The complete set of 198 Hints are available in paperback from the CYC-Net Press store.
Listen
One of the tensions between troubled kids and adults is that they often have a complicated story to tell ... and we are eager to get on with whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing with them. Think of a youngster who is late for school and who, anxious and breathless and trying to catch up with the clock, is mentally preparing the stories over and over – the reasons, the excuses, the explanations – for a teacher who probably won’t have the time to listen to them anyway.
Think of youngsters who find themselves in care or in some sort of treatment or juvenile centre, as they long to preserve their dignity, hold on to their individuality, insulate themselves within the context and memory of their own families and neighbourhoods, what stories they have to tell! How much they want to say before they slide into the anonymity of the program, into the possible stigma which labels the whole nameless group.
“Come along,” we say, believing that we are involving them and reassuring them, “it’s time for school/dinner/group/games/bed” ... whatever, forgetting that they need to be known for who they are and what they like and what they need. And what they miss and how they hurt. And how they feel regretful and guilty and angry.
In our work we talk a lot about the life space, but this phrase is really wider than it sounds. It is not only a matter of working with kids where they are (space) but also of being with kids who they are (life space) and making room (space) for them to be and to express their historical and existential and ontological selves.
I know colleagues who work alone with three or thirty kids at once. The irritating and attention-seeking behaviour of these kids usually has but one goal: please know me and understand me, the real me, in whatever confusing and foreign context I now happen to be.
In our practice today we will use whatever practical and creative and organisational skill we can, to give our kids the chance and the time to be listened to and to be heard – and thus to be acknowledged and respected. To tell their stories.
Give them space.
