The ‘S’ Factor
Spotting Children’s Spirituality
and Supporting it
Dr Rebecca Nye
York Sept 2011
Spirituality :
central and
primary
X factor
S factor
Rare qualities in a few Common qualities in all
Competitive: proving
you are the better
than the rest
Non hierarchial, nonlinear development
Motivation: Get rich
About process not
quick & fast track to
product, & facing the
‘good times’
‘hard stuff’ of life
Defining Spirituality?
• Off the shelf definitions don’t really help
• Touching Hearts and Feeding Minds’ by Alison
Seaman and Alan Brown .
• Children’s Spirituality
= Relational Consciousness? (Hay and Nye)
Spotting and Supporting
Children’s Spirituality...
USING RELIGIOUS LANGUAGE:
important,
but tricky.
....tread very carefully....
Spotting and Supporting
Children’s Spirituality
Not just about recall of real experiences
Also take
imagination seriously
• “They’d just feel like there was someone behind them
and they’d just be really still in their tracks and they’d
feel all good at the back of them, and then they’d turn
round and there’d be nothing there. And then they’d
just hear this flutter of wings and then they’d turn
round and see a big golden thing going up in the sky’
[R: wonderful, eh? But you’ve never felt quite like
that?] No, they only visit you when, well..when, what’s
the word?..they only come down to visit you , if you
know, if you are arguing or if you are really really
steamed up! Or if you are at the top of your temper
and going to burst into hot water and stuff like that, or
if you are at the top of your happiness or at the bottom
of your sadness’
• (girl age 6)
Spotting and Supporting
Children’s Spirituality
• Appreciate spiritual
Signature
Signature..
• ‘A mist of perfume, with gold walls, and a
rainbow stretched over God’s throne...but a
transparent mist, like a..I can’t explain it. Like a
smell. A real cloud of smell, a lovely smell..like
the smell that you get when you wake up on a
dull winter morning, and then when you go to
sleep, and you wake up, the birds are chirping ,
and the last drops of snow are melting away, and
the treetops, shimmering in the breeze, and it’s a
spring morning..(then added) I suppose it’s not a
season at all, not really, because it’s just a day in
delight, every day.
Signature...
• “I sometimes think about if there is one God and
there is..everybody, well..most people believe in
one God and, um, there’s um, different people
believing in different gods. Which God’s real? Um,
I just can’t figure that out. And sometimes I think
about after the universe, what’s..what’s the
universe, going on for ever? I just don’t know.
[R:what does that feel like?] well, when I’m
thinking about the universe that gets me quite
annoyed sometimes because I can never think
about, um..get the right answer. Or even get near
it and, um, then ..well, things , you just wonder...’
Supporting
Signature?
•
•
•
•
Does every child I know have a unique one?
What’s mine?
Does it stay the same?
If it changes, how does that feel, to them, & to
the teacher?
• Signatures are not all verbalised
Csinos, D.
4 Spiritual Styles:
Word, Action, Image, or Feeling Based Spirituality
Spotting and Supporting
Children’s Spirituality
Self Taught Strategies
Spotting and Supporting
Children’s Spirituality
• Feels like something to grow out of?
SPIRIT
Checklist
•
•
•
•
•
•
SPACE
PROCESS
IMAGINATION
RELATIONSHIP
INTIMACY
TRUST
Space
Process
Imagination
Relationship
Intimacy
Trust
Children’s Spirituality: What it is and why it
matters (2009) Rebecca Nye, Church House
Press £8.99
For further information about Godly Play
www.godlyplay.org.uk
including accredited training courses for
teachers and others over 3 days at venues
around the UK.
Or contact Rebecca.nye@ntlworld.com to
discuss your training needs