DWELL IN POSSIBLILITY:
THE PLACE OF HOPE
IN WORK WITH CHILDREN
TED BOWMAN
EDUCATOR
A CHILD
IS LIKE
A PIECE OF PAPER.
EVERY PASSERBY
MAKES A MARK
Chinese Proverb
CHILDREN WILL LISTEN
Careful the things you say,
Children will listen.
Careful the things you do,
Children will see.
And learn.
Children may not obey,
But children will listen.
Children will look to you
For which way to turn,
To learn what to be.
Careful before you say,
"Listen to me."
Children will listen
From Into the Woods by Sondheim and
Lapine
If something should happen to you on
the way home - God forbid - and you
should not make it,
What messages would you want to give
to a child in your life before it is too
late?
Limit yourself to two or three messages
To me, the practice of a healer, therapist,
teacher, or any helping professional should be
directed towards him or herself first, because
if the helper is unhappy, he or she cannot
help many people. We practice enjoying the
positive elements in life in order to nourish
the flower in us, and we practice in order to
transform the seeds of suffering in us.
Otherwise, we cannot succeed in our work
helping other people.
Thich Nhat Hanh
HORTON’S EXAMPLE:
FROM DR. SEUSS
Through the high jungle tree tops, the news quickly
spread: "He talks to a dust speck! He's out of his
Head! Just look at him walk with that speck on that
flower!”
And Horton walked, worrying, almost an hour.
"Should I put this speck down?..." Horton thought
with alarm. "If I do, these small persons may come to
great harm. I can't put it down. And I won't! After
all a person's a person. No matter how small."
QUALITIES OF EFFECTIVE CARERS
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Human presence
Empathy
Empathizing with yourself
Respect
Authenticity
Flexibility
Mutual participation
Directiveness, control, and responsibility in
helping
WHAT ARE OTHER
SIGNS OF CARING?
NAME OTHER QUALITIES YOU SEE AS
ESSENTIAL
IF A NEW CHILD CARE WORKER WAS
BEING HIRED AND CARING WAS A
KEY FILTER FOR HIRING, WHAT
WOULD YOU LOOK FOR?
PSYCHOLOGICAL FAMILY
A PSYCHOLOGICAL FAMILY IS
COMPRISED OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO
ARE THERE WITH CONTINUITY OF
SOCIAL SUPPORT.
BECAUSE MANY FAMILIES ARE NOW
SPREAD FAR AND WIDE
(GEOGRAPHICALLY AND
EMOTIONALLY), THE CREATION OF
PSYCHOLOGICAL OR SURROGATE
FAMILIES IS MORE COMMON.
adapted from Boss
RESILIENCY
• The capacity to spring back, rebound, and
successfully adapt to adversity
• The ability to connect, reconnect, and resist
disconnection in response to hardships,
adversities
FACTORS THAT PROMOTE RESILIENCY
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Stable, emotional relationships
Social support
Active involvement in coping
Problem-solving Skills
Sense of Hope
Ability to Make Meaning
Rituals, Stories, Traditions
PROTECTIVE FACTORS
STABLE CARE
PROBLEM-SOLVING ABILITIES
ATTRACTIVENESS TO PEERS AND ADULTS
COMPETENCE AND PERCEIVED EFFICACY
IDENTIFICATION WITH
COMPETENT ROLE MODELS
PLANFULNESS AND ASPIRATION
Norman Garmezy
HOPE
Definitions usually include:
EXPECTATION
DESIRE
Which can involve GOALS, ATTRIBUTES,
REDEFINITION, MEANING, PEACE,
ENERGY
HOPE IS USED BOTH AS A
NOUN,
VERB,
AND OTHER FORMS OF SPEECH
HOPE IS, THEREFORE, AMBIGUOUS
PROPOSITION:
CARERS,
PROFESSIONALS AND VOLUNTEERS,
ARE ABLE TO INFLUENCE
(ENHANCE, AFFIRM, OR WEAKEN)
HOPE IN CHILDREN AND FAMILIES
THROUGH THEIR ATTITUDES,
BEHAVIORS, AND WAYS OF
COMMUNICATING
SURVING ADVERSITY
Almost without exception those who
survive a tragedy give credit to one
person who stood by them, supported
them, and gave them a sense of hope.
ROBERT VENINGA
ASSUMPTIVE WORLD
All of us from the moment of our birth, have
Been building inside ourselves a model of the
world, a set of assumptions on the basis of
which we recognize the world that we meet
and plan our behaviour accordingly. Because
this model is based on reality it is, most of the
time, a valid and useful basis for thought and
behaviour. We rely on the accuracy of these
assumptions to maintain our orientation in
the world and to control our lives.
Anything which challenges this model
can incapacitate us.
C.M.PARKES
EXPECTATIONS
When expectations about the course of life
are not met, people experience inner chaos
and disruption. Such disruptions
represent a loss of the future. Restoring
order to life necessitates reworking
understandings of the self and the world,
redefining the disruption and life itself.
Gay Becker
FUTURELESSNESS
For some children, repeated exposure to violence can
produce what appears to be a functional adaptation to
the violence but is actually a pathological effect.
Although the adaptation is successful in the short run,
it may prove detrimental in the long run. For example,
some children develop a sense of "futurelessness," or a
profound fatalism about their lives. They come to
expect more violence directed at them and death at an
early age. Participation in dangerous, violent activities
loses its threatening character and takes on a special
psychology for them, since they expect to die no matter
what they do. Having a big funeral is the most that
some children can look forward to.
James Garbarino
Some day I will have a best friend all
my own. One I can tell my secrets to.
One who will understand my jokes
without my having to explain them.
Until then I am a red balloon, a balloon
tied to an anchor.
From House of Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
MANY KINDS OF HOPE
Hope is important, but we have been too limited
in the kind of hope we prescribe...Our idea that
the only kind of hope is hope for cure limits what
we can offer. There are, in fact, many kinds of
hope: hope for a good period of life ahead, hope
for enriching relationships, hope for control of
pain, hope for a strong sense of care and support
from your doctors.
David Spiegel
Hope differs from optimism. Hope does not
arise from being told to "think positively," or
from hearing an overly rosy forecast. Hope,
unlike optimism, is rooted in unalloyed reality.
Hope acknowledges the significant obstacles
and deep pitfalls along that path. True hope
has no room for delusion.
Clear-eyed, hope gives us the courage to
confront our circumstances and the capacity to
surmount them. For my patients, hope, true
hope, has proved an important as any
medication I might prescribe or any procedure
I might perform.
Jerome Groopman
BUFFERS OF MEANING
The genius of our black foremothers and forefathers
was to create powerful buffers to ward off the nihilistic
threat, to equip black folk with cultural armor to beat
back the demons of hopelessness, meaninglessness,
and lovelessness. These buffers consisted of cultural
structures of meaning and feeling that created and
sustained communities; this armor constituted ways of
life and struggle that embodied values of service and
sacrifice, love and care, discipline and excellence...
These traditions consist primarily of black
religious and civic institutions that sustained familial
and communal networks of support.
CORNEL WEST
Little Boy / Old Man
Said the little boy, "Sometimes I drop my
spoon."
Said the old man, "I do that too."
The little boy whispered, "I wet my pants."
"I do that too," laughed the old man.
Said the little boy, "I often cry."
The old man nodded, "So do I."
"But worst of all," said the boy, " it seems
Grown-ups don't pay attention to me."
And he felt the warmth of a wrinkled old hand.
"I know what you mean," said the old man.
Shel Silverstein
It must be borne in mind that the tragedy of life
doesn't lie in not reaching your goal. The
tragedy lies in having no goal to reach. It isn't a
calamity to die with dreams unfulfilled, but it is
a calamity not to dream. It is not a disaster to
be unable to capture your ideal, but it is a
disaster to have no ideal to capture. It is not a
disgrace not to reach the stars, but it is a
disgrace to have no stars to reach for. Not
failure, but low aim, is sin.
Benjamin Mays
WHAT HE DIDN’T SAY
The debt I owe my psychiatrist is beyond
description. I remember sitting in his office a
hundred times during those grim months and
each time thinking, What on earth can he say
that make me feel better or keep me alive?
Well, there was never anything he could say,
that’s the funny thing. It was all the stupid,
desperately optimistic, condescending things
he didn’t say that kept me alive; all the
compassion and warmth I felt from him that
could not have been said; all the intelligence,
competence, and time he put into it; and his
granite belief that mine was a life worth
living.
Kay Redfield Jamison
A BIRD DOESN’T SING BECAUSE
IT HAS AN ANSWER.
IT SINGS BECAUSE IT HAS A
SONG.
Unknown
Hope includes a future story.
Hope includes a shared story.
Hope includes stories of meaning.
Hope includes an affirmative story.
Hope includes the real story.
SUGGESTIONS: HOPE PROMOTION
1) HOLD ONTO YOUR HOPE
2) CREATE A CULTURE OF HOPEFULNESS
3) SEE, EXPLORE, GRASP FOR POSSIBILITIES
4) INVITE COLORING OUTSIDE THE LINE
5) USE ASSIGNMENTS THAT INVITE
LOOKING AHEAD
6) USE STORIES THAT INSPIRE
7) OPTIONS / ALTERNATIVES / CHOICES
8) LISTEN, BEFRIEND, SEEK TO
UNDERSTAND
FOR MORE INFORMATION,
CONTACT TED BOWMAN
bowmaOO8@umn.edu