and the opportunity for such encounters. When
we consciously accumulate ideas, information and inspiration to enrich
our own lives, our selves, we have something to offer. Kids will respond
if we take the lead. They like to have a hook on which to hang their
yearnings and fantasies and their growing. This sense of risk and
adventure must be inside us, and I believe everyone is creative at the
core. If it got lost for you somewhere along the way, you're going to
have to dredge it out.
Young students
It is hard for young and school-leaver students. They might be expected
to be adults when they are still working on their own adolescent things.
It's a transition between being free and then suddenly being responsible
for others. Also, child care can be quite a cloistered experience. It is
easy to get locked into a duty schedule and an adult role, so there
seems to be less time to go 'out' and bring new things 'in'. But I have
seen many young people do magic work with kids in spite of this. I have
some problems with the roles in which we cast child care workers; I am
not sure we should always have to play parental roles. But we can't
avoid some of the parental tasks, and I have always been challenged by
having to make the most of things like cooking and sewing on buttons.
But therein lies the creativity of child care – it's not just the poetry
and stuff; it's finding opportunity and meaning and joy in the mundane
things and turning them into good human experiences. And isn't that
exactly why the children come to us? These ordinary things didn't go
well in their own families; we have to do something new with them.
Attitudes
Attitudes and practice are inseparable – and yet often hard to link.
Attitudes can be merely sentimental if they don't find expression in
concrete practice. And practice can be cold if it is not tempered by
positive attitudes. I remember our deciding once that a little kid
needed more nurturing so we decided to give her a regular bubble bath
for a while. But then this caused more mess in the bathroom, with wet
towels around the place, so the bubble baths became a nuisance – and
this showed in our seeming less nurturing towards her. The attitude led
to a good practice idea, but the good practice got spoiled because we
didn't sustain the good attitude. There's a lesson in there somewhere.
Where we learn
The child care literature is only partly on the child care and
psychology shelves. The rest of it is in the lives we lead and the
people we meet. The children we work with come from the real world and
when they leave us they go back there. As child care workers, we will
meet and work with people from the real world – and we get to know about
ordinary people from being with ordinary people. The children, in turn,
will also get to know about the real world and about ordinary people
through their relationships with us. That is the one thing we have to
offer. And for each to do that, be yourself.