Listen to thisThis is a Characteristic of Practice that has the potential to make us, as practitioners, a little uncomfortable. Indeed, when I learned about it as a CYC student 13 years ago, I struggled to reconcile it with ethical and professional practice. I worked as part of a group of students back then that offered a presentation to our classmates on the ethical dilemma of saying “I love you” to young people. The way we constructed that activity, I think, was reflective of our (perhaps my) bias at the time. All our scenarios considered “love” and saying “I love you” in the context of insinuating a sexual relationship. The activity might have even been reflective of a bias created by the very language we all spoke (English).
English has one word for ‘love’ and within that one word is a wide spectrum of feelings, actions, thoughts, and choices (Smith, 2009). We might mean the deep caring we have for a friend or family member. We might mean the protective instincts caregivers have for their children; we might mean (gasp) the sexual attraction we have for another consenting adult. I believe it is the limitation of our language, and particularly that sexual aspect of love that often comes to mind, that, at least in part, contributes to practitioners feeling apprehensive about love.
Most Child and Youth Care education programs, at some point, at least skim over Maslow and his hierarchy. It’s right there in his pyramid: “Love.” A basic human need. As Smith (2009) asserts, “love is a prerequisite for healthy development.” These aren’t ambiguous conceptions of how love intertwines with our growth and development. Maslow doesn’t identify it as a benefit to human development. He identifies is as a ‘basic need.’ Smith (2009) isn’t suggesting love will support healthy development, he considers it a non-negotiable, imperative, pre-conditional requirement before human development can truly begin.
Why then did I spend the first several years of my career in 24/7 group care settings avoiding using the word ‘love?’ In fact, even when discussing the Characteristics of Practice with colleagues, when I arrived at ‘Love” I would quickly offer the caveat of “I prefer the term care.” Sure, I believe the nature of the English language plays a part, and the sexual connotations we attach to the word certainly contributed to my apprehensiveness, but it was more than that. It made me deeply uncomfortable to think of myself as loving a young person I was working with.
During much of my education and career I discussed, demonstrated and reflected on my own professionalism. Competent, professional practice highlights the need to “model appropriate interpersonal boundaries” (Mattingly, 2010). Surely loving a young person was not modelling appropriate boundaries, I remember thinking. Ethically, a Child and Youth Care Practitioner “ensures appropriate boundaries between professional and personal relationships” (Standards of Practice for North American Child and Youth Care Professionals, 2017). Again, my conception was love was reserved for personal relationships, caring was there for the professional ones. That word ‘appropriate,’ however, is where my professional development and growth related to using and talking about love truly occurred.
Initially, ‘appropriate boundaries’ to me meant firm, clear and ever-present. And my interpretation was that boundaries, in the context of a relationship involving love, were not ‘firm, clear and ever-present.” They blurred. Individuals who love one another share feelings. The experience of other has an impact on the experience of self. When people share love, each of their choices can impact the feelings of the other. Early in my career, I could not go there with the young people I worked with. I did good work when I kept my needs and feelings, and the needs and feelings of young people separate. Always. No exceptions. I still think that almost always that is a best practice approach. But, as I became a more seasoned practitioner, I developed a different understanding of the idea of ‘appropriate boundaries.’ I began to consider the fact that a skilled practitioner might not always have hard and fast boundaries. Sometimes, being in relationship demanded an intentional allowance for the relaxing of boundaries where young people’s feelings could be mine, and mine theirs. I realized that I could blur boundaries, allow love into the relationship, and have that choice be for the benefit of a young person’s development, rather than just a self-serving engagement in relationship that was all about my needs.
The following story is about another practitioner’s learning about love in practice. It is an illustration of how the rituals, activities, and routines we engage in with young people can all be injected with love. And my intention is that it will illustrate an ‘appropriate’ use of boundaries in relationship that involves allowing there to be, if only for a couple of minutes, no boundaries at all.
Crocodile Man and Octopus Dude
It was one of those days. No. Not one of those days. The good kind. The kind of day where you go to brush your teeth, notice the toothpaste tube is all empty, crinkled and folded up in the corner of the counter, but when you push near the top of it with your thumb, miraculously, more than enough paste for one last brush comes bursting out. It was the kind of day you get just enough goop into your hair, and it falls just right. The type of day where you pull up to the drive-thru for coffee, and it is packed, but that seasoned morning crew is working inside, and the line-up evaporates like the early morning, summer dew on your windshield. You don’t have to walk into shift change, late, with a takeout coffee in hand. You know, one of those days.
It was that kind of day. The kind of day I got to have a singular focus while on shift. I was called in to be an extra staff, but not to support in case of an anticipated crisis, or to get some extra hands on deck to give the house its bi-annual deep clean. Nope. Today I was there to spend the day with my primary kid, Raya. And that day also happened to be her last day in our program. It was a day to celebrate. We had, through intentional planning, hard work, and, of course, dumb luck, actually done it. We had, as a team, identified (and taken advantage of) the ever-elusive discharge window.
Raya was 9 and had moved into our program when she was 7. She was at right around 17 months with us. When she first arrived, she had been terrified of us. Then, she started to hate us. She grew to tolerate us, and, eventually started to feel safe with us. Finally, and perhaps best of all, she was ready to see the back side of us. And just as she arrived at that readiness, we had that discharge window open so she could sneak out.
When she first moved in with us, Raya had had to grieve. She had lost her home and her family after being apprehended and was convinced her stay with us would be temporary. I suppose she was right, given we had arrived at the day before her discharge, but she wasn’t right in the way she wanted to be back then. She denied, she bargained, she got angry and depressed. Eventually though, she accepted that she wasn’t going to live with her mother anymore after her mother told Raya herself that she couldn’t take her back.
The strength it took for her mother to be honest in that moment with her child, so Raya could move forward without the guilt of looking back was so easy to overlook, even for the trained eyes of a Child and Youth Care Practitioner.
And to be honest, I had overlooked it, until writing it down just now.
Anyway ...
Forward Raya marched, an ambiguous ‘forever-home’ now in her sights. She worked hard at school, she joined a theatre club for kids, she learned to swim, and, perhaps most important of all, she let us care for her. But now, she was ready. She had connected with a family from a Departmental Adoption Program, and, as “window shoppy” as that process could be, it seemed like the right match.
“Race you to that tree!” Raya exclaimed, taking off before I had both feet out of the van and onto the pavement. I slammed the door behind me, took off with the remote key pointed backwards over my shoulder and took off to catch up while the doors locked with a little chirp. I pulled up next to Raya and slowed my pace to create a dramatic photo finish, which she won with an outstretched hand.
“Got me,” I conceded, breathing dramatically.
“You let me win,” she stated suspiciously.
“Me? Dude, I’m exhausted. You’re too fast for me.”
“Yeeeeah,” she said, “You let me win. You know if you always let me win, I’ll be a little brat who can’t lose good.”
Where did that come from, I thought. “Where did that come from,” I asked.
“That’s what happened to Hank,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Who?”
“Hank, from Two Crazy Kids Save the World. The book I’m reading. He’s the bad guy. His mom and dad made sure he never lost anything when he was little. Not chess. Not baseball. Not card games, or board games. Then, when he finally became a grown-up and had to play someone who didn’t let him win, he lost. He got so mad, he had to get revenge on the entire world! Mwahahahaha!” Raya cackled deviously.
“OK. Jeez. I’ll make sure I beat you next time.”
“Sometimes,” Raya said, doing the voice she did when she was pretending to be me, “grown-ups have to be OK with kids being mad at them, so they can do what’s best for them.”
See what I’m saying. This kid was ready to fly herself out of that discharge window.
“Yeah, yeah,” I surrendered, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s eat.”
We were out for breakfast at Our Spot. We called it ‘Our Spot’ but the reality of group care is that kids don’t get the restaurant experience enough to frequent any place enough times to meet the typical threshold for an Our Spot title. We had only been there 3 times together in the last 17 months. One time each for the two birthdays Raya had spent with us. The only other time was right after her mother had told her they wouldn’t be moving back in together.
We walked into the diner and were greeted by the host. “How many?” He asked.
“Table for 2 please!” Raya told him.
He grabbed two menus and lead us to a booth in the back corner. When we settled into our seats he asked, “Drinks to start?”
“Water and a coffee for me,” I told him. “And she’ll have...” I paused and looked to Raya.
“Chocolate milk!”
“Water,” he jotted down. “Coffee. And chocolate milk.” He looked up from his pad. “Cream or milk for the coffee?”
Before I could answer, Raya interjected, “Cream please. He has no time for coffee without cream.”
I chuckled. “You heard the lady.”
“Cream it is.”
After the host retreated to get our drinks, Raya and I scanned the menu in silence for a minute or so. Then I got an idea. “Want to play a game?” I asked her.
“Yes!” Raya exclaimed and scanned the table. “But they didn’t give us any paper and crayons.”
We played Tic Tac Toe the last time we had come to Our Spot, but that wasn’t what I meant. “We can ask for those, but I was thinking about another game.”
“Which one?” she asked, face screwing up in curiosity.
“Let’s see if we can order each other’s breakfast.”
A wide smile crossed Raya’s face and she put her menu down. “Too easy,” she said.
A server arrived at our table with our drinks and asked, “All ready to order here? Or could we use a few more minutes?”
“We’re ready.” Raya stated, sitting taller in her seat, ready to play our game.
“Let me have it,” the server said, clicking the end of her pen and placing the end of it against her note pad.
“He’ll have the Sunny Morning Breakfast Special,” Raya offered pointing at me.
“Sunny. Morning.” The server repeated while scribbling down the order. “Bacon, sausage or ham?”
“Sausage,” Raya stated before adding, “of course.”
“Sausage. And how are we having the eggs?”
“Over easy,” Raya said before our server had fully finished her question. “And make sure they’re runny. He’ll complain if they aren’t, but he won’t send them back.”
I chuckled. She had me there.
The server smirked as she wrote down my preferred egg style. “Runny,” she said and scratched what I assumed was an underline below the word. “Got it. And what kind of toast?”
“Multigrain,” Raya finished proudly leaning back into her seat, grin on her face and chest puffed out.
“Oh no,” the server said, “we only have white or whole wheat now.”
Raya’s brow furrowed. “Oh. Well then. It better be whole wheat.”
The server looked at me before writing it down.
“She’s got it,” I said.
“Whole,” the server said while scribbling, “wheat. OK and what’re you having?” the server asked, still looking at Raya.
“She will have,” I cut in. The server started a little, but looked to me, ready to go. “A Sunny Sandwich on an English muffin with ham and cheese. Make sure to bust the yolk because she definitely doesn’t want it runny. And the English muffin should be lightly toasted. She’ll complain if it isn’t, and she will send it back, unlike me.”
The server grinned. “Toasted, light,” she said with loud scratch on her pad as she underlined the word ‘light.’
I picked up both of our menus and moved to hand them to our server. As I did, however, I noticed Raya looking at me, eyebrows raised.
“Oh. Sorry. And she’ll have a fruit and granola yogurt parfait. Vanilla yogurt and straw...”
Raya’s eyes got a little bigger and she leaned in.
“Raspberries,” I corrected myself.
The server jotted down the last of our orders, took the menus, and retreated to the kitchen to post our ticket for the cooks.
“Strawberries?” Raya asked. “Really?”
“You had strawberries the last three times we were here,” I defended myself.
“That was ages ago! My favorite is raspberries now.”
“So, you don’t like strawberries anymore?”
“I don’t hate strawberries, but they aren’t my favorite.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I think you switched on me just so you could win.”
Raya smiled while taking a long haul off the straw of her chocolate milk. “Well,” she said, setting the half-full glass of chocolate milk on the table in front her. “I did.”
“You did what?”
“Win,” she said.
* * *
It was back to the van after breakfast, and off to therapy. It wasn’t Raya’s last visit to her therapist, but it would be our last visit together. Dr. Burkowski had e-mailed me a couple of days ago to let me know the plan for this session. The intention was to support a discussion about family, transition, and change.
After we parked Raya jumped out and ran to one of those large concrete dividers, hopped on and used it like a balance beam. I locked the van and started towards the entrance. We weren’t late, but we weren’t early either. The morning dew had dried up, and the heat of the sun was reflecting off the asphalt as I headed towards the front door of Dr. Burkowski’s office. “Come on, Raya,” I directed her. “We’re going to be late.”
Raya didn’t react the way she used to when I offered that kind of directive, but simply leaped down off the divider and ran to catch up, her flip flops clippity-clapping off the scorching surface of the parking lot. She stopped next to me and put her hand in mine as we headed towards the elevator.
“Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who presses the button,” she said, taking her hand out of mine and making a fist in front of me.
“Alright,” I said, “let’s go.”
“Rock. Paper. Scissors,” we chanted together. I laid my hand flat between us and she held hers in a fist.
“Paper covers rock,” I said wrapping my hand around her little fist.
“Shit,” Raya said.
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Shoot,’ she corrected herself. “Can I push it anyway?”
I pushed the button, and it lit up with an orange glow. “Sometimes,” I started pompously, “Grown-ups have to be OK with kids being mad at -”
“mehmehmeh meh mehmeh,” Raya said hopping into the elevator after the doors slid open with friendly little ding.
Dr. Burkowski was at the front desk chatting with the receptionist when we stepped out of the elevator onto her floor. She turned when the doors rumbled open.
“Raya,” she said, with a little clap of her hands. “Good to see you! Perfect timing.”
“We aren’t late then?” I double checked.
“Not at all! I just got some toys set up in my office for us.”
Raya marched right past Dr. Burkowski and down the hall to her office. “What’re we playing with today?” She asked.
“I’ve got the sand table, the playhouse, and some action figures.”
“No dolls, right?” Raya inquired.
“No dolls,” Dr. Burkowski confirmed.
Raya gave a curt little nod and headed inside.
“How are you, Francis,” Dr. Burkowski asked me before we followed Raya in.
“Good,” I said.
“Mmm,” Dr. Burkowski responded while silently looking over me. “Well, let’s go then.”
Raya was already playing with the action figures around the sand table when we walked in. I sat on the couch behind her, and Dr. Burkowski sat in her chair across from Raya. “Who do we have today, Raya?”
“Well,” she started, “the Crocodile Man is the dad, the Shark Lady is the mom, and the little Octopus Dude is the kid. Crocodile man is making breakfast, while the kid and the mom get the table ready.”
“How lovely!” Dr. Burkowski said with a little clap. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Ham and egg breakfast sandwiches,” Raya said.
“Of course,” Dr Burkowski said. “I should know that by now. Is it a school morning or the weekend?”
Raya paused and screwed her face up a little while she considered the question. “It’s the weekend.”
“So, does this family have any plans for the weekend morning then?”
Raya set down the Crocodile Man who had just been fixing breakfast at the playhouse kitchen and walked over to a shelf that was full of toys. She picked up a large model tree that had a little toy tire swing tied around the thickest branch and set it on the sand table, away from the playhouse. “They’re going to play on the swing after they eat.”
“What a wonderful idea! Is this how weekend mornings look when you’re with Pam and Derek?”
Raya paused. “Sort of,” she said. “They don’t have a tire swing. But they do have a big tree in the backyard, and last week, Derek tied some rope on the branch and made a regular swing!”
“Fun! So, it sounds almost the same,” Dr. Burkowski probed.
“Yeah,” Raya agreed. “But they never have ham.”
“Oh no,” Dr. Burkowski said. “Is that a rule in their house? No ham?”
“I don’t know,” Raya mused. “I never asked.”
“Do you hope they get ham when you move in?”
Raya shrugged.
“Do you think it’d be OK to ask?”
Raya shrugged again. “Probably.”
“Maybe you could try this weekend.”
“Yeah,” Raya said, “Maybe.”
Raya then got back to the toys and directed us in how we should join in. I got to be Crocodile Man, and I mostly pushed Octopus Dude on the swing. At one point I had to fight off the werewolf that showed up, but I easily took care of him, and we kept swinging.
After about 20 minutes, Dr. Burkowski redirected us. “I’m going to put the toys away, Raya, I was hoping we could talk about a few things.”
“Can I keep the Crocodile Man out?” She asked.
“Of course,” Dr. Burkowski allowed with a smile.
Once the sand table was pushed away from the center of the room, Raya and I sat on the couch, and Dr. Burkowski wheeled her chair closer and across from us. “So, you’re moving to a new house, with a new family tomorrow.”
Raya nodded.
“How are you feeling about that?”
“Good,” Raya stated plainly.
“Try some of those feeling words we always talk about,” Dr. Burkowski directed her.
“Happy.”
“Anything else?”
“Excited,” Raya said.
Dr. Burkowski nodded and let a silence hang.
Raya picked at the crocodile man in her hand.
“Nervous?” Dr. Burkowski asked after a while.
Raya shook her head, but then shuffled a little bit closer to me.
“OK. What about leaving McLean House? How are you feeling about that?”
Raya didn’t hesitate. “Happy and excited,” she said.
“Why?”
“Cause the other kids are crazy! They’re so loud. And I won’t have to wait to take a bath. Oh! And there will always be chocolate milk!”
“Sounds like you’ve thought about this!” Dr. Burkowski said.
Raya nodded proudly.
“Is there anything you’re going to miss about McLean?”
Raya thought quietly, her eyes glued to the Crocodile Man in her hands. She shrugged.
Dr. Burkowski let the silence hang for 10 seconds or so before turning to me. “What about you, Francis? How are you feeling about Raya’s move?”
I wasn’t ready for a question to be directed at me. I also wasn’t convinced my feelings mattered. This was about Raya, not me. “Um,” I said thinking about how, or even if I should answer. I decided to trust Dr. Burkowski and all those letters behind her name.
“Excited,” I said. “Pam and Derek seem like really nice people. They have a big house with lots of fun things to do. Raya will have her own room, and all the books she can fit on her shelves. I’m happy, too. I’m happy Raya is getting the forever home she’s wanted for over a year now.”
Dr. Burkowski nodded, let the silence hang.
Man, I thought, even when you can recognize those therapeutic dialogue skills being used, they’re still effective. I wasn’t sure I should share what I was about to share, I always strive to keep my feelings, my feelings. No kid should have to carry those. Boundaries are there for a reason. They protect both of us.
“I’m sad,” I said. I took a breath. “I’ll miss Raya. Our cartoons on Saturday morning, reading and cuddling before bed, watching her theatre shows. Yeah. I’m a little sad. I’m going to miss her.”
I went to look over at Raya, but she was already leaping into my lap. She wrapped her arms around my neck and buried her head against my shoulder. She was crying. “I’m going to miss you, too, Francis,” she choked out. “I don’t want to leave you.” I could feel a warm wetness seeping through my t-shirt.
And then I was crying too.
I squeezed her tight and started to sob. And I realized then, at least for now, the boundaries between us were gone. Her feelings were my feelings, and mine were hers. Hell, even physically we were almost one person the way we were gripping onto each other.
There would be time for boundaries later. She would leave, and, just like her mother, I would have to know that letting go was what was best for Raya. She would have her forever-family, and blurred boundaries between us would only complicate that. But, for now, that didn’t matter. Boundaries had protected us both throughout her time at McLean House, and they would protect us both when she moved in with Pam and Derek. But right now, for the next couple of minutes, it was OK that they didn’t exist.
I rocked with Raya in my arms, and we both cried.
After a minute or so, I hauled in a deep breath. Raya was still sobbing against my shoulder, and I caught Dr. Burkowski’s eye. I wondered what she thought of all this. Was this her intention when she asked me that question? Did she think I was being unprofessional? Was I being unprofessional? Would I have done anything different depending on what she or others thought?
That one was easy.
I wouldn’t have.
References
Child and Youth Care Certification Board. (2017). Standards of practice for north American child and youth care professionals. Child & Youth Care Certification Board - Ethics (cyccb.org)
Freeman, J., Fulcher, L., Garfat, T., Gharabaghi, K. (2018). Characteristics of a relational child and youth care approach revisited. CYC-Online ,236, pp 7-46. CYC-Online October 2018 (cyc-net.org)
Mattingly, M. (Ed.). (2010). Competencies for professional child and youth care practitioners. Association for Child and Youth Care Practice & Child and Youth Care Certification Board. Retrieved from Child & Youth Care Certification Board - I. Professionalism (cyccb.org)
Smith, M. (2009). Love tenderly. CYC-Online 119.
