“I think it’s really important to stay in communication with us, as human being to human being – because we are still human beings with a spirit. And it’s spirit to spirit that we can really stay in touch.”
In the third video instalment of Josh Muggleton‘s Top Tips for Parents, Teachers and Professionals, Josh addresses how to improve communication with young people on the…
“One orthopedist operated on a boy without my knowledge on a Friday afternoon. Fortunately, the mother and grandmother knew I had insisted that physical therapy should be started immediately. The child’s school physical therapist was a friend and made house calls over the weekend, so the boy would not stay in bed. He was able walk for several more years because of this. Thus, parents and grandparents must be very aggressive in order to be sure that appropriate orthopedic surgery is being done and physical therapy received, as needed.”
“I think that service users can give a perspective which can be lost without their inclusion. Service users can help to cut through some of the professional ‘jargon’ which excludes people, even other professionals sometimes. Professionals are often under considerable pressures to meet targets or stay within budgets, and even with the best will in the world they can start to lose sight of why they came into the profession in the first place. Service users can help to keep that perspective and keep values sharp.”
“When we were creating our Reward Plan we decided that it had to be 100% focused on the positive… [W]e were well aware of the negative impact our son’s out-bursts were having on his self-esteem, and we certainly didn’t want to add to that! And so our Reward Plan was born, and I am not exaggerating when I say that it was almost an over-night success.”
“I think the top tip with regard to playfulness is to embrace the playful moment. These are the moments that hold the relationships together, get us through the tough times and stay with us long after the moment has passed.”
“The news that a parent has a terminal illness generally presents the family with a huge crisis. Everything about family life is catapulted into a maelstrom, routines change and nothing appears to be predictable anymore. If children are not included in conversations about their parent’s illness and possible imminent death they are going to witness all the changes without having any ‘concrete’ knowledge to use as a marker. They will be aware of the changes and know that something is very different but will not be able to form a consistent narrative. As a result they are in danger of piecing together the information they have gleaned and making erroneous conclusions.”
“Ironically, as my fibre-making skills developed, my clinical skills also developed. I became better at creating relationships and more and more comfortable with using textile as an entryway to connect with women whom I didn’t know. At some point, it became obvious to me that making textiles and clinical psychology didn’t need to be two separate compartments in my life: I realized that I was already integrating the two.”
” I hope readers will become less afraid of rocking the boat of authority that urges us to make the child talk in adult terms about what the adult world deems important to them. Rather than having children be obedient patients, I want to encourage us to attempt in our work to foster true self-possession, knowing how very hard it is to achieve. I urge us all to fight the tendency to negate emotion, to negate aggression, to negate anything and everything that pulsates with life and therefore stirs things up.”
“With rare exceptions, the academic and professional world doesn’t support a dynamic approach to play therapy (or often the use of play in therapy at all). There is an ever-greater thrust to pathologize the child and the family and this is often where the therapist/therapy stops: diagnosis leads to stasis. This needn’t be so. We can and should have an understanding of what is going on in the child and in their life, but unless we then engage the child in real play, we have not accomplished much. Children need to be allowed to be children and speak their language not ours.”