Post #3 in category. We recommend reading posts in numerical order.
You are not Alone
Parents and family members are not peripheral to a child’s development; they are central. And yet, in clinical, therapeutic, and educational settings, they are often sidelined, treated as well-meaning supporters and transporters rather than vital participants in their child’s progress. Physicians, therapists, and educators, usually acting with the best intentions, can mechanically form professional enclaves, excluding the people who know the child best.
The child exists in one world, the professionals in another, and the family in a third, each with their own language, expectations, and priorities. Communication between the child and their adult mediators is fragmented. The connections between members of the child’s development team are tenuous, and their interactions guarded and superficial.
The family, rather than being recognized as an indispensable part of the child’s development journey, is often cast in “non-professional” roles of caregiver, protector, provider, but not as core co-constructors of their child’s learning and development.
Experts
Parents tend to defer to the “experts,” believing that their specialized knowledge, academic credentials, and professional experience bestow on them more correct and superior opinions and judgment.
While professional expertise and opinion are important, it is incomplete without the 24-hour, 7-day-a-week experience over years with their child, the commitment and personal connection, and nuanced intuition that only a parent possesses. Meaningful progress happens when all three worlds (the child, family, and the professionals) are brought into active and respectful collaboration.
An ongoing respectful collaboration between all significant persons in the child’s life is not just important; it is essential.
We all doubt ourselves sometimes. Not just new parents, not just beginners. I still have feelings of uncertainty before I meet a new child and their family. Even after many years, I am relieved when the child, their parents, and I have meaningfully connected. It never gets old, and I never take it for granted. I wonder if the child is having the same positive experience.
As our interpersonal learning relationship strengthens, as we form a bond, as we work/play, I relate to the child at a deeper level. I gradually become better at predicting their intentions, their choices, and behaviors. I am better at understanding their signals and communications.
When I understand more about the child, about their family, about myself, and about the mediated relationship, the child becomes more interested, more relaxed, more curious, and more open to participating, communicating, and learning.
As I learn about the child and their family, they are learning about me. If the child feels I am kind, prepared, focused on the activity with them, interesting, imaginative, helpful, patient, authentic, and committed, they will teach me who they are.
Over the years, I have come to appreciate that what I don’t know matters as much as what I do know. There are no perfect understandings or answers. There is not one method that serves all. In my writings, I am not suggesting to the child’s parents, therapists, or teachers that I know the child better than they know the child. How could I? I am a newcomer to the child’s life, and only for a limited number of hours and days a week. And every child and every context is different.
I believe that only when we engage with a child, learn with a child, nurture a child over a long time, and have a positive, enjoyable personal relationship can we claim some understanding, but not nearly approaching the understanding, the connectedness, and the commitment of the child’s parents and siblings.
I am not writing a one-size-fits-all treatment program or educational curriculum. I can only offer some ideas, some suggestions, and some support. I have learned that none of us should feel alone in our responsibilities and our journey with the children. A child’s development is much too complex and important for us to navigate alone.
Parents and professionals need to work out what best serves the interests of each individual child and their families. Each of us assesses, designs, and builds on our unique experiences, our values, sensitivities, strategies, and skills.
Make Adaptive Changes
If you find certain ideas and information in these writings to be relevant, make changes where needed. Adapt, reshape, refine, and tune my observations and suggestions to better fit your individual child, your family, and each changing context. Shape the information, the goals, and the strategies for each unique child and for yourself. Make adjustments and adaptations as situations change and as the child changes. If you are comfortable with certain ideas and applications that I describe in Organizing Minds, adapt them to better fit your child and your family.
Calm, confident mediators make adaptive adjustments in the objectives, approaches, styles, and activities grounded upon their secure interpersonal base with each unique child. Ongoing modifications in the plans and the goals and the mediated play and learning activities are supported by continually updated evidence, by our growing understanding and respect for the child, and by our optimistic belief in the child and in ourselves.
We try together. We evaluate, we correct, we continue. Children are forgiving when they have developed a trusting relationship with us if we are empathic, kind, confident, and prepared.
If the child is interested in the activities we are doing together and enjoys their time with us, they will be forgiving when something goes wrong, especially when we swallow our ego and correct our attitudes, our errors, and misjudgments. But it is far more difficult to reconnect if we lose our patience, our temper, our belief in them or in ourselves.
Words are not Enough
The best way to connect with a child is not through words but through listening. Listening to their feelings, to their thinking, to their actions. Sharing experiences with them. Playing, solving problems, and learning together. Succeeding together. Building enjoyable, collaborative partnerships for development with the child and with all members of the child’s development team.
My words, my writings, are inadequate. I have not met you or your child. I have not listened to your child. I have not worked with your child or with you. I can only offer suggestions, models, abstractions, and my experiences with other children and families similar to yours. You know your child better than anyone. I know other children and families who are on similar journeys. Hopefully, I can offer ideas and experiences that will help you build brighter futures for your child and for your whole family.
I have learned over the years that every child can progress with kind, thoughtful, and patient support. Never give up on them or on yourself.
I hope I can connect with you and that you can connect with me. Best wishes to you and to your children, who will feel better and do better with your love, your understanding, and your help. None of us should feel alone on our journey.
Shlomo Chaim
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