Back in early March, when the world was not mad, I was lucky enough to work with children and young people. What I love about counselling children is often the immediacy of change and willingness to try new things. They are amazingly adaptive to new information.
It makes sense really, as a grown-up it often feels like an effort to learn new stuff but kids haven’t forgotten the skill of responding to the here and now and easily changing when there’s new info available.
I also know that children are often really literal in their understanding like, “Julie isn’t my friend because she hasn’t said she’s my friend”.
Remembering those good old days of non-distancing, I’m minded that a lot of kids are now with their nearest and dearest 24/7 – many of whom are not used to the closeness.
I’ve spoken (online) with two of my clients this week and I’m getting a strong sense that school being cancelled is great news! More time to playstation or Xbox. The specter of Covid in the background. “I hope my grandma doesn’t get ill”.
I’ve no real advice here to grownups really other than try to say some seemingly obvious things to children. ‘ I can’t control what’s happening out there but I’m happy that you’re here with me’ or ‘even though I sometimes get grumpy, I really do love you’.
It might make all the difference.
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