THE SACRED ART OF HEALING CHILDREN LESSONS LEARNED AT BEACHBROOK
by Joan Prideaux

copyrighted
Chapter One

Lessons Children Teach
Paradoxical Intervention

From the perspective of healing intervention practiced at Beachbrook, there is no way one can work with a child and not be simultaneously related to what the child is teaching; that is the meaning of the child’s behavior –and therefore the intervention that is likely to be immediately useful. Through behavior children convey information about themselves and their world, their unconscious beliefs and expectations.

It is we, who work with the child, who must be wise and sensitive enough to intuit understanding, and to provide the response that will be useful to the child’s developing self. Every response is potentially a vital energy injection into the life - essence of a child.

Therefore it is essential that we, who are committed to the child’s developmental growth process be mindful of the quality of energy we are injecting into the child’s experience through our own behavior. We’re on the right path when we understand and practice the following:

Every Interaction Must Be Experienced By The Child As Empathic To The Child. That is, under any circumstance our actions and interventions are intended to be experienced by the child as allied with the child.

This axiom applies to every child regardless of the child’s behavior. The more disturbed a child may be the greater the need for sensitive, caring intervention.

A child’s troubled behavior, however it is expressed, is impersonal and reflective of the child’s disturbance. The child’s troubled behavior is our opportunity to provide healing intervention.

It is deeply moving to witness angry, resistant, hurt, withdrawn, and unrelated children become in the course of time, trusting, loving, more related, more expressive, self-affirming children.
Why does this occur? It is the result of unexpected, intentional injections of loving energy! It is the power of consistent, loving, on the mark intervention! The strength of loving surprise - by meeting a child repeatedly on an unexpected affirmative plane. It is the result of intentional interventions created to enable each child to discover what is right – not what is wrong with the child! Through such interactions we attract, contain, maintain and foster the child’s energized self- interest and involvement with Being and Becoming!

Our commitment to the child also includes our compassionate understanding of the meaning of a child’s behavior within the context of each child’s life experience at home, in order to be beneficial to both child and caretaker(s), if possible.

When we don’t conform to a child’s expectations by becoming angry, judgmental, negative and punishing, but remain affirmative and caring when supportive limits are provided, we create openings in the child’s unconscious belief system that promote, and invite developmental growth and self-esteem.

I often think that what we do is akin to consistent loving shock treatments which spark and energize the child’s innate developmental potentials. The consistency of loving shock over time awakens and energizes all aspects of the child’s potential to manifest and become self-expressive.

It is moving to see a child who’s been wildly violent become sweetly affirmative, attentive to cognitive work – and to be able to play! The ability to play is developmentally so important! It is the primary medium through which children learn to solve problems, learn early childhood education cognitive concepts.

Through our way of working children discover it’s difficult to fight an adversary that isn’t there. In time children awaken to this awareness. The child’s perception of reality becomes challenged, opens, gravitates to alternative ways of experiencing, becomes loving, trusting, welcoming to new, affirmative experiences which were previously unknowingly defended against.

As therapeutic healers, our primary responsibility is to understand experience from the child’s often confused perspective in order to bring new realities into a child’s experience. This fosters self- acceptance and self-affirmation.

When we’re unequivocally on the side of a child, we do not teach unintended, confusing, undermining lessons that may harm a child’s sense of self – and trust of others.

Our commitment is to fostering the child’s growth and development in every area of learning, especially in learning to become self-affirming!

When a child’s core being is centered, as distinct from fragmented, the child’s drive to learn about the outer world becomes a vibrant force. A child with limited self-esteem, who is burdened with emotional conflicts doesn’t usually feel a strong drive to learn about external reality, about colors, numbers, letters, etc.! The energy for such learning is often not yet available.

How can we ensure our interventions will be beneficial to a child? Beyond being allied with each child, that is, stretching to understand experience through the child’s perspective, we must also be self-aware in our interactions, in our intentions toward a child. Growing a child implies growing oneself as well. It is not possible to grow a child and not simultaneously grow oneself – one of the gifts of doing healing work well!

We must be mindful of the experience we want to create for each child in the moment! It is cumulative, meaningful experiences in the course of a child’s learning at Beachbrook that will make the difference in each child’s life.

This requires that we understand what is being conveyed in the moment, and respond with an intervention that meets the child’s immediate needs. Our understanding of the child deepens over time as exchanges occur. Certain themes become obvious as a result of a child’s troubled behavior.

Tommy

This is true of Tommy, who must often refuse and resist what is asked of him, or what is offered to him, in order to affirm a weak struggling sense of self. In Tommy’s situation his ability to experience free will is strangled. He needs healing intervention that will enable him to come to know and affirm what it is he genuinely feels and wants without having to experience he must give up a part of himself.

Tommy finds himself in a double bind situation. A no way out psychological blind spot. He rarely has the satisfaction of doing what he wants to do. The power available to him presently lies mostly in saying “No” – to most things. He’s probably confused about the entire issue of how he genuinely feels. His overwhelming need appears to be to protect his fragile sense of self from the threatening experience of surrender, giving in - or loss of self.

We must assist him to discover that his teacher’s purpose is to serve his needs, not to crush his will and spontaneity. For in Beachbrook, the child’s teacher is recognized to represent the child’s parent, (or parenting person) when in school.

It is likely that Tommy is defending himself from a parent he experiences as too overwhelming and demanding, and suffers the disabling illusion of self-empowerment through resistance and refusal. But such responses produce only a thwarted sense of momentary power, then loss, confusion, and feelings of alienation set in.

Only by enabling Tommy’s willing surrender and trust of his teacher, and others, can he access being truly himself by affirming how he feels and asserting what it is he genuinely wants.

His teacher, and others, must provide him with consistent experiences that offer him sufficient emotional safety to enable him to gradually begin to affirm what is true for him. This will help him to let go of the needed defense of resistance, a refusal which essentially negates himself first, and others secondarily. Such a child is caught in the trap of his own defensive, reactive making. He desperately needs a way out.(So too his parent – the likelihood being that she or he suffered similar experiences when growing up too!)

Tommy returned to Beachbrook after a lengthy three week vacation during which Beachbrook was closed. He returned screaming violently that he didn’t want to be in school, tears flooding his reddened face. ( Did he feel rejected during the three weeks our doors were closed to him?)  He sometimes screamed what he was saying so incoherently he couldn’t be understood.

(In the beginning of his attendance, Tommy said only a few words, his mother’s main concern. But if what he says and feels is experienced by Tommy as having little importance, what would be his motivation to speak? Do you think he was speech impaired? Or, was it more likely that emotional constriction tied his motivation to speak into emotional knots?)

Hearing unusual screaming from my office, I ran into the hall and seeing Tommy, immediately took over. Big for his four years he was strong and hard to contain, extremely violent and unmanageable. He had never displayed such rage before. Yes, it seemed likely to me that Tommy felt betrayed by both his mother and Beachbrook for not being available to him in the ways he needed.

Once inside his classroom, Tommy noticed his teacher was absent. This could only have exacerbated his feelings of abandonment, loss and alienation.

He immediately began to violently pound on the closed door to his classroom wanting to escape – (his classroom, his suffering, or both?) Immediately I asked one of our aides to hold the door closed to guarantee Tommy’s safety while I worked with him – and to prevent anyone from entering or leaving the classroom. Interested in Tommy’s extraordinary behavior, the aide fastened her eyes upon him.

Immediately I instructed her not to look at him again – she didn’t for close to the three hours she held the door shut – even when it no longer needed to be held shut. I wanted to be sure Tommy could feel I was maintaining a safe holding environment for him and was in caring control at all times. (The aide was offered a child’s chair to sit on but refused preferring to stand.)

For at least forty endless minutes, Tommy beat the living daylights out of that door. If it had been alive, it would not have survived. There were moments when I feared he might break the door irreparably. The very top was filled with thick glass. I hoped I was wrong. But I made no move to stop Tommy from kicking, banging, and punching it without mercy. His rage was formidable! Imagine the wounds hidden beneath it!

Though I sat on a small child’s chair near where he was giving vent, I noted that he never, even for a second, misdirected his rage at me. Perhaps because he could intuit my empathic, though withheld presence.

From the start, I took my own advice and didn’t look directly at Tommy, not for the longest time. I allowed myself to see him only obliquely through the corner of my right eye, a weird, strange experience.

My intention was for Tommy to experience me as passively empathic to him, and simultaneously as putting not the slightest energy or interest into his behavior.

While this way of working seemed very different from when I make direct eye contact, use words and sometimes touch with a child to convey meaning, I could feel the rightness and power of it with Tommy.

At the same time I realized that my teachers who were working a distance from where I sat with Tommy probably thought little of consequence was happening. This is understandable as nothing overtly dramatic was obviously coming from me.

Yet, in my restrained way of working with Tommy moment to moment, I could feel an intense concentration of energy, could feel it consciously transmitted to him, feel him receiving it, and experience his awareness of my presence near him even though no overt contact was being made.

This way of working was interesting and unusual in the sense that it contained a tension, deliberateness, strength of potency that my work usually does not contain in the same way, what I’ve come to think of as a unity of opposites occurring at the same time, or paradoxical intervention – taking action – while seeming not to. Is this not paradoxical I ask you?

By saying this, I don’t mean to imply it is superior! NO. It’s a powerful intervention when the right moment calls for it!

Suddenly, Tommy’s seemingly endless raging finally came to an end. He slowly sank to the floor, still near the door and me, totally silent, sitting quietly, appearing totally spent. I didn’t make the slightest change, as if I took no note of this monumental event, remaining seated in my chair, saying nothing, doing nothing, making no eye contact, yet feeling profoundly connected and responsive to Tommy.

We sat like this for what seemed timeless time – during which I allowed myself to look at Tommy obliquely out of the corner of my right eye from time to time. It was then I noticed each time I looked, that Tommy had been physically moving himself closer to me as he sat on the floor. That the power of our work together literally moved him to do this, moved me deeply. Sitting there, he appeared to be in a serious, yet relaxed, meditative mood.

Not very far from where we sat, in his area, a child played with train tracks and trains, one of Tommy’s few known favorite things to do, and with this child. Tommy watched his peer, but expressed no interest to join him in play. After a while the child’s play came to an end.

The substitute teacher, who normally worked in Tommy’s area daily, of course knew him well. She non verbally asked me if she should leave the train tracks and trains in a box where Tommy could see them on the floor, and maybe ask to play with them. I nodded yes. But nothing came of this.

With the passage of time, and Tommy now sitting as close to me as he could get, I allowed myself to make direct eye contact with him for the first time, still saying nothing.

Now Tommy looked up at me frequently with blue eyes wide open, gazing deeply at me, taking my presence in. Now I returned his gaze lovingly saying nothing. Other than moving closer to me, Tommy made no move to leave where he was sitting next to me near the door, nor did I. I’d estimate we were together this way close to three hours.

I’d shake my head fiercely when someone came to the door wanting to enter or leave while we were sitting there. I didn’t want anyone to disturb the concentration of energy and work that Tommy and I were involved in.

Though I had many things scheduled for this day, I gladly relinquished them to see our work through to conclusion. Fortunately, there was no Intake scheduled for this day.

Fortunately as well, lunch would soon be served. Tommy and I had to move briefly so lunch could be brought into the classroom, but by then we were very relaxed, and were not disturbed by the necessary arrival of lunch.

I hoped this lunch would be something Tommy liked. Food was also something Tommy often refused. His mother was known to express great anxiety to him about his rejection of food, and pressured him to eat, not the best way to interest Tommy in wanting to eat.

Once the classroom door was closed, Tommy and I resumed our same sitting positions. About ten minutes later, without a word of explanation to Tommy I got up and left him to speak to the staff sub teacher in Tommy’s area. Tommy didn’t move from where he was sitting. I whispered to her “Ask Tommy if he’d like to have lunch once I’m sitting back near him again. Ask as if you don’t care what his answer will be. Nonchalantly.” She did – but Tommy didn’t respond.

“Again!” I said from my position near Tommy. Again she asked Tommy. But still no response. Looking directly at Tommy, I asked lightly, “You want lunch?” He nodded, ‘Yes.’ “Well go to your area and sit at the table.” ( I didn’t ask Tommy to wash his hands as he usually does, wanting him to stay in touch with what he wants, not what I want him to do. To do this would also be to abruptly end our work.) Tommy went and sat on the chair with his name printed on it, which, because of its location, caused me to see only his back from where I was sitting near the door– where I remained.

Earlier, I had whispered to the sub teacher in charge of Tommy’s area, “Don’t offer Tommy food. Wait until he asks you.” But Tommy turned himself away from her at the table even though she was serving a child sitting near him food. However, every few seconds Tommy turned to look directly at me. When he did, I nodded back to him.

Following a few nods I understood Tommy’s behavior to mean he needed me to bring closure to our work together by being the one to serve him lunch. He was still feeling connected to our work and me and needed me to free him.

I went to Tommy saying lightly, “You want me to give you your lunch?” He nodded, ‘Yes.’ I went to where the lunch food was, and put some on Tommy’s plate. Not much though. I hoped he’d want to ask for more after I left his classroom. “Here’s your lunch.” I said smiling. I waited for him to start eating. “See you later!”

I left Tommy enjoying his lunch, feeling thankful to him for inspiring me to find a new potent way to work with him, a way to be both passively empathic, while also withdrawing energy from behavior that threatened to undermine his excellent developmental potential.

Though he was non verbal during our work together, Tommy did speak in sentences. I believe he was non verbal, as I was, due to the depth of our work together.

I think it’s important to note that Tommy didn’t repeat his enraged, violent behavior again, nor did he demonstrate any disturbed behavior at the start of future school days.

Paradoxical intervention became an important addition to other self-enhancing interventions with Tommy. Our task was to select the intervention most beneficial to meeting Tommy’s needs in the moment; the one that would best help him to know most clearly what he truly feels and wants, not just to eliminate his need for reactive resistance and refusal, but as important, to touch and energize Tommy meaningfully, where his essence lives.

*********
*********

A healing teacher must be deeply in tune with what a child is experiencing in order to become the experience the child’s being craves. The healing ‘magic’ does not lie in the use of correct words, it lies in the correct use of oneself, in the energy that is conveyed, in the totality of one’s giving self, in the commitment that seeks to fill the child’s longing, whatever the difficulties may be.

*********
*********

Angela

From her mother I learned that Angela’s father worked nights, as many of our fathers have, needed to sleep during the day, and complained bitterly when Angela and her five year old brother Paulo made noise. Angela’s mother put an end to the noise by offering them candy or food whenever they were noisy or got into fights as siblings often do. This happened continuously throughout the day when the two of them were together.

Angela’s mother seemed to enjoy giving her children whatever they wanted to eat throughout the day, and showed no concern for the consequences – even when I drew her attention to Angela’s extreme over weight as one of them. At the same time she willingly listened to my concerns for her child.

To begin with, Angela taught two outstanding things about herself. She was very smart, and easily engaged in all kinds of activities. However, her attention to activities lasted only minutes before she would suddenly demand something she couldn’t have, like an object another child was playing with.

Reason fell on deaf ears. The instant Angela understood she would not be given the demanded object, or a substitute for it, she immediately cried, screamed, turned scarlet, threw things, hit, ran into the classroom bathroom, slammed the door repeatedly expressing her outrage.

It was amazing to see how easily Angela could switch from perfectly normal behavior to completely irrational behavior in an instant. She made these shifts with obvious authenticity.

Imagine the physical and emotional toll such radical behavioral shifts exacted upon her almost four year old young person. And upon her teacher! This was a challenge that up until now her teacher had little experience with. Children who had tantrums, yes. But one moment on, the next off, No!

Two things seemed certain:
Angela was unable to escape what had become a profound psychological compulsion and emotional confusion, which threatened to interfere with her otherwise excellent potential to reason. We understood Angela’s explosive behaviors to be cries for help.

But what constituted help? That was the question!

In the beginning Angela’s explosive running to the back of the room screaming and crying caused her teacher to respond as we often do, with care and concern for a child’s great distress. Hand in hand, she’d take sobbing Angela back to her table, all the while conveying her awareness of how difficult it is for Angela when she can’t get what she wants.

But Angela’s furious eruptions and outbursts continued – many times a day, too numerous to count. Clearly they were irrational and had nothing to do with a genuine need for anything. Except inner clarity!

Clearly they were based upon her unconscious belief connected to her habitual experiences at home that meant: I Get Rewarded When I Make Noise and Make Myself Upset.

How easily Angela entered into hysterical episodes. Fine one moment, seeming happy and playful, the next in genuine tears turning scarlet and rageful! There was no doubt. Our present interventions required careful thinking and scrutiny. An on the mark way of working with Angela was needed immediately.

Wasn’t providing Angela with warmth, empathy, and sympathetic understanding another form of gratification for irrational, confused behavior? Did it make sense to put energy into behavior that was clearly disturbed? Into behavior we wanted to eliminate for Angela’s sake? Into emotional confusion we wanted to clarify? The answer couldn’t be anything but a clear No!

Angela’s irrational responses to her teacher’s first interventions conveyed this wisdom as soon as we understood she devoured them as she did the treats her mother gave her – with the same poisonous effect. It seemed Angela couldn’t get enough of either! Yet both were contributing to, rather than eliminating, her difficulties!

Overt empathy and concern was as inappropriate as her mother’s desperate need to give Angela and Paulo candy, or fattening foods as a response to noise and tantruming behaviors at home.

( To make matters more critical for Angela and Paulo’s mother, her family lived in an apartment house. It wasn’t only her husband she had to answer to, but to neighbors who complained of her children’s noise as well.)

My Work With Angela

Up to now I had a warm relationship with Angela. When she wasn’t having irrational outbursts, she was a delightful child. Often she left her seat to engage in strong hugs with me when I entered her classroom – if she wasn’t immersed in an outburst, of course. So we knew each other well enough to share this mutual affection.

Our first session

I received a call asking me to come into Angela’s classroom because she was having a huge tantrum, so loud and disruptive that visitors doing important work outside her classroom could not concentrate.

I left my office not having the slightest idea what I’d do, which is always the case when I go to work with a child.

Entering, I saw Angela in the back of her classroom through the corner of my eye, near the bathroom door, banging it open and shut with great force, screaming, looking at her teacher, obviously wanting a response from her.

Totally avoiding interaction, her teacher sat a distance away working with two children, looking obliquely at her making sure she was safe. I also pretended to take no notice of Angela, as if I didn’t even know she was there.

Sitting next to her vacated chair, I talked with her teacher and the other children. I laughed, became playful, became so loud Angela felt compelled to stop what she was doing to pay attention to me. It helped that my back was also (deliberately) all Angela could see of me.

What happened next was no surprise – she quickly left the bathroom to come sit in her chair next to me. I pretended not to notice her arrival. If she wanted my attention, she’d have to do something to get it. I wanted her to become aware of what she wanted. It didn’t take long.

(While Angela had been slamming the bathroom door and yelling, I whispered to her teacher, “Don’t pay any attention to Angela when she returns to the table, make no eye contact or engage with her in any way.” Her teacher agreed.) Interacting with her children, her teacher ignored Angela as if she wasn’t there.

Angela taps me lightly on my right arm. I pay no attention, giving her time to again become clear about what she wants. Seconds pass. She taps me more firmly. Looking at her in feigned surprise I say, “Oh Angela! You’re here!” but welcome her with genuine pleasure.

Noticing her peers are drawing with magic markers, Angela says, “I want to draw too.” “Oh you do? Well ask your teacher to give you markers. She’s the one who gives children markers,” I respond, wanting to connect Angela to her teacher before leaving her room. Whereupon Angela says sweetly, “I want markers, please!” “You do? I can give you markers,” says her smiling teacher.

“See you later everybody!” and I leave.

This is another example of using energy and insight correctly. It enabled Angela to come to understand her truth, her reality, through the withdrawal of energy from her irrational confused behavior. My intervention helped Angela to respond to what she really wanted – to join me, her teacher and peers at the table, and to take the action that was beneficial to her.

A time was arranged with me to work with Angela again in her classroom to further demonstrate meaningful intervention with her – intervention that would later be discussed at classroom meetings, staff meetings, and shared with you now, Dear Reader.

Our second session

I sit next to Angela on a child size chair at her table where two peers also sit. Erica, almost four is sitting on the other side of me. Johnny is sitting at the opposite side of the table with the children’s teacher. It’s early morning and cognitive activities are in progress. Angela’s tracing the alphabet letters A and B with a blue magic marker.

She’s obviously pleased to see me. She likes that I’m sitting next to her. She gives me a big “Hello Joan” and a half hug leaning herself fully upon my right side. I respond warmly, “Hello Angela!” Within several minutes she’s demanding that I give her a toy she’s pointing to.

Deliberately withholding energy, and with only the briefest eye contact, I nod at Angela, (conveying I understand her request) but refrain from saying, or doing anything. Immediately she begins to cry with tears, starts yelling escalating to screaming. I withhold direct eye contact, briefly looking at her obliquely through the corner of my eye saying nothing. I want Angela to experience me as passively available when I’m not directly interacting with her. I can feel her relatedness to me, her attention held by my unexpected behavior.

She screams for some time, tears streaming, but she isn’t getting out of her chair as she often does, or running away. Saying nothing, I side glance out of the corner of my eye from time to time. Eventually Angela stops all upset behavior and sits quietly at her table.

Suddenly, she decides to do something she’s never done before. Sit on top of the table next to where I’m sitting, (along with her peers and teacher) and swings her legs forcefully up and down.

From this behavior I understand Angela’s choosing to challenge me, engage me, pull me into her action, driven by her unconscious, confused expectation to be rewarded for disruptive behavior.  I realize I've motivated her to interact with me through her need for inner clarity too.

I note that Angela is sitting on a large solid table and not at the edge of it. That she’s not in the slightest danger of falling off. I decide to take no overt action. I feel my way of working with her is drawing her in, inviting her to do her part.

I’m not going to fulfill her expectation by asking her to sit in her chair. No. That would energize her protest! I’m going to surprise her, take her to an unknown place within, a place she doesn’t expect!

She’s sitting on the table swinging her legs forcefully up and down for a long time, doing her best to get me to react. She’s getting tired of this though, loosing interest. But seems quietly contained and more centered.

I feel I’m succeeding in capturing and holding her interest. Mine is riveted as we move together through this unfolding journey. I’m feeling totally attentive, responsive, and open to the present moment, to whatever will unfold next.

“I want to sit over there!” Angela says assertively pointing to a nearby table where another teacher’s working with her three children and an aide.

Briefly I look at her saying nothing, hoping this teacher and aide will remember our recent talks about how to work with Angela. Hoping they will remember to refrain from making eye contact or giving any overt sign of interest in what is going on between Angela and me. If they do, our work up until now will be totally disrupted and undermined.

They Remember! ( There are no words for the depth of my gratitude in this moment - or for my pride in both this teacher and Aide!)

Angela gets off the table! Looks around, sees a xylophone and stick, sits herself on the floor at the feet of the teacher whose table she wants to join, begins to strike the xylophone, tries to make the sounds louder and louder, striking the xylophone with all her strength, over and over again, trying, in every way possible to attract the teacher’s or aide’s attention.

Another moment when I hold my breath!
Angela doesn’t succeed! (Or so it seems!)
The teacher continues her involvement with her children as if Angela isn’t sitting at her feet. A pivotal moment has arrived!

(Now this day’s encounter with Angela is almost ended. Following her initial upset at the start of my work with her, Angela doesn’t cry, tantrum or escalate her behavior. Though it may appear to an onlooker as if I am doing little, Angela is experiencing the intensity and power of my work with her. Paradoxical intervention holds her interest and contains her behavior throughout. Through my interventions, Angela is playfully thrown off balance, causing her disturbed expectations not to be met! This creates openings for fresh energy to enter, while simultaneously challenging her unconscious irrational assumptions. Because of this, Angela is unable to respond to our work with her usual disturbed behavior. Instead our interactions lead her to new unfolding potentials – each of us doing our part to make the most of this playful art!)

Seeing that she’s not getting a response from the teacher whose attention she believes she must have, without any disturbed behavior, Angela notices she’s sitting near a small cabinet containing many children’s books.

She begins to look through them one at a time finally selecting the one that catches her fancy. Opening the book, she becomes genuinely interested in its contents. I watch in tender wonder as she immerses herself in the pictures and words. Engrossed, demanding and needing nothing external, Angela sits reading, having finally, peacefully, returned to herself. Her own resources now beginning to fill her needs.

Having come to the end of this day’s teaching and learning with Angela, saying nothing, I leave.

<back>

Copyrighted Manuscript

BEACHBROOK THERAPEUTIC NURSERY SCHOOL