Taking care of our well being as adults in the lives of children - July 2023
After a restful summer break, didis and bhaiyas reconnected with renewed energy in a collective circle time on 3rd July 2023, a customary practice at Shikshantar. We always begin with a new thought to learn from the experienced practitioners outside Shikshantar as change makers. The day started with an absorbing and engaging session with Dr. Shelja Sen, a narrative therapist, and co - founder of Children First. As professionals working with children, it is crucial to understand how our own well-being plays a significant role in our ability to support children effectively.With conscious self-care we can stay calm in stressful situations.
During the session Dr. Shelija compared facilitators to a ‘Prism’ whose role is to catch the spark in each child and turn it into a ‘Rainbow’. We believe that when we look after ourselves our children get the best version of us. Dr Shelija's thoughts resonated with ours that often “The way we talk becomes the inner voice of our children and what we talk becomes their life stories.” Further into the session, the team shared the struggles each one faces as an adult in the lives of children. The team came up with genuine concerns like - “one feels emotionally unsettled if we cannot identify the stress in a child's day routine”, or “taking care of children both at the workplace and home can be taxing and overwhelming” and many more.
The suggestions led to a realization about the importance of self-regulation, referring to our ability to manage our emotions, thoughts and behaviour in a way that is adaptive and promotes positive outcomes. She went on to discuss in detail how a teacher's journey is like a ‘courage journey of life’. COURAGE being an acronym where each word expresses the steps in the journey to support the children to follow their dreams and at the same time stay in control of our emotions. As German forester Peter Wohlleben says, “A tree can be only as strong as the forest that surrounds it", laying stress on the culture of ‘collective care’. What we focus on, always grows. Therefore, staying positive will create positivity around us keeping an eye on the storm within. The takeaway was, to keep the P.Q.- Playful Quotient alive in all of us as adults in the lives of children.Emotions are contagious - true even for little ones who haven’t yet learned language – in fact, their experiences of the world often reflect ours. Our emotional well-being, therefore, has a direct impact on our children.