EDUCATION
This can be an opportunity to educate a child about
the kind of personality they’ve received in their genes, and explain to them that personality is like eye colour: it’s something you’re born with. Introverted, shy and cautious children require help
understanding that their personalities are needed in the world, and that they tend to thrive in certain settings (in nature, creative endeavours, and so on). However, such children need tricks to deal with
a life on the road. For example, teach them to look for somebody else who’s probably feeling afraid, like somebody standing alone in the playground. Teach your child to take a big, deep breath, walk up to that person, introduce themself, and then find out where the person has come from and what their hobbies are. Before they know it, they may have a friend.
6. Give us some choices. For many children, the experience of having to move is an exercise in ‘choicelessness’. The Big People seem to decide everything: whether a move is happening, where it’s going to occur, and when it’s going to happen. Human beings seek control over the parameters
of their existence. The long-term absence of control over these parameters can lead to two alternatives: angry rebellion or learned helplessness. (A word of reassurance to parents of rebellious teens: angry rebellion is healthier than learned helplessness. The ego is at least fighting for survival, not giving up.) Against this backdrop, it becomes important to give
youngsters choices about things that reasonably belong in their domain. Such choices can be large ones, like which school to attend, or seemingly minimal ones, like what to wear or what to have for lunch. Supporting a child’s ability to choose, through times when so much for them feels out of control, helps build a conf ident child. See Martin Seligman’s The Optimistic Child for more ideas.
7. Welcome our difficult feelings. In my experience of counselling children around mobility issues, it’s the
feeling that they don’t have permission to have negative feelings that leads to trouble. Many children feel under pressure from their parents
(‘Why can’t you just be positive for a change?’) or their environment (‘You’re so lucky to be going to live abroad!’) to bury negative feelings. But buried negative feelings pop up unpredictably later in life. When children are allowed to have negative feelings,
and when they’re encouraged to express such feelings within appropriate bounds (‘We get it that you’re mad about being here, and that’s fine, but we expect you not to insult anybody in the process’), these feelings get validated and ultimately relax.
8. Listen to us reflectively. Beyond simply listening, you can practise ref lective listening with children. This means listening for the core message in what a child is saying. When you ‘hear’ the core message (by reading between the lines), repeat it back, perhaps in a tenuous fashion (such as in a question), to see if you have it right. If your intention is to truly understand the child, you cannot go wrong. Even if you do get it wrong, your positive intention
will shine through, and the child is likely to correct you. For example, if your ten-year-old comes home from school, throws his backpack on the floor, and screams, ‘I hate it here! I was all by myself at lunch again!’, then – after taking a deep breath or two – you could say, ‘Wow. You are furious with this place and with us. You sound like you want to go back home right now!’ A ten-year-old’s anger may melt into tears at that
moment, and you will be able to console him. The art of ref lective listening entails remembering that listening well does not mean agreeing. See Faber and Mazlish’s How To Talk So Children Will Listen and Listen So Children Will Talk for more tips on listening well.
9. Help us pick ‘pivotal’ people. Human beings don’t exist in vacuums. We need to be seen and recognised to feel real and safe. If this were not true, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram would not have drawn the billions of devotees they have. If mobility causes your child to feel their identity
has been erased, this may be as a result of the loss of trusted audiences. The trick is to maintain ‘pivotal people’ who aren’t moving; people who are staying put and are a trusted audience, around whom your child’s story can rotate. Invite friends, aunts, uncles, coaches, close
neighbours – anyone who is not moving and who has been important in your child’s life – to be a ‘pivotal person’ for them. Ask these people to drop a line once a month, for six months or so, just to check in on your child, to ask how things are going, and to hear about the new life.
10. Maintain some of our traditions. The experience of mobility shifts everything in our landscape. In such a situation, the human psyche desperately gropes for
50 | Re:locate | Canada Spring 2016
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