I find our garden fully alive with vibrant colours when the Lilies are in blossom. The flowers fade away in about a week's time and the next season of flowering would be about six months later. The two seasons of flowering adorn the garden with splendid colours.
It is the sighting of a purple Heron in our garden which turned my thoughts to the migratory nature of the bird or six months of a year. Its movement instinct is for its survival and breeding.
The now for most of us, as we come to the end of a year, is a time of recollection of the mixture of experiences of 2022 and move on to the year 2023 with hopes and aspirations.
The now is one reality.
I was awakened to this reality when I welcomed a child of seven years, who after separation of his parents, spends five days with his mother and two days in a week with his father. He is currently emotionally disturbed and has outbursts of rage behaviour. Yesterday, while I was clinically examining him, he had one such outbursts of rage towards his maternal grandmother. He started to hit her, bite and pinch her. His mother or or the grandmother could not restrain him. I felt the need to restrain him as I noticed his harmful behaviour. When I held him close to me, he pinched and hit me. I knew that I had to help him to recover from this melt down without any harm to himself or others. It took about twenty minutes to reach a state of composure. He was obese and strong. I felt weak when he was struggling to escape from my hold. With other children and families around it, it turned out to be a frightening scene for all. It was after a while I was directly involved to restrain a person during a rage behaviour.
After the boy settled to his normal composure, the mother narrated how such events take place at home and she was helpless with granting his insistent needs. Often it is by giving a fuzzy drink and packets of biscuits or potato chips. She felt that his aggressive behaviour had made her feel insecure and frightened.
From this intense experience yesterday, the mother felt that his insistence to have coke and chips need not be conceded if we can be firm without consenting to what is unreasonable even amidst pressure. The mother has a way with him when he is a quiet which helps the boy to be reasonable and responsive. The mother felt pressured to give in to him because of his aggressive behaviour. The conversation with the family after the episode opened the way for the mother to consider the possibility of maintaining her composure even when provoked by her son's intimidatory behaviour.
For this mother, the now experience at home is frightening and anxiety prone. It was the beyond that we were able to explore with the family at the end of this intense engagement with the boy!
What is this beyond!
The Purple Heron gives out a message! Its migratory instinct makes it possible to adapt to different seasons, places and climate.
Our eyes are to be also on the future! If this child can be helped to recover from his post traumatic experience of separation of his parents, he would gradually feel restored to exercise his abilities for catching up with the learning experience and desirable school behaviour. He has good academic prospects and reasonable skills to adapt to a class room environment.
Human development is the issue that at is at stake in the modern society. Human instinct is to acquire and be successful in a commercial world. Human development transcends this perspective.
A family is the bedrock for human development. The child has his or her developmental pathway to pursue to be a pre-adolescent, adolescent, young adult, an adult and a middle aged person! An adult has his or her pathway to pursue to be a man or woman, husband or wife, father or mother or grandfather or grandmother!
These developmental pathways for a child and adult need considerable attention. The Family Development Plan consists of education for parents to help a child to grow up as an integrated being and for parents to grow up as self giving to upbuild the family life!
The Lilies and Purple Heron have a rhythm. They live that rhythm!
I wonder whether families would create time regularly to define their rhythm and make plans to pursue that rhythm to make children and adults feel fulfilled as families!
The mother I referred to above returned after the consultation with a plan to have personal time for herself for her recovery and create proactive opportunities to engage her son in enlarging his interests. She had a plan to build a rhythm to her life at home!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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