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Chapter 4 A View of Children

To grow up to be healthy, very young children do not need to know how to read, but they do need to know how to play .

Fred Rogers

Although some people have said space is our last frontier to explore, childhood may in fact be our last frontier . We know so little about the complex intricacies of childhood and are limited in our efforts to discover and understand the meanings in childhood because we are forced to allow children to teach us .

Only the child the play therapist is with in the play therapy relation- ship can teach the therapist what he does not know about the child that is important . We can only learn about children from children . Children bring to the relationship with the therapist a rich tapestry of emotional possibilities from which they weave the intricacies of their personalities . The direction these emotional possibilities take is affected by the person of the therapist, the kinds of responses the therapist makes, and what children sense in the therapist .

RULE OF THUMB:

What is most important about children can be learned only from children .

Landreth, Garry L.. Play Therapy : The Art of the Relationship, Taylor & Francis Group, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/capella/detail.action?docID=958282. Created from capella on 2024-05-24 21:15:13.

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Tenets for Relating to Children The process of relating to children from a child-centered frame of reference is based on the following tenets about children that compose, for the therapist, the framework for an experiential self-projecting attitude about children . The tenets are as follows:

1 . Children are not miniature adults. The therapist does not respond to them as if they were .

2 . Children are people. They are capable of experiencing deep emotional pain and joy .

3 . Children are unique and worthy of respect. The therapist prizes the uniqueness of each child and respects the person the child is .

4 . Children are resilient. Children possess a tremendous capac- ity to overcome obstacles and circumstances in their lives .

5 . Children have an inherent tendency toward growth and maturity. They possess an inner intuitive wisdom .

6 . Children are capable of positive self-direction. They are capable of dealing with their world in creative ways .

7 . Children’s natural language is play. This is the medium of self-expression with which they are most comfortable .

8 . Children have a right to remain silent. The therapist respects a child’s decision not to talk .

9 . Children will take the therapeutic experience to where they need to be. The therapist does not attempt to deter- mine when or how a child should play .

10 . Children’s growth cannot be speeded up. The therapist recognizes this and is patient with the child’s developmen- tal process .

Children are persons in their own right . They do not become persons upon the attainment of some predetermined age or after having met certain criteria . Each child is a unique personality, and that uniqueness is not dependent on any significant person in the child’s life; neither is personal significance limited to or a function of the child’s behavior . Therefore, children are worthy of respect because they have worth and dignity as individuals . Their unique- ness is prized and appreciated by the therapist, who responds to

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A View of Children 47

the child as a person . Children are people . They do not have to earn that distinction .

The child is not an object for study but, rather, is a person to be known in the dynamics of the moment . The child standing before the therapist in the playroom is not a problem to be analyzed but a whole person to be related to and understood . Children, indeed all persons, have a longing to be heard, to be recognized as persons of value . For some children, it is as though they go through their lives day after day tapping out their message: “Hey, up there! Does anyone hear me? Does anyone see me? Does any- one care that no one seems to care about me? My heart aches . Do you see it? Do you care?” And day after day adults in their lives ignore these emotional messages . In the playroom, however, chil- dren are noticed, listened to, heard, responded to, and allowed to chart their own lives . This is a freeing process for children which allows them to draw on their inner resources for growth and self-direction . The acceptance, safety, and permissiveness expe- rienced in the playroom allow children to express the fullness of their personalities .

Children Are Resilient Children possess an inner strength and are resilient . They bounce back . Attempting to explain that they are products of their home environment seems to be far too simplistic and does not account for the differences and variability in children reared in the same environment . How do we account for some children who seem to be invulnerable to what would appear to be devastating experi- ences in their lives? Some children experience regular beatings by unloving and insensitive parents but are not beaten down psy- chologically in the process . Some children are reared in poverty but grow up rich in spirit and outlook on life . Some children have alcoholic parents but, unlike “codependent brothers and sisters,” are themselves independent and well adjusted . Some children are reared by emotionally disturbed parents and are themselves quite successful and well-adjusted as teenagers and adults . A possible explanation seems to be the way these experiences have been inter- nalized and the integration that has occurred within individuals

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as they have interacted with their environment . Such examples emphasize the capacity and striving of the human organism to grow toward fulfillment and maturity even in the midst of adverse circumstances (Figure 4 .1) .

Significant variables that researchers have suggested as con- tributing factors to making some children invulnerable are high self-regard, self-control, inner motivation, and a sense of personal identity . These children have confidence in themselves . They feel capable of exerting control over their environment and are goal directed . Researchers have found that parents of such children have allowed considerable self-direction (Segal & Yahraes, 1979) . These findings echo the dynamics and process of the play therapy relationship as experienced by children .

When I think of resilient children, I am reminded of 18-month-old Jessica McClure, who fell down an abandoned well shaft in west Texas and captured the attention of people around the world .

Figure 4.1 Children possess an innate capacity to strive toward growth and maturity. The play therapy relationship facilitates the devel- opment of that capacity.

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What a horrible and terrifying experience for a small child, surely as frightening as anything an adult could possibly experience . She was stuck in that small shaft for almost 2 whole days, with no one to talk to her, no one to touch her, no one to comfort her . There was no way for her to know where she was or what had hap- pened to her . Those 2 days must surely have been an eternity for Jessica . When rescue workers first made contact with her through a microphone after she had been wedged into that dark shaft and all alone for 46 hours, they heard this tiny toddler singing softly to herself . What a remarkable demonstration of the inner natural motivation of children to comfort and take care of themselves . We adults are not wise enough to know the capacity and potential of children . Our view of children is typically much too narrow and restrictive . Some adults want to limit children to their finite com- prehension; the capacity of the human organism surpasses our level of understanding .

Normally, children have fun . They are exuberant . When pro- vided with opportunities to do so, children approach life with excitement, openness, and wonder . All children should experi- ence some joy in their life every day, and this should be the goal of all adults who interact with children on a regular basis . Children are deprived of joy when they are rushed to complete tasks and hurried to grow up . Places of calmness and patience should exist in all children’s lives for, in the midst of calmness and patience, children can discover and test their inner resources . Children are basically trusting and are, therefore, vulnerable . Adults must be careful that they not take advantage of children’s trust . Adults must be very sensitive to the inner experiencing of children .

Children do not hold onto yesterdays . The world of the child is now . We cannot say to children, “Wait,” because their world is a world of experiencing now . The world of the child is a world of slow, amply punctuated with whirlwind activity . Children appre- ciate simple things . They do not try to make things more com- plex . Children are constantly growing and changing inwardly and outwardly, and this dynamic process must be matched with an equally dynamic therapeutic approach .

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Some Children Are Like Popcorn, and Some Are Like Molasses Anyone who has ever been in the presence of children for any extended period of time is well acquainted with the personality and behavioral variability they exhibit as they go about explor- ing their world in their own individual, unique ways . Some chil- dren are like popcorn: They do everything with great bursts of energy and activity . When something occurs to them, they pop forth with exuberance to activate this new and wonderful idea . They are like bumblebees, capable of seemingly motionless hover- ing when something captures their attention; then they zoom off with a great burst of motion and buzz of noise to find something else of interest .

Other children are like molasses and can barely be poured from one place to another . They do everything with great deliberate- ness and careful consideration, caught up in their own seeming inertia, impervious to activity being generated around them . They are like gyroscopes: Everything is functioning and spinning on the inside as it should, but little if any movement or change is observable on the outside .

Some children are like mushrooms; they pop forth overnight . Other children are like orchids; they take 7 to 12 years to bloom (Nutt, 1971) . The effective play therapist is the kind of person who waits for orchids but is patient with mushrooms . Each child has his unique approach to the solution to problems and how life should be lived . Therefore, as the child already possesses those qualities necessary for growing and becoming a well-adjusted, mature individual, the therapist waits patiently for the child to discover that unique self . The therapist has a sincere belief in the child’s ability to work out difficulties and so does not, out of his or her impatience, suggest that the child become involved in other activities or talk about more important topics—which, after all, other significant adults have said are important and should be explored because this child needs to change . Because the therapist respects the child, he or she does not interrupt or “talk down” to the child, nor does the therapist discount what the child says or the feelings he experiences .

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References Nutt, G . (1971) . Being me: Self you bug me. Nashville, TN: Broadman . Segal, J ., & Yahraes, H . (1979) . A child’s journey: Forces that shape the lives of our

young. New York: McGraw-Hill .

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