By:
Julie Clarke, BCYC, CYC (Cert.)
When we are asked to engage children either
personally or professionally we must be keenly aware of our personal agenda
towards that child. Is our agenda to teach him how to add 2+2, is our agenda to
prevent a bully from bullying another child, is our agenda to rudely assert that you didn't get back
the exact change you were supposed to? Adults have agendas when interacting
with children and youth; it is the natural hierarchy in our society and
although it needs to be this way there are more appropriate ways to engage our
younger generations. Unfortunately engaging a child in an authoritarian way has
become the norm in today's culture; where expectations for young people are to
respond to adults robotically.
Adult interactions with children and youth
can create moments of connection that help the individual to experience how
being respected feels, how being listened to matters. Studies have proven that
children can grow into resilience and responsibility by having at least one
positive adult role model in their lives. Your interaction with them does not
need to be long term; it does not need to be on a constant or regular basis. A
positive adult-child interaction can set the tone for future more established
relationships for this young person; it models to them how nice it feels to be
treated like a person. Think about that great waiter or waitress who made your
experience a wonderful one; these may the people you left a bigger tip to
because of how you felt! These learned experiences create opportunities not
only temporarily for a young person but lays the groundwork for how he in turn
treats others. These experiences help young people gain security,
self-confidence and self-esteem; all wonderful attributes towards becoming an
adult.
We can keep our kids engaged we simply must
realize how we are seeking out the engagement.
Our interactions with each child we find
ourselves crossing paths with should always be approached with a specific
greeting ritual; a nice smile and eye contact. It is always good too if we can
somehow find commonalities with one another (my bedroom sometimes gets messy
too!). This primal and I think you will agree very basic greeting ritual will
establish a tone for the interaction. Try it! There is no better way to engage
a child and to keep them engaged. If you have an agenda to get the child to
clean their room for example, often times after establishing initial contact in
this way - with a smile, eye contact and commonalities - we can interject our
request (agenda) and almost like magic we can watch the child agree to the
request. It really can be that easy! We must always think about our agendas as
adults in the life of a child in order to ensuring we are not imposing on the
child but empowering them to want to do what it is we are asking from them. No
yelling or multiple requests required!
