 He fell over again today. I mean, how many times do I have to pull him back up again before he gets this? I think he is doing it deliberately. I have decided I’m not going to help him anymore. If he doesn’t want to learn well that’s his problem.
This is ridiculous isn’t it? Would you ever give up on teaching your child the skill to walk? No of course you wouldn’t. Behaving in a socially acceptable way, being in relationships with others and knowing how to get your needs met without harming others is a skill that needs to be learned and taught just like walking. But still I get asked, (way too often) at what point do you stop “doing” restorative practice? At what point do you say “this just isn’t working let’s stop”. The answer is never. I always work to restorative principles and values – even when the child is not engaged in resolving the conflict or harm they have been involved in or caused. Children learn by watching, by trying and failing and making mistakes. And they do it at different paces arriving at skill mastery at different times from their peers. I see glimmers of responsibility or accountability all the time from children who have been written off as having “no empathy”, “no conscience.” The difference? They show these glimmers with people they care about, and respect, people they have a relationship with. This tells me that the first step to teaching anything, whether it is how to walk, how to behave or how to do trigonometry, is to develop a relationship with the child first. There is no doubt in my mind that there are children who are harder to reach and harder to teach, and let’s not get all sanctimonious here – it is never their fault, so there is no child who is not deserving of someone who will reach for them and teach to them. No child. Even the ones that drive you round the bend! “And if those children are unresponsive, maybe you can't teach them yet, but you can love them. And if you love them today, maybe you can teach them tomorrow.” Jeffrey R Holland If you would like to know more about how to work restoratively with children who will not engage in resolving the conflict reach out for a conversation about our Introduction to Restorative Practices Workshops or our Developing Restorative Practices Workshops. And if you just want to check out what it is all about before you commit that’s ok too, you can do this by purchasing our most popular programme since lockdown, “Introduction to Restorative Practices in Action” Click HERE
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