We had our usual Tuesday's meeting at work today. After going through all the 'peripherals' of the Home, we went through the incident that happened over the past one week. Basically, it was an incident that occurred because 2 kids had a fight while having dinner and one of them threw a glass to the floor and ran up to look for the caseworker in charge. Somehow, no staff were around. One of our household manager (houseparent) came along and naturally questioned about the mess. One kid calmed down and helped in the portion of the cleaning. The other kid who threw the glass, came down with the caseworker and both started to clean up. Whilst cleaning, suddenly, the kid reacted and threw a HUGE drama (which I will not elaborate).
We believe in teamwork and we believe in learning from past incidents. 'On hindsight' experience are always the best learning experience one can get. We wrote down the sequence of the event and brainstormed the factors that led to the steep escalation of explosive emotions.
Many opinions were given and we finally concluded that when the 2 kids quarreled, it was supposedly to be a private affair. However, in the way they know how to manage, and in the way WE had managed it, it became a public affair. In all honesty, which kid would love living in a Children's Home with so many other children? Don't all children want the warmth of their daddy and mummy and sibling where they can quarrel in peace?
After all that's been said, we went one last round on what we got out of the discussion. Self-awareness. This has been tugging my heart for the longest time. In order to make a fair judgment, in order to render the best help, in order for a quarrel to be resolved, (in my 2-cents worth of opinion), I think it is best to be aware of ourselves. To be aware of our emotions and feelings.
Often when we (as a neutral party) try to enter into a quarrel, we make our judgment fast, we raise our voices, we stand in between as referee, sometimes we hold onto the hands and arms of the child to stop a fight and we tend to quickly assess what the problem is and dispense with the punishment. However, we often forget that for a quarrel to take place, a lot of hurtful things have already happened or said and the relationship between two parties are at stake. If (as a neutral party), we bring in our heated feelings into the already-heated atmosphere, what do we get? We get a more heated atmosphere!!
Paul said in Ephesians 4:6 that in our anger, do not sin. This is not implying that we should NOT be angry or anger is a sin but basically when we are angry, we still should not handle it in a bad way. The only way I am seeing it is that since I have every right to be angry, the only way to handle the situation well is to ensure that I am more than aware of the emotions that's hovering around the situation. This is especially true for our work in residential setting as we do plenty of work with kids with long bad care history that have led to a pain-based behaviour and this behaviour is not something to be trifled with. Handle it bad, the child would go worse. Handle it well, the child learns something.
My take-home for the day after a 4-hour meeting.
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