DEAR YOGESHREE
This is the first in a connected series of two letters on 'acting out' and seeing it as a way that young people communicate sometimes issues deep inside them that they cannot express verbally. This letter describes the 'acting out' behaviour and the next sets out to explore some explanation through having insight into the young persons world view.
The social worker at the 'Home' said to me " When the kids 'act out' then at least I can get a picture of what is going on..... I can see the colours of the rainbow"
The metaphor of the 'colours of the rainbow' became a useful metaphor . It was more subtle perhaps than the one I had developed for myself in my early days which I called 'flashing neon signs'.which is rather obvious. The idea of the 'neon signs' was that they flash bright incandescent colours, changing their message one after the other but are actually constructed by layering coloured neon lights one over the other. Reminiscent of Bronfenbrenner's Russian dolls
Like 'acting out' behaviour a neon message is designed to capture your attention, to flash and to shout the central idea to you Like flashing neon signs,behaviour-intense dramatic, apparently destructive episodes become windows of opportunity. Yogeshree, please do not think that I hoped for, or looked forward to 'acting out' behaviours in young people, they have to be managed, but I did realise that if I could read the multiple overlayed messages, then maybe the insight could allow me to 'get a handle' on understanding the less dramatic, less threatening moments in the reactions of that child in the life-space.
An early episode comes to mind.
Lebo had been missing for some months. His family was desperate to find him. His mother was dying of cancer in a hospital several kilometers outside the city centre. She had apparently said her 'goodbyes' to all the other significant family members and was hanging on to say 'goodbye' to Lebo.Mom was calling for hime and getting weaker every day.
Perhaps Lebo didn't want to be found and he was not traceable. Even the other young persons in the Centre and in the streets wern't talking.
An otherwise rejecting family became frantic. "She's asking for him," they would say, " and she can't ho;d on much longer - it could be a few days now and it will be too late."
When Lebo did show, feverish family phone calls and family resources were conjured up to get him to her bedside.
They would meet him at the Centre and transport him there themselves to be sure that he actually got there.
That morning Lebo arrived with a handful of plastic flowers, a plastic vase and a camera....... "he must have visited the graveyard last night" I thought. The camera had been hastily 'borrowed' from an uncle who was part of the transportation plan.. Much care was taken to arrange the plastic flowers and then photograph them.
Lebo was not in a good state. The effects of alcohol, glue or cough medicine or possibly all three were written on his face. His call was a constant "Pray for me! Pray for me!"
The next day the telephone didn't stop.
Through everyone's anger and by piecing the pieces together snippets from a number of relatives and their stories, I got a disconnected account of what happened.I will give it to you in point form.
When accompanied into the hospital room and at his mother's bedside:
He shouted and screamed at her, "You were OK in August, why aren't you OK now? Are you mad? Why are you lying in this God-forsaken place? Get up, I'm taking you to the city hospital. What are you doing? What have they done to you?' It was a dramatic and loud performance
Mom became hysterical (family's words).
Lebo took off all his clothes and at her bedside continued to shout at her ... naked.
He gathered up her little money from her bed-side and kept it.
He was hussled out of the room.
But this type of episode was repeated another four times - there was no stopping him it seeemed, so he was evicted from the hospital by the hospital authorites and he made his own was back to the city.
After Mom died , Lebo spoke in a quiet subdued tone, " I thought it was my mother's will and the family's will - not the will of God"
His uncle laid charges of theft against Lebo. ..... he had not returned the camera.
Love
Barrie
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