Today I share a story about a therapy session that occurred last Thursday. The impact of my reflection was so great, that I want to make sure to remember its “takeaway.”
I work with a little boy, a first grader, whose home life is tough. He misses a lot of school, speaks softly, and rarely smiles.
Every single week he’s identified “sleepy” as how he feels on my visual “Today I Feel” chart. That is, until one day, when I approached his session differently.
I talked him into shedding his coat for the first time ever, then we did jumping jacks instead of our usual wall push-ups and skipped the deep breathing.
For the very first time, he chose that he felt “okay” instead of “sleepy.” I stayed quiet and merely observed the change. We proceeded to talk about things that he likes to do for fun, as a way of helping him identify hobbies that he could safely engage in at home without parent involvement
Well on Thursday, after we did our jumping jacks, he identified himself as feeling “happy!” Not “sleepy,” not “okay,” but “happy!”
This time I inquired. I asked, “Why do you think you feel happy?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said in response.
I decided to push a little bit this time, for the purpose of helping him identify the cause for his feeling. Being able to articulate our feelings, and understand why we feel them, is such an important life skill!
I said, “Well, let’s think about it. What’s one thing that has made you happy today?”
He said, without a smile, “school,” and this warmed my heart.
While definitely excited and ready for spring break, it was an important reminder to me that there are kids who find school as their “safe place,” their “happy place” — the place where they’re heard, hugged, and fed.