ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a humanitarian approach to interpreting and working with the trickier emotions and behaviours expressed by the young people in our care. To do this, we use our ‘soft eyes’ to humanely reframe what their behaviour is communicating. We learn how to identify a young person's innermost script so we can begin to hypothesise what's driving their behaviour and what interventions and supports might help.
With the benefit of hindsight and science, we now know that many of our traditional responses to manage tricky behaviours in children were seriously flawed. Sadly, our interventions have often strengthened patterns of toxic stress and caused increased emotional and behavioural challenges. We have learnt that wellbeing, emotion, behaviour and learning cannot be separated because emotion rules reasoning.
We have also learnt that young people do not always choose their behaviour; that it is an innate response to stay safe, feel in control or self-protected. Then, it dawned on us. Why not use the well-developed understandings to work effectively with young people who present with turbulent and traumatised behaviours, with ALL young people? This chapter offers a personal guide, primed for an immediate start, to do just this.
