Guiding Principles

I recognize the potential danger of offering checklists to help adults observe and understand the hidden motivations of children.

After years of interacting with people and systems, I am very familiar with our tendency to miss the forest for the trees. We can easily become over-focussed on categorizing and labelling and using the resulting data to take a mechanistic approach to interacting with children. That is not my intent here.

I invite adults to approach this process with compassion and flexibility, taking time to narrow our gaze and seek out details that we may not have previously noticed or named. But, our work does not stop there. After our questioning, we need to stand back and re-encounter the whole child - in all their beautiful, messy complexity - finding meaning in our discoveries and putting our learning into context.

Throughout my life, I have struggled with a mis-match between my natural way of being in the world and an ever-present hyper-rationality that makes no sense when applied to real life experiences. This has been particularly evident to me as I transitioned from a rural, community-focussed life to a more urban, individualistic way of living and moved back and forth between such worlds.

Dr. Iain McGilchrist describes and reflects upon this split wherein humanity has become increasingly reliant upon detailed, narrow, and fragmented ways of encountering the world, putting that perspective first and ignoring or perhaps not even being aware of a bigger picture that encompasses implicit meaning, paradox, and intuitive understanding, elements that enable us to bring the details together in a loving way.

Acceptance

My grandfather, a farmer and fisherman who would have made an amazing therapist, had a saying that I picked up on early and always appreciated. ''I take people as I find them,'' he used to say, and, indeed, he was the least judgmental and most helpful person I have ever known. I try to infuse my interactions with that generous spirit.

Love and Kindness

Trauma therapist Dr. Janina Fisher advises that we begin therapy by looking for something to love in the person we encounter. I had never made a conscious decision to take that stance, but when I look back, that's exactly where I start, and I have yet to meet a child who couldn't be loved. One of my little clients gave me helpful feedback when she told me, ''I like how you look at me with your eyes and your heart.''

Humility

Our society both idolizes and rejects expertise, resulting mostly in confusion, I think. But, it is possible to have built up a body of knowledge and, hopefully, a little wisdom, and at the same time, approach people openly, anticipating that, while we have the capacity to learn and to contribute, we can never know everything about another person. And, anyway, I have always believed that children deserve to have their little mysteries that are not subject to adult scrutiny. I am also humbled by the awareness, that, like everyone else, most of my emotional life is lived outside my conscious awareness.

Gratitude

I have always felt honoured when people trust me enough to share a bit of themselves. In particular, I feel grateful to northern Canada's Inuvaluit and Gwich'in children and families who opened up their lives to me when they have little reason to trust anyone from outside their culture and community, thereby allowing me to grow in my practice. Mostly, I am grateful for the learning they shared about the value of observant silence, the appreciation for what the sensory world can reveal to us, and the enjoyment of gentle humour.

I am also very grateful to the researchers who have dedicated their professional lives to build a sound understanding of the neurobiology of our human experience that guides practitioners like me. And, I am always in awe of those who provide technology that, along with many harmful outcomes, does enable us to connect easily and widely.

Words to Remember

Children experience the world in this open and embodied way, and that in itself can create a schism between children and the adults who have forgotten what that feels like or find that perspective difficult to re-capture in the midst of demanding lives. This approach invites you to bridge the gap and take a perspective that better suits the child's way of being and offers us a richer way of being in relationship.

One of my little clients summed up the situation beautifully:

I AM NOT A WOBOT, YOU KNOW!!!