Gold Coast, Australia
New stories update on 24 March 2012
New stories update on 24 March 2012
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A Note for You from Graham and BevEco Islanding if we don't ask, we don't get (seek and you shall find out)
Equal Rights = Equal Responsibility just give me poached eggs and hold the rules
Imagination is Free Separation - what effect on children, who to love Mum or Dad?
Leave your Mark our enduring worth
Love is Stronger than death how love is timeless and forever
My New Best Friend is your button in the "Press Here to Start" position?
Timing is Everything how do we know when the time is right?
NEW To Have or Not to Have is that a question?
Imagination is Free - Listen to Kids
...Separation - what is the effect on children -
who should we love Mum or Dad?
I met these great kids the other day and was lucky to spend some time sharing their world. (Their Mum had to go to a meeting for the next hour and they're NOT HAPPY!) With their parents splitting up they have a dilemma - they are required to choose which parent they love - Father or Mother. At least that's my perspective of what I see watching them. I know what it's like to be in a love/hate triangle. If I love Mum I must hate Dad out of loyalty to Mum - I must choose. If I love Dad then I must, as Mum's sees it, hate her. I'm at the very pointy end of a triangle and it hurts. Do I have to choose who I love the most? Can I please love both and it doesn't have to be equally but with whatever is in my heart - an unmeasurable measure?
So I spend some time with these kids and, as I find with both adults and kids, the best way to transport them out of their tragedy and problems is light a spark under their imagination. "Do you like to draw" I ask? "I don't know" comes their reply with a look of suspicion at me - kinda like what's in it for you - what do you want from us?
I say: How about I get paper, some coloured highlighters and a pencil and you draw something - anything you like? The mixture of replies are: "I don't know, what would we draw?" "I can't draw" and a heartfelt look of distain from the young boy whose struggling being with his two sisters (girls!) and a brooding rivalry from his older sister - a signpost of the division between their Mum and Dad.
Unrepentant in my boldness, I get some A3 sized wads of paper for each - I have shocked them into taking notice. What! These large sheets of paper in big piles are for each of us??! Yes, says I, you can draw as big as you want and whatever you want. The little girl is genuinely shocked that the page is so large and she has more than one piece all for herself. (When, I silently ask myself, was it that people decided a large piece of paper and more than one page is too big and too much for a little kid to be able to fill up with their ideas?)
Now I add the spark - a strike of the match (these kids really need a BONFIRE-sized spark!) I ask questions of each of them: What do you like to draw? "I don't know - What do you think?" is their reply. I ask more questions and get to know these kids. Of all the things I have to do in my demanding day, I realise this is the most important. I listen intently and ask questions to find out about them - there is no trust between us - I am a stranger and they're already cautious with people they know so why should they trust my motives. Slowly but surely I find out what matters to them - sports for the boy - we settle on a man-sized pencil for him and he wrestles it into obedience with small quick strokes expressing clearly the tension he feels in his tightly wound-up life. He's missing his Dad who was and - to him - still is the most significant man in his life - and can you tell me why people say to him "Well, you're the man of the house now"? Please - let's be real - he's a kid with no lifetime experience to help him "be a man". Even the most important man he knows - his Dad - can barely handle this difficult time right now so what hope has he got? He sits quietly forward in his chair intent on the frustration of trying to make SOMETHING work in his world which will submit to his will - his pencil.
The girls are very different - the littlest with her wide smile and bright happy eyes - just glad to have someone listen to her and we talk of what she likes - butterflies, flowers, a house, a river - and she asks for different colours please. I say sorry that my tube of Smiggle pencils and coloured textas are at home but I've given them every coloured pen I can find. (I get a surprised look of disbelief: You have Smiggle stuff too? Oh, yes, I REALLY DO!) She asks: Can I have pink? Of course - I love pink too you know, says I. We share our secret "pink person" smile and she sets off into her imaginary world. She's a little younger and not too hardened yet and I see in her wide smile the makings of a little person who is well aware of tension in the people around her but pretends it doesn't matter to her. I smile into her eyes - an easy child to love. I see her shine through life trying to keep the bad out and I can relate having spent many days escaping into adventure books - Enid Blyton's The Secret Seven and Anne of Green Gables - daydreaming and learning many great positive principles which became lifetime lessons.
The older girl is difficult - she makes life difficult for herself and she knows she's not in sync with the people around her. She feels she doesn't "fit" and tells me. I tell her confidently she doesn't have to "fit" - she can just be herself and that's okay. She comes and stands close to me - almost stands on my feet - she wants to hear again it's okay for her to be in desperate need for detail and order in her messy world. I ask her what she likes - trees, flowers - what is she interested in? She struggles to admit or commit to anything. She asks me: What do I like - what would I draw? I admit my fatal flaw to her - I can't draw like other people but I can do stick figures and I can do a tree and other stuff but I confess I do it simple - not fancy. She wants me to show her what I've got. I pick up a pencil and draw a tree and some branches then squiggles for leaves and I get carried away as I always do - I ask her: Do you like birds? Yes, I think so, says she. I can do a bird on the tree - and I squiggle away - it doesn't look like any bird you've seen, I tell her, but it's my best shot. I draw in some ears. I ask her: Do birds have ears? We all discuss it for a while and none of us is sure but this bird - well, he's got big fluffy ears and little stick feet. Isn't imagination fun!
She's getting excited realising its okay to make it up as she goes along and she won't be humiliated for a mistake or getting something wrong. In my world of drawing there's no "wrong" there's just whatever you like and it all looks great.
I draw a mushroom on the ground by the tree and now it's her turn. She still can't commit and, stalling, asks me about colouring in so I colour the mushroom purple and she's satisfied she can do better than me. She finally takes the highlighter and she's launched into her own happy world. She looks up once to check if I'm judging her and sees my look of happy approval and now its time for me to disappear and leave them in the quiet of their own imaginations with their stories unfolding onto paper in full colour. They have all been listened to and now peace reigns.
I remind myself of when I was young and how it wasn't an option to love my Father. It was a rule in our house to love Mum or else. It was at age 35 when I realised the truth - my truth - not the one I was told to believe - that my Dad did, in fact, love me and I saw it in the photos from childhood and teenage with my only regret that all the love he showed to me was not acknowledged or accepted by me because I thought it was some kind of hurtful game of him "pretending" emotions and love that he didn't feel and, as a kid, I didn't know the difference - There was only one choice - Love Mum or else big trouble!
Why do I write this story? To let people know what I see when I see kids in the middle of their parents' separation. Please don't ask us to choose between you. Can we please be kept out of the judgments which, as adults, you pass on each other? Can we be allowed to love you both without a measuring stick being applied to us and without the demand of us having to choose how much it is by comparison? Can it stop being a competition but an acceptance of what love we have to offer and can you please take time out of the pointless arguing to remember to sit down and listen to us and maybe give us a large piece of paper in a big wad and let's have a time of peace together, let's light the spark within both of us and draw whatever it is in our hearts that is tucked away - maybe a bird with big fluffy ears or a purple mushroom or a creek that runs past a tree with bright green leaves and pink butterflies and a bright yellow sun with a big green ring around it and ... ... and whatever we can imagine 'cause imagination is free - we only need to open the door in our minds.
...or a creek that runs past a tree and pink butterflies ... a bright yellow sun with a big green
ring around it ... whatever we can imagine.
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© 2012 Copyright www.aworkinprogress.com.au. Stories by Bev D. Photos by Graham D. Website by Bev D. The Authors, Graham and Bev, assert the moral right to be identified as the Authors of this work. No part of this website may be reproduced and published without the prior written permission of the Authors. All rights reserved.
© 2012 Copyright www.aworkinprogress.com.au. Stories by Bev D. Photos by Graham D. Website by Bev D. The Authors, Graham and Bev, assert the moral right to be identified as the Authors of this work. No part of this website may be reproduced and published without the prior written permission of the Authors. All rights reserved.