MEMORABLE MOMENTS LAUGHING...CHILD AND YOUTH CARE IN SOUTH AFRICA

International Child and Youth Care Week this year, 4 - 10 May had "Making Memorable Moments" as it's theme.

And so to keep the impetus alive...

It cropped up during training in Behaviour Management. Somewhere the material required a discussion on responding to the stressful moment.  One of the stress-breakers it was suggested was laughter. For a child and youth care worker in certain situations to laugh rather than highten the stressful moment with a tense reaction. To get the young person to see the funny side. Sounds dangerous. The example scenario, however made it into a safe, in the moment stress breaker. 

The group was at the dining-room fully set, plates-loaded  table. Fathima started to complain loudly about the potato on her plate. "I hate potatoes. You know I hate potato. Why did you give me potato. I won't eat it. I hate potato!" With that she slammed her fist down on the side of her plate. A table knife rested on the edge of her plate with it's blade under the potato The knife became a lever, the potato a missile. It flew and landed "PLOP" right in the centre of the bowl of butter!  "PLOP".  The child and youth care worker saw the funny side of this and laughed. Not loudly, but laughed. Fathima got it , the funny side of this and laughed too, with the others at the table. The potato was removed. The meal continued amicably. 

In that particular situation, it became a memorable moment - a "do you remember when?" moment. In that moment it worked.

Laughing at obviously hightens a stress moment. Laughing at a situation is safer. Laughing with is a relationship builder and laughing together is healing, Laughing together at the right time place, space makes for memorable moments.

The potato in the butter story got me thinking about lived experiences of laughing with young people in memorable moments. It struck me that child and youth care work can be and is, a somewhat serious task ...and it is. It has though, relaxed, lighter moments, fun moments.

In my thinking over the past years, I was concerned that the serious moments were more easily remembered.

When did we laugh together?

The duvet covers on the beds were laundered once a week dormitory by dormitory. Four 'dorms',..four week intervals. Once a month the young people were to fit the duvet inner into the freshly laundered cover. It wasn't easy. Someone discovered that the best way to do it was to push the inner into the cover, then crawl into the cover to get it to the corners and flatten it out. Then, crawl backwards to get out. ALL BUMS UP! and all wriggling.They watched each other go through this and laughed together. Child and youth care worker and all....a magic memorable moment.

Portia was a deeply fundamentally religious young person. Always 'good'. ..like, no make-up, no nail polish, always dressed to be well covered and modest. No swearing, smoking, not even would she swim in the pool when there were boys in the water. What Portia experienced was that the misbehaving young people were always noticed and were given attention.(negative though it was). Child and youth care workers gave them of their time. She didn't get this. I called her a wall paper kid. You knew all the time that she was there but she didn't stand out enough to demand attention.

One day Portia decided to be noticed by the staff and occupy their attention. ..to be "naughty" as she put it. That day she emerged in short shorts, black eye liner, black nail polish and red, red lips, a less than modest blouse and dangling earrings. First she came to my house and announced her decision to be changed "From now on", she said..... I took a photograph of her. "I have to have a pic of you like this.. the new Portia". It was when she went into the main building that the girls saw the funny side of Portia's new image. It spoke to them about themselves, a mirror of who they were. They were not at all unkind. They gathered around her asking to see her nails and toenails. It started first with a giggle, which Portia joined. Then they all laughed heartily together. Child and youth care worker too. The next day Portia went back to the person we, and she best knew. But no longer a wallpaper kid. It was a good, memorable laughing moment... a "do you remember when?" moment, a "potato PLOP in the butter dish" moment.

There were fairly simple moments of shared laughter. Together watching a funny movie, games in the swimming pool like "Marco?"..."Polo!" and making dive-bombs together for a monstrous splash..lots of laughs. Spontaneous mud fights after rain and the hosing down by the child and youth care worker which followed. Fun and laughing together. Child and youth care workers too. "Now go to bath or shower".

A favourite in the boy's dormitory was to plot a deliberate attempt to pull the child care worker's strings and wait for the display. Bed time. Then one gets up to go to the toilet. ..Not unusual. Back to bed. But then comes another. Toilet, back to bed. ..and the pattern of toilet and back to bed continues one after the other. The child care worker just laughs.

It wasn't predicable, but it would happen about once a year. Again unannounced, the girls and the boys swapped clothing. Girls dressed as boys, boys dressed as girls. Boys teetered around in heels and dresses and girls in boys school uniforms each strutting around or with exaggerated mincing body language.  All laughing together. Child and youth care workers too. Good, healthy  laughing memorable moments.

Informal groups would get together, sometimes with the child and youth care worker present in the group and just talk. Sometimes they shared the funny side of otherwise serious "what happened at school" stories. The "there's this guy in the village" stories. "There was this guy I dated, he dived into the swimming pool and his costume came right down to his ankles". Memorable laughing moments all round.

It's not all a valley of tears and doesn't have to be. Young people enjoy clever, repartee, the backwards and forwards of witty, if not joking conversations. It's a child and youth care/ young people sharing laughter moment.

Sometimes a child and youth care worker can make these moments happen.Sometimes moments happen which a child and youth care worker contributes to make into a memorable laughing moment.

Its a '"PLOP" in the butter-dish moment, a "do you remember when?" memorable moment laughing.