Support for parents – professional help

The idea of professional help is something that my mother and father would have been ashamed to go to anybody else, to talk about the issues that they had. My generation has done it a little bit better and I think this next generation says okay I need some help and I think it’s a really good thing that we’ve done.

Things to think about

Do you have resources available to you when a child brings challenges beyond your experience?
When you are concerned about a child, what is the first step you take to address your concerns?
What kind of issues with children do you feel confident addressing with just your staff?
What kind of issues would you look for professional help with?

Highlights from Playful Wisdom
by Michael Mendizza featuring Bev Bos and Joseph Chilton Pearce

A friend asked me to share my ideas regarding children and family. This is really quite challenging. On the one hand, the issues are personal and diverse. On the other hand, there are a few simple things that will guide anyone in the best possible way throughout the entire adventure.

1. Celebrate parenting as a stage of adult development, growth and expansion.

You will be challenged to discover new things about yourself in the same way your child is discovering who and what they are. Embrace this precious opportunity. Appreciate the value of being open and vulnerable. If you think you have all the answers, that the child should be this or that, at this age or that stage, you are not learning. You are repeating, not discovering, not expanding. Rediscover the wonder and curiosity that not knowing invites. Greet each day with what some call “beginner’s mind.”

2. Focus on your behavior instead of the child’s.

Appreciate that your “behavior” is the knife that sculpts your child’s destiny. Be aware of the way you treat the people you care for, how gentle or rough you are unpacking groceries, how sensitive and aware you are preparing meals, the tone of your voice, the quality of affection or violence in the way you touch anything, the weight of your heart—light or heavy, full of song and laughter or conflict and frustration, day in and day out, moment by moment. Treat your child as an honored guest who is much more important than the pope or president. Lead with sensitive care and respect.

I also think there is a place I also think that there’s a place where we need to know when we need professional help and while I think the idea of professional help to me is to get help and move on. It’s not to perhaps stay in therapy forever, that’s just somebody else’s point of view. I think one of the things we tend to do is to turn ___ and I think this is perfectly okay, to our own parents and to maybe our peer group and ask them what they think. But I think there’s the time when we need to step out of that and go to somebody who can help us go deeper. I always say that to parents. People will talk to me in workshops about a kid. They say I have a kid and I just don’t know. I say you know what, you’re a teacher and you’re a lot more than a teacher but you probably need somebody to come and take a look, somebody that can give you a little bit more objective view. Should I be concerned about this kid or shouldn’t I? I think sometimes we think we have to know everything. I’m going to tell a story, we may edit to this, but a good friend of mine, a teacher, sent her, she had four boys, she sent two of her boys, twins, to a church camp to be counselors. They were perhaps 14 or 15. They were going to help with the younger kids. And while they were gone she decided to redo their room and she went in the room and she started stripping things off and she found a note from one of them that said he was going to kill himself while he was gone. And she just ran to the phone and called a counselor that she knew, somebody that she thought could talk to her and he said, “What I hear you saying is” and she had the presence of mind to hang up. I mean that is something, you don’t talk like that when you’re talking to somebody who’s afraid that her kid is going to kill himself and he was at a camp where there was no phone. She called another person that she knew and he said, “Get in the car. Go as quickly as you can.” She said, “Can I let him stay?” And she said, “I expect you to be home in five days or six days, whenever the camp ends and I know that you will be fine.” And then you also clue in other people. You’ve got to make sure that he’s okay to stay. But she there’s a person that says one thing and another person says you’ve got to do this. So it’s a combination of those two; people who listen, people who do this. That idea of professional help is something that, you know I have to kind of say something, my mother and father would have been ashamed to go to anybody else, to talk about the issues that they had. My generation has done it a little bit better and I think this next generation says okay I need some help and I think it’s a really good thing that we’ve done.