Presence is crucial when encountering children who exhibit emotional and behavioral challenges. These children often have highly sensitive nervous systems shaped by environments with unpredictable caregivers and volatile family dynamics.
As a result, their perception of subtle cues in interactions—especially with those in authority—may be more finely attuned. Their nervous systems scan for safety and danger because their home environments have often felt dangerous, and caregivers may have delivered mixed messages.
Perhaps parents were distracted, preoccupied, or emotionally unavailable. As children learn to navigate the world and their environments, they seek parental love and approval. They learn how to get those things, even if they must adapt in painful ways. These are the children we meet. They have learned to survive.
Offering a Reparative Relationship
Remaining mindful that these basic survival skills are always at work helps us check in with ourselves: Are we truly present?
Our relationships with children and families facing challenges are reparative ones. We learn this theoretically in child development education, but the importance of this process is not necessarily emphasized. One could argue that the most important part of our work is to offer a reparative relationship.
How is this done? Through active listening.
Listening to Understand
Active listening requires a few simultaneous qualities that are not traditionally encouraged or taught in our early years. Recall how teachers may have asked, “Who has the best, right, or smartest answer?” Consider the premise and valued skills of debate: outtalking someone else or making the most forceful argument. Too often, the loudest and most forceful person wins.
Active listening is a parallel and balanced experience. We commit to intentionally and fully hearing our conversation partner, aiming to understand exactly what they mean.
We check in to make sure we have understood their message. We might say to a child: “Let me see if I’ve heard what you said and understand how you feel.”
We then repeat what we have understood and ask: “Did I get that?”
This gives the child an opportunity to clarify. They notice that someone—especially an adult—has made a sincere effort to understand them. It is a welcome and unexpected gift to a child who has not experienced this before.
Presence and sincerity are key to the reparative nature of our work.
I offer workshops and classes in active listening and other topics that foster relationship health. Please follow me to learn more.
Aviva Chansky Guttmann, LMSW, is a Certified Imago Relationship Therapist and EFT practitioner. She offers workshops and classes that foster active listening, emotional awareness, and healthier relationships.
+1 (631) 885-4375
