Skills
Job of the child
- To learn skills, learn from mistakes and decided to be ‘good enough’
- To learn to listen in order to collect information and think
- To practice thinking and doing
- To reason about wants and needs
- To check out family/school rules and structures
- To learn the relevancy of rules
- To experience the consequences of breaking rules
- To disagree with others and still be wanted
- To test ideas and values
- To develop internal controls
- To learn what is one’s own responsibility and that of others
- To learn when to flee, to flow and when to stand firm
- To develop the capacity to co-operate
- To test abilities against others
- To identify with one’s own sex
Affirmations
- You can think before you say yes or no
- You can learn from your mistakes
- You can trust your intuition to help decide what you want to do
- You can find ways of doing things that work for you
- You can learn the rules that help you live with others
- You can learn when and how to disagree
- You can think for yourself and get help instead of staying in distress
- We still want to be with you when we differ and we can learn together
Helpful Teacher/Carer Behaviours
- Affirm child in developmental tasks for this stage
- Teach conflict resolution and problem-solving skills
- Give lots of strokes for learning, thinking and finding own way to do things
- Encourage skills development
- Be encouraging, enthusiastic, reliable and consistent
- Respect child’s opinions and beliefs and allow discussion
- Be clear that mistakes are part of learning
- Challenge negative behaviour and confront discounting
- Encourage participation in rule-making, and be clear about negotiable and non-negotiable rules
Hunger - Excitement; incidence
Killer message- Don't make mistakes