In the last blog article we discussed some practical life building ideas that parents and caseworkers can explore and use together. Also important, and well worth addressing, is how this life building is conceptualized and understood by all parties, including the general public. There sometimes has been a tendency to view life building in the child welfare context as emanating from what recently has come to be referred to as a strength-based approach. I think that is mistaken on several counts.
On first blush, the very concept, life building, seems to resonate a non-problem based approach. But the flaw with this line of thought is not the non-problem part of the equation but rather the other half, the approach concept. And that's because it would be wrong and mistaken to conceptualize life building as an approach. An approach implies a chosen strategy, one out of several possibilities, to deal with a certain problem. This places the need for life building in the same realm of most other problems, poor parenting skills, substance abuse or a deficit in anger management, for example. However, a person does not engage in life building tasks in response to a problem or problems, but does so, in accordance with societal norms, because of the desire to pursue and attain a satisfying and meaningful life. Life circumstances that drastically prevent such participation do not alter the nature and meaning of this process. Moreover, given the mighty weight of the combining forces of poverty and racism, as well as boring and inadequate schools, which have repeatedly failed to provide sensitive, stimulating and personalized educational efforts, all major factors in the longstanding development and perpetuation of an unpardonable and colossal epidemic, it would also be downright haughty to now thrust upon these very families a strength- or anything else-based approach.
Enough with the approaches; it's high time that people - all people - be treated as people - not clients - and be given substantial opportunities to forge satisfying lives and to receive the kinds of help that will allow them to do so. While a deficit in empathy for the plight of those who have readily come to serve as clients for the child welfare system has contributed to our habit of perpetually attributing labels to them or, to the so-called techniques used to work with them, probably much more telling has been our pervasive blindness to the real nature of their impoverished situation. We see them but, yet, we don't. Have the impoverished among us not become anything but an accepted, and an even annoying, part of the American landscape?
How firmly ingrained is our belief that most families who live in neighborhoods, into which we try our darnedest not to tread, are perfectly satisfied with the few outlets for joy available to them? Self-righteously referring to their usually bare-boned existence as their culture, we don't even imagine their yearning for the same kinds of cultural and educational attainment and opportunities for meaningful pursuits, which their more fortunate fellow citizens view as their birthright.
As we discussed in the very first blog article, the herculean work needed to achieve real change and better lives for America's impoverished population is not directly the task of the child welfare system. But if child welfare expects to have any real impact in the lives of families living in various levels of poverty, it must finally conclude that its tired and , usually, unsuccessful attempts at getting parents to change specific behaviors while their lives remain in shambles will rarely work.
Were things different, and this situation was reversed across time, child welfare would very likely lose its traditional client base. Parents who have opportunities to build satisfying and meaningful lives, like the rest of us, and believe that their own and their children's potential to achieve the kinds of lives other Americans take for granted will, for a combination of reasons, be determined to learn good parenting techniques.
Though a variety of factors are usually involved in one's parenting style, knowledge and skills, three important factors are salient: 1. The desire and willingness to think about and provide good parenting; 2. The acknowledgement of the reason for and importance of good parenting skills; and 3. The actual day to day skills that constitute good parenting.
What we have seen in decades of child welfare intervention is that parents living in desperate and impoverished circumstances have usually not been successful in these three domains. But they can be. Many of them, not feeling that they nor their children truly belong to and fit into a life that holds much hope for any rewarding, both material and existential, endeavors, have not seen the need for much attention to the idea of learning about good parenting.
It may help us to envision one's life mired in poverty and the lack of opportunity, often over generations, and then to try and grasp the resulting mind-set and its ramifications.
So, when child welfare engages in efforts to help parents finally work toward building better and satisfying lives it's because other entities, social services and otherwise, have failed to undertake this vital work. For child welfare to do so is primary and necessary if we want to assist parents in changing their parenting.
Not only is it not correct and also haughty to refer to assistance with life building as an approach but it also probably cannot be considered an approach for an additional reason. Even once a parent has successfully begun leading a satisfying and meaningful life, there remains much to learn about parenting and its related skills. Like most any other parent, these things are learned by study, introspection and experience. So there cannot be an approach that assists parents in achieving a satisfying life and that automatically leads to good parenting knowledge. Instead, a satisfying life is the framework which makes possible the implementation of good parenting skills.
To state the need for life building does not imply that people living under chronic impoverished conditions do not experience joy, happiness or satisfaction. But, when they think about and assess each circumstance and occurrence, and then attribute the kind of significance that leads them to arrive at those beliefs and feelings, their overwhelmingly difficult and distraught daily struggles prevent them , in part, from viewing these circumstances as sufficiently important and worthy of providing meaning and direction to their lives. Since they also are well aware that societal norms value college education, high-paying , vocationally-trained fields and attainment of recognized middle-class status, their ideas about their alienation from this sphere not only hinder their attitudes about isolated satisfying episodes, but likewise contribute to a broad hopeless mind-set.
Many different experiences and one's assessment of them are involved in what we have been referring to as life building. Opportunities for various kinds of joy, happiness and satisfaction contribute to this process. Nonetheless, it's usually the joy, happiness and satisfaction that result from the assessment and belief that one's life contains meaning and purpose that greatly influence many of our choices and endeavors, our very desire to pursue them and, finally, our feeling of having found a worthwhile place in this world. This last kind of satisfaction constitutes the coming together of various pleasures but most significantly, the belief that one's life has direction, a direction within which one's familial, occupational and avocational pursuits fit well.
On first blush, the very concept, life building, seems to resonate a non-problem based approach. But the flaw with this line of thought is not the non-problem part of the equation but rather the other half, the approach concept. And that's because it would be wrong and mistaken to conceptualize life building as an approach. An approach implies a chosen strategy, one out of several possibilities, to deal with a certain problem. This places the need for life building in the same realm of most other problems, poor parenting skills, substance abuse or a deficit in anger management, for example. However, a person does not engage in life building tasks in response to a problem or problems, but does so, in accordance with societal norms, because of the desire to pursue and attain a satisfying and meaningful life. Life circumstances that drastically prevent such participation do not alter the nature and meaning of this process. Moreover, given the mighty weight of the combining forces of poverty and racism, as well as boring and inadequate schools, which have repeatedly failed to provide sensitive, stimulating and personalized educational efforts, all major factors in the longstanding development and perpetuation of an unpardonable and colossal epidemic, it would also be downright haughty to now thrust upon these very families a strength- or anything else-based approach.
Enough with the approaches; it's high time that people - all people - be treated as people - not clients - and be given substantial opportunities to forge satisfying lives and to receive the kinds of help that will allow them to do so. While a deficit in empathy for the plight of those who have readily come to serve as clients for the child welfare system has contributed to our habit of perpetually attributing labels to them or, to the so-called techniques used to work with them, probably much more telling has been our pervasive blindness to the real nature of their impoverished situation. We see them but, yet, we don't. Have the impoverished among us not become anything but an accepted, and an even annoying, part of the American landscape?
How firmly ingrained is our belief that most families who live in neighborhoods, into which we try our darnedest not to tread, are perfectly satisfied with the few outlets for joy available to them? Self-righteously referring to their usually bare-boned existence as their culture, we don't even imagine their yearning for the same kinds of cultural and educational attainment and opportunities for meaningful pursuits, which their more fortunate fellow citizens view as their birthright.
As we discussed in the very first blog article, the herculean work needed to achieve real change and better lives for America's impoverished population is not directly the task of the child welfare system. But if child welfare expects to have any real impact in the lives of families living in various levels of poverty, it must finally conclude that its tired and , usually, unsuccessful attempts at getting parents to change specific behaviors while their lives remain in shambles will rarely work.
Were things different, and this situation was reversed across time, child welfare would very likely lose its traditional client base. Parents who have opportunities to build satisfying and meaningful lives, like the rest of us, and believe that their own and their children's potential to achieve the kinds of lives other Americans take for granted will, for a combination of reasons, be determined to learn good parenting techniques.
Though a variety of factors are usually involved in one's parenting style, knowledge and skills, three important factors are salient: 1. The desire and willingness to think about and provide good parenting; 2. The acknowledgement of the reason for and importance of good parenting skills; and 3. The actual day to day skills that constitute good parenting.
What we have seen in decades of child welfare intervention is that parents living in desperate and impoverished circumstances have usually not been successful in these three domains. But they can be. Many of them, not feeling that they nor their children truly belong to and fit into a life that holds much hope for any rewarding, both material and existential, endeavors, have not seen the need for much attention to the idea of learning about good parenting.
It may help us to envision one's life mired in poverty and the lack of opportunity, often over generations, and then to try and grasp the resulting mind-set and its ramifications.
So, when child welfare engages in efforts to help parents finally work toward building better and satisfying lives it's because other entities, social services and otherwise, have failed to undertake this vital work. For child welfare to do so is primary and necessary if we want to assist parents in changing their parenting.
Not only is it not correct and also haughty to refer to assistance with life building as an approach but it also probably cannot be considered an approach for an additional reason. Even once a parent has successfully begun leading a satisfying and meaningful life, there remains much to learn about parenting and its related skills. Like most any other parent, these things are learned by study, introspection and experience. So there cannot be an approach that assists parents in achieving a satisfying life and that automatically leads to good parenting knowledge. Instead, a satisfying life is the framework which makes possible the implementation of good parenting skills.
To state the need for life building does not imply that people living under chronic impoverished conditions do not experience joy, happiness or satisfaction. But, when they think about and assess each circumstance and occurrence, and then attribute the kind of significance that leads them to arrive at those beliefs and feelings, their overwhelmingly difficult and distraught daily struggles prevent them , in part, from viewing these circumstances as sufficiently important and worthy of providing meaning and direction to their lives. Since they also are well aware that societal norms value college education, high-paying , vocationally-trained fields and attainment of recognized middle-class status, their ideas about their alienation from this sphere not only hinder their attitudes about isolated satisfying episodes, but likewise contribute to a broad hopeless mind-set.
Many different experiences and one's assessment of them are involved in what we have been referring to as life building. Opportunities for various kinds of joy, happiness and satisfaction contribute to this process. Nonetheless, it's usually the joy, happiness and satisfaction that result from the assessment and belief that one's life contains meaning and purpose that greatly influence many of our choices and endeavors, our very desire to pursue them and, finally, our feeling of having found a worthwhile place in this world. This last kind of satisfaction constitutes the coming together of various pleasures but most significantly, the belief that one's life has direction, a direction within which one's familial, occupational and avocational pursuits fit well.