When families live through difficult times, be they natural disasters like hurricanes, forest fires, tornadoes, floods, or family tragedies such as car accidents or the sudden death of a loved one, there are many different ways to respond. In my last editorial, I encouraged parents to allow their children to express their feelings, and especially to find and shed their tears.
But what happens when a child does not seem to be affected by the situation? It might be tempting to think (or hope?) that they have not really been affected. That they are “resilient” and are just “bouncing back.” This, however, is rarely the case. It is, in effect, wishful thinking.
The human brain is amazing and it is quite dedicated to ensuring our survival. So in challenging situations it is very normal for the brain to block out an emotional reaction in order to allow us to cope. It allows us to maintain a sense of calm and focus, when the world around us is spinning. We orchestrate a quick exit from the place of danger. We drive long hours to find safety. We hardly sleep or eat and don’t feel the need to do either. This is the brain helping us focus on the essentials. Emotions, therefore, take a back seat.
This happens to us and it can happen to children as well. When the situation is overwhelming, children, too, can “shut down” or shut off emotional reactions. They may become very quiet. If we ask them if they are okay, they often reply that they are fine. They may continue to play with other children – even laugh and look happy. But underneath the emotions are still there, especially alarm and frustration.
Emotions that have been evoked by a traumatic situation eventually have to surface so that they can be processed. For some children this may be weeks or even months after the event. When these emotions surface, everyone is caught off guard – children and parents alike. And, unfortunately, the link with the larger event is often not made. The child may start to have nightmares, temper tantrums, fits of aggressive behaviour, and/or display irritating behaviours such as whining, clinging, or being terribly bossy – all of which may seem to come “out of the blue” or be totally out of line with the environmental trigger.
When this happens, the adults, who themselves are probably dealing with their own delayed emotions, will try to manage the behaviour as best they can. In a day and age when most behaviour management is actually symptom management, the adults will try a variety of interventions: reasoning, using “time out,” giving consequences, giving rewards for good behaviour, and so on. But when behaviours are emotionally driven (and they are more often than we would want to admit), these interventions usually backfire and the behaviours intensify.
What can parents do? First of all, try to remember that traumatic events are not benign and will need to be dealt with for a long time after the event is over. There is nothing wrong with your child, or with your parenting, if he or she is experiencing a delayed reaction. Often this allows the adults to process the situation themselves before having to deal with their child’s reaction. In fact, some children seem to intuitively know when it is “their turn.” Of course, from the adult perspective, we just want this to go away and for everything to get back to the way it was before. Unfortunately, this is another reality that must be grieved. (I recommend that adults watch a lot of sad movies, to give themselves the space to grieve all that they cannot change.)
When dealing with these challenging behaviours, our most important goal should be to provide our children with a safe place to express their emotions. Of course, we may need to impose order by separating the children if one is hurting the other, letting others in the environment know that we are aware that the behaviour is “inappropriate,” and generally managing the situation so the child does not get into more trouble.
It may not be easy, in the moment, to provide the emotional support the child needs, but it is essential that we find time later to help the child process their emotions. And often later is better, because both the adult and child have a chance to distance themselves from the immediate circumstances.
Once it occurs to us that the child’s tantrums, aggression, or bossiness may actually stem from a delayed reaction to this past event, then it may be easier for us to be more empathetic even if they have behaved “badly.” (Ironically, we seem to find it easier to “excuse” our friend’s insensitive behaviour because we know they are going through a messy divorce than to give grace to our children who are experiencing a similar challenge in their life.) This time of connection with our child is an opportunity to focus on their emotions. We must take care not to use it as an opportunity to correct their behaviour. That can be done at a later time.
There are two quite basic emotions that are most likely to be experienced by children in these circumstances: alarm and frustration. Alarm is a response to facing any kind of separation and frustration is about not being able to “make things work.” If a child is reluctant to talk about the event, it is okay to talk about the emotions in a general way, or even in relation to the specific event that triggered it.
It is best not to ask the child what they were feeling or why they were feeling that way. Children are usually not aware of where the emotion is coming from, but just that it exists in them. We have to use our own intuition and share what we think in a gentle, non-judgmental way, ultimately leading the child to making sense of their experience.
For example: you sense that your child is very frustrated by not being able to go back home or sleeping in a strange bed, etc. This frustration is being expressed through hitting a sibling who has taken one of her toys. Later that day, you could come along-side the experience of frustration by saying, “That was SO frustrating for you when Mary took your doll.” Your tone needs to match the emotion the child was feeling. In this interaction, the point is to acknowledge the emotion, not to talk about the behaviour (very hard to do, but very necessary if we want to get beyond the explosions). “Sisters can be SO irritating!” With even this little amount of prompting the child is likely to agree and tell you how much the sister is disliked. (Again, this is not the time to talk about the importance of sibling relationships).
What we want to do is to gently bring up the idea that “things have not been going well lately, lots of things are not working out the way we thought.” Without speaking about the larger event, the message being given to the child is that we understand there is a LOT to be frustrated about. Rather than focusing on and trying to fix an “irritating sister” we are focusing on a “well” that is full of foul frustration and helping our child to process those intense feelings.
And the best way for these deep emotions to be dealt with is through tears. For some children, before they can find their tears, they need to be given permission to express their frustration. Be prepared for a lot of ranting about everyone and everything. Allow the rant to happen because once they can put some words to “mad,” then we can gently lead them to “sad.” Sad is where adaptation happens. Sad allows emotion to move through so it does not stay underground.
To move mad to sad, we must acknowledge the frustration, “There is so much that is JUST NOT working! Wow, that’s a lot to have to put up with! I’m so sorry that this has happened.” As we put a hint of sadness in our voice, this will often be enough to prime the sea of tears that the child will need to cry in order to adapt to a world that is not cooperating.
We can guide children through a similar process around alarm. Key phrases are, “That was scary for you,” and “You didn’t know what was going to happen next.” Once again, in this interaction we are going to comfort and also acknowledge the emotion, no matter what the reason for it. There was so much that was scary and so little time to process it.
If a child has nightmares or sees monsters under the bed, we need to come along-side the alarm. Trying to deal with an emotional problem using reason really doesn’t work very well. Ask anyone who has tried to get rid of the monsters under the bed!
In summary, emotions are essential to our well-being and once evoked, need to be expressed. For children who have lived through difficult times, some will need time to process. If their reaction is “too good to be true,” it just means that these emotions will be expressed later.
Our challenge as the adults in their lives is to find a way to allow for this expression without consequences. We must overlook some of the symptom behaviours to get to the heart of the matter. Our children need to know that we are there for them and that we understand that their behaviour is just a way of communicating that something is not working for them. We need to hold them close as so that they can express these emotions and thus come to a place of rest.
The devastating forest fires that are affecting Fort McMurray, Alberta are every parent’s nightmare, as are similar natural disasters such as earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, and hurricanes. Our deepest instincts are to keep our children safe and provide a stable, caring environment for them. When our homes are threatened and destroyed, our foundation is gone. The overriding question in our minds is, “What is going to happen to us?”
As adults, it is our role and responsibility to worry about the future. And so the question is, “What can we do, in the face of a very obvious disaster, to help our children get through this with the fewest effects on their emotional well-being?”
And yes, there will be effects. This we must grieve, as we must grieve the loss of our homes and communities. And yet, there are things that parents can do to help their children.
The first is to keep in mind the old adage, “Home is where the heart is.” Children feel safest when they are with those to whom they are attached. While we may miss our house and belongings, children need us more than they need their things. For many of them, these challenging times are bringing them closer to their parents than they have been for a while. And these close bonds are what are going to keep them safe and well.
Children, especially in situations like this, instinctively look to their parents to see if they need to worry. They know that what is happening is not good, but what they need to know is, “Will you still be there to take care of me?”
And so we need to give our children a message of hope, even when we do not feel very hopeful or very sure about what will happen. This can make us feel uncomfortable, as we usually try to be honest with our children. But without this reassurance our children will be at a loss. They need us to take the lead, otherwise they will take the burden on their shoulders.
When we say to our children, “We will get through this. We will be okay,” this does not mean to say that all will be as it was before. Nor does it mean that we know how we will get through. And what happens next may not be at all what we had in mind for the future before this disaster struck.
And so we must act with more confidence than we feel on the inside. We need to believe that we are our child’s “best bet” and that in our presence, they will be able to handle the changes that life is throwing at them and at us. This confidence is meant to reassure our children that we will be there to help them through and the we believe that it is possible to come out the other side. A demeanor of quiet confidence will do a lot to help our children stay calm.
Of course, being confident is not the whole answer. There are many, many emotions evoked by these challenging situations. There is so much that is changing, so much that is lost, and therefore so much that needs to be grieved. During these hard times, and for months afterwards, there will be the need for many tears.
Resilience is a word that is often mentioned in these circumstances. But where does true resilience come from? Dr. Gordon Neufeld, a renowned clinical psychologist, proposes that resilience is the result of the process of adaptation. And true adaptation is the process by which we are changed by that which we cannot change. What leads us to adaptation is tears. Tears are the sign that the emotional brain has come to terms with the fact that action will not produce change. Tears are a sign of “letting go.” When we let go of what we hoped for, we can make room for what is to come.
When researchers looked into the conditions that allowed victims of 9/11 to recover, they noted that the ability to express sadness and pain was key. If your children are crying, this is a very good sign. Children can only cry when they feel safe in the arms of those who love them and if their hearts are soft.
We are sometimes afraid that if we allow tears to flow, that they will never stop. However, the brain is an amazing entity. Once emotion is allowed to flow through, it strives to find a balance. The tears will naturally come to an end (at least for a while), if they are given adequate space.
Once we accept that tears are necessary and needed, we have to tame yet another instinct, that of wanting to take away the pain. When our children (or spouse or friends) start to cry, as difficult as it may be, it is best to just hold them in that place. I usually suggest that the adult try not to speak, but just murmur comfortingly and rock the child. As children lean in to us, even though our heart is breaking, the message we are giving them is, “I am big enough to handle this. You can lean on me. It’s okay to be sad.”
To the parents and caregivers who are accompanying children in these difficult times, my heart goes out to you. Truly believe that you are your child’s best bet so that they can depend on you and lean on you and grow in the safety of your arms and loving heart.
In Part II of this editorial I will explore some other reactions that children might have in these circumstances, especially if they are not yet able to cry and how parents can best manage in that situation.
In the first part of this editorial on playful approaches to discipline, I talked about how we have become stuck in our misplaced belief that if we could control the outcomes of our children’s problem behaviour, discipline issues would be resolved. That is, we think if we could only get practical answers to our questions of what-to-do-when, we would get the kind of behaviour we are looking for.
This is exactly the type of thinking that needs to be confronted. We certainly do not need more useless answers around how to discipline. As stated in the first part of the editorial, controlling the outcomes of children’s behaviour will not work for two basic reasons: first, their immature brains are not wired to function in terms of outcomes; and second, the underlying issues that give rise to most problem behaviour cannot be addressed through discipline. I outlined five of the most common roots of problem behaviour and explained why discipline is not the answer to any of them. Now I turn to play – the exact opposite of work – as the surprising solution to these issues.
Play and Immaturity
The first root of problem behaviour (as discussed in the first part of this editorial) is immaturity. Only time and conducive conditions can grow children up. In the meantime, play is their default mode. It protects them from the real world of consequences until their brains are mature enough to enter into the work mode. If we could only rest from our own work of trying to teach a child a lesson and enter into the playful spirit of the immature child, we would find it much easier to deal with children.
If we didn’t take things so seriously, we might even have a bit of fun ourselves. Engaging in play is a great way to wait for Nature to grow our children up. When we encounter troubling behaviour, we need to ask ourselves what kind of behaviour we would like to see instead. Then we can look at ways to inject some fun into an activity to make it engaging while also leading to the desired behaviour. When a child is not yet capable of mixed feelings, this trick works like magic in just about all areas: eating, chores, toilet training, going to bed, dressing oneself, and even learning.
Play and Counterwill
Lack of right relationship with the adult in charge is the second major root cause of problem behaviour, since it leads to counterwill – that natural instinct to oppose the will of another unless the attachment instincts are fully engaged. Surprisingly, play is the answer to counterwill, too. The instant an activity becomes a game, counterwill melts away. The reason for this is in the very nature of play itself: one is always free to play and therefore not to play, and thus the will of the child is naturally protected. Since protecting the will of the child is the fundamental purpose of counterwill, play is the perfect answer to defusing resistance and oppositionality.
Play and Uncivilized Emotional Expression
Children’s strong emotional impulses are the third underlying reason for problem behaviour, since they lead to uncivilized emotional expression. Play gives us an answer here, too. In fact, there is good reason to believe that play evolved in mammals to provide a solution to the way primitive emotion can alienate others. Play was meant to take care of our attachment relationships by giving our survival-based emotions a way of being expressed without real-life repercussions. When a child’s behaviour is rooted in the attacking energy that comes from frustration or the panic that comes from alarm or the obsession with pursuit, we should be asking ourselves how we could help this emotional energy come out in play instead.
Simply put, only play can truly shoehorn instinctive creatures into civilized society without damaging either. Those who believe in work would wrongly credit this shoehorning to discipline. However, people who have been disciplined the most often turn out to be the most troubled and troubling.
Play and the Alarm System
The fourth underlying reason for problem behaviour that I described in the first half of this piece is a loss of the feelings of alarm that lead a child to be naturally cautious, careful, and concerned. These pivotal feelings become inhibited when a child has become too alarmed. So it makes sense that the alarm system is most functional in play, where the child feels most safe. In addition, recent scientific inquiry has revealed play as being an external womb for the young child’s fledgling alarm system, allowing it to develop and giving the thinking brain practice in figuring out what’s wrong. As stated previously, children without functioning alarm systems become discipline problems by default. Thus, while play is certainly not an instant answer to alarm dysfunction and the discipline problems that result, it is undoubtedly the best hospital we have for a dysfunctional alarm system and the best antidote to problem behaviour that stems from carelessness and recklessness.
Play and Lost Tears
The inability to feel futility when it is encountered, or the loss of tears, is the fifth and final reason I described for problem behaviour. Play is our best bet for helping find lost tears of sadness because tears are always easier one-step-removed from reality. They come more easily when they are about something that doesn’t count so much. I find it fascinating that the ancient Greeks invented ‘the play’ to help give expression to tears of futility, especially when facing the tragedies or big futilities of life. I can certainly relate to that.
The basic assumption underlying the outcome-approach to discipline is that experience alone can teach. This is not true. The heart must be vulnerably touched if change is to happen. In other words, it is not enough to know the consequences of our actions. We must actually feel the futility of a course of action or the futility of changing our circumstances, for needed pruning to take place. When encountering behaviour that doesn’t work, we should be asking ourselves whether the child has lost access to the sadness that would make the difference. If so, this sadness needs to be restored before the problem behaviour can resolve.
And so surprisingly (at least to those who believe in work), play appears to be the answer to the behaviour problems we have been mistakenly trying to correct through discipline. But as long as we are stuck inside our outcome-based thinking and blinded by our misplaced belief in work, we will fail to harness Nature’s own potent answer to the number one parenting concern today. We need a fundamental shift in thinking if we are to change our ways – a slap to our paradigm, if you will. Before this can happen, perhaps we first need to feel the sadness of our own futile attempts to change our child’s errant ways.
I would like to add a couple of concluding thoughts before I put down my pen. In the discipline arena, we tend to think that if only someone would answer our questions of what-to-do-when we could find our way through a child’s problem behaviour. Ironically, it is the answers to those very questions that perpetuate the practice of what could be called ‘misdiscipline’ (to parallel the construct of misbehaviour).
These questions of what-to-do-when do not need to be answered, so much as to be doubted and replaced. The questions that would really change our dance are What do I see when my child erupts in this troubling behaviour? and What can I learn from this incident that would change my interaction with this child? Or, as I have already noted, What is the behaviour that I would like to see instead, and how can I infuse some play into the activity to make it naturally engaging? The answers to those questions can help evolve us into the kinds of parents and teachers our children truly need.
Some people are child-whisperers because they know intuitively the secret of play and have the confidence to operate from that deep natural instinct. My wife is a prime example of this. No one had to tell her what I am telling you because she seems to have always known it.
I’m not like that. I need a map and a reason, especially when I get into confusing territory. My so-called professional training divorced me from my natural intuition and initially kept me from seeing both the role and power of play in children’s development. That, and my blind belief in the power of work, almost sucked the playfulness right out of me before developmental science brought me back to my senses. Now I am trying to make amends, as well as to give play the proper credit it deserves and the room it needs to do its work. Now I know my wife’s secret. I am writing this editorial to share it with others like me, so we can confront the thinking that has trapped us inside the work motif and its crippling outcome-based thinking.
Unfortunately, although play may be the answer we have been looking for, it is in dire straits in today’s society. This is partly because there is so little cognitive understanding, partly because the cultural support for play has been lost, and partly because true play is fast being replaced by counterfeit play. What is so insidious about much of today’s so-called play (for example, video games, screenplay, recess play, and even play-based curriculums) is that it is actually outcome-based at its core. And so it’s actually work masquerading as play, like the wolf dressed up in sheep’s clothing.
But that is another story, for another time and place.
In this two-part editorial on discipline, Dr. Gordon Neufeld discusses the root causes of problem behaviour and their surprisingly playful solutions.
Play has been on my mind lately. Perhaps it is the influence of three young grandsons. Perhaps it is because I want to stay young, and playfulness definitely helps with that. Perhaps it because the subject of play has been exploding into scientific consciousness lately and I had the wonderful luxury of creating Play & Emotion, a new course that has given me one of the best times of my theoretical life. Whatever the reasons, I think I have become a believer in play.
One doesn’t usually associate the constructs of play and discipline. There is good reason for this. Discipline is usually associated with the work motif, which is all about outcomes. The fundamental theory of work, as applied to discipline, holds that behaviour is shaped by its consequences. It follows, then, that the primary challenge in discipline would be to control the outcome of a child’s behaviour. So when problem behaviour occurs, believers in the work motif are thinking, “What outcomes should I arrange or impose to give the child the message that this behaviour does not work?” Or, when the child is doing something that particularly pleases us: “What outcomes (e.g. rewards) should we give to send the message that this behaviour works?”
Play, on the other hand, is not about outcomes, but about the activity itself. In this way, play is the opposite of work. To be playful means that we are engaged by the activity, not thinking about the outcomes that could result.
Believers in the work motif assume that children should be treated as little workers so that they will eventually learn to link cause and effect … and gradually come to modify their own behaviour accordingly. When taking this approach, discipline itself becomes hard work, attempting to find just the right kind of outcomes to produce the right kind of behaviour.
There are two fundamental problems with approaching discipline in this way:
First, children specifically (and the immature more generally) don’t function according to the work motif. It doesn’t matter how logical the consequences may be when a child isn’t thinking in terms of outcomes. To not fully appreciate this fact can make one feel crazy at times and render discipline an exercise in futility. For sound developmental reasons we are now just beginning to discover, children are designed to function in the play mode, legitimately blind to the outcome of their behaviour.
The second problem with viewing discipline in the work motif is that work doesn’t actually deliver the kind of behavioural outcomes we are looking for. The basic reason for this is that discipline cannot address the underlying issues that give rise to the problem behaviour. We often think of discipline as being corrective, but that could only be true if the problem behaviour did not have deeper roots. It turns out that there are five root problems that underlie almost all the behaviour that is typically subjected to discipline — and discipline does not provide a solution to even one of them:
The most common reason for problem behaviour is immaturity.
Children are not born with the ability to solve problems, take another’s perspective, judge outcomes, or manage their emotions and impulses. Even when knowing right from wrong, they are often unable to deliver. Even their best intentions will too often go unrealized. Although these developmental deficits lead to considerable problem behaviour, they cannot be corrected through discipline. Only true maturation will provide the outcomes we desire. In the meantime, we should consider what to do with a child until mature enough to act according to their knowledge.
A second major cause of problem behaviour is a lack of right relationship with the adult in charge.
Children must be deeply attached and in a state of trustful dependence in order to have a deep and systemic desire to be good. When this attachment is lacking, children will instinctively resist and oppose when they feel coerced. The term for this is counterwill. This kind of problem behaviour cannot be addressed through discipline; in fact, discipline will make it worse. The appropriate question to ask is how to develop the kind of relationship in which children naturally want to be good. If that underlying desire were there and we made sure to safeguard this sacred trust, there would certainly be less need for discipline.
The third underlying reason for a significant portion of problem behaviour is children’s strong emotional impulses, which seek release.
All discipline does is aggravate the very emotions that are getting a child into trouble in the first place. When we sense that emotion is driving behaviour, we should ask ourselves how we can help the child get this emotion out without getting into trouble. An understanding of this dynamic alone would change our own behaviour considerably.
The fourth reason for problem behaviour is that a child is not being instinctively moved to be cautious, careful, and concerned when they should be.
These attributes are not personality characteristics to be taught, but rather the fruit of a healthy alarm system. For children to stay out of trouble and out of harm’s way, their thinking brains need to feel the feedback of an activated alarm system when trouble looms ahead. Too many of our children have lost their ability to feel cautious, careful, and concerned, and so they become discipline problems by default. The question we should be asking ourselves in cases like this is how to help restore the child’s capacity to feel cautious and careful when this is called for.
The fifth root cause of problem behaviour is the inability to feel futility when it is encountered.
To address problem behaviour at the brain level, children need to FEEL sadness and disappointment when they encounter something they cannot change. Too many of our children have lost their feelings of futility. They do the same things that do not work over and over again and lack the resilience to know that they will survive not getting their way. Discipline itself cannot foster adaptation, nor can consequences or sanctions produce the right result. Only the right feelings will do the trick. If behaviour has become stuck, we should be asking ourselves how to help the child find the lost tears of sadness that would help them walk the maze of life.
If these five root causes of problem behaviour were resolved, there would be very little need to discipline a child. We must remind ourselves that discipline itself cannot correct the root issues that underlie most problem behaviour. In fact, conventional discipline tends to make matters worse. If this were truly understood, we would know that the real challenge in discipline is not to make headway or to teach a child a lesson, but rather to ‘do no harm’ and to find a way of dealing with the symptom behaviour until the underlying issues could be addressed. This insight would fundamentally change the way we interact with our children, and not only when problem behaviour occurs.
That brings me back to play. Surprisingly, play appears to be the answer to the very problems that we usually try to correct through discipline. That is why play is the default mode of the immature. And that is why I believe in play, not work, to deliver the outcomes we so desire in our children.
So how does play do this? I shall address that question in part two of this editorial. For now, I would like to leave you with the thought that maybe we have been taking discipline much too seriously. Perhaps we have been too blinded by our adult work ethic to see what play is really up to. Perhaps we have been fooled by the seemingly innocuous and frivolous nature of play, which has kept us from realizing that it could deliver the outcomes we have been looking for.
Nothing in natural development works directly. We could well afford to lighten up a bit, let children be children, and find a way of imposing order on their universe that doesn’t feel so much like work.
Continued … part two of Dr. Neufeld’s article will post in April.
Dr. Gordon Neufeld will deliver a two-part keynote presentation on the topic of discipline at the Eighth Annual Vancouver Neufeld Conference, to take place on Saturday, April 30, 2016 at the Executive Airport Plaza Hotel & Conference Centre in Richmond, BC. Discipline will also be a theme for a number of sessions throughout the day, and the Making Sense of Discipline DVD will be discounted for attendees during the conference – to $65 – a savings of $25.
As we collectively grieve the death of faculty member Gail Carney, we continue our series of personal stories and anecdotes to share glimpses into the impact she made on her colleagues and friends.
Our guest contributor for this editorial is Elana Brief from Vancouver, BC. She has taken a number of courses and intensives through the Neufeld Institute and is a student in our Facilitator Training program.
I had the privilege to know and be close to Gail near the end of her life. It seems impossibly recent that I met Gail in the summer of 2014. When I applied to Advanced Studies, she invited me to be her student, and we talked or emailed or met in person every week since then. The only interruptions to our communication came from medical causes — her fatigue from chemotherapy or radiation treatment or cementoplasty (which both relieved some pain and delighted her with its word and its science). From the outset Gail made it clear that she was facing death: a condition of my being her student was agreeing to transfer to another faculty member if she died before I finished the program. And so it began: the precious months and days and hours I got to spend with her.
Because of my own time limitations for meeting, we became quite creative in our venues. We sat on park benches before her medical appointments, we ate scones at Butter Cafe before I picked up my son from a program, we Skyped with her drawings of teacups behind her and the beach and ocean behind me. Several times we wandered around Stong’s Market, pushing our grocery carts, talking about counterwill, Gelderman’s bacon, making oneself ‘sweet’ to illicit caring from others (especially when you’re ill and moving slowly while choosing your shallots and the younger man behind you is getting impatient), the spice Ras el Hanout (which Gail advised me tastes wonderful rubbed on lamb), and how Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation classifications have been generalized to absurdity. The most wonderful place to meet, though, was in her home, surrounded by her books and her art.
We shared a love of poetry, and in our meetings we uncannily referred to the same poems. (“Spooky” was Gail’s description.) From our first meetings, though, there was a poem that was lost somewhere in my mind. I couldn’t find it, but I knew that I wanted to give it to Gail.
Gail took such delight in living. One day I brought a small bunch of fuchsia Gerbera daisies for her. She took one daisy from the bunch, clipped it, and put it up on a shelf in a small ceramic rectangular vase that set off the colour even more (and the rest she displayed in a more open vase on her table). Croissants became even more delicious in her presence, as she commented on the flavours and textures. Once, as we were running out the door to get to a meeting, she paused to have me taste a smoothie she had just made, because it was ‘particularly good.’
It was with great courage, therefore, that she let all these things go one by one. In her last months of life, what she could eat would remind of what she could not. I remember her sadness at having to miss an international speaker on traditional African American quilt-making, something she had been looking forward to for months. She had so much to mourn every day, and she mourned so that she could continue to feel. Most remarkably, she looked into the terrible final separations she was facing. She gently match-made: she drew people together to care for each other in the space of her loss.
On the eve that Gail entered the hospice, I opened the Book of Hours by Rainer Maria Rilke and found the very poem I had been searching for:
I live my life in widening circles
that reach out across the world.
I may not complete this last one
but I give myself to it.
I circle around God, around the primordial tower.
I’ve been circling for thousands of years
and I still don’t know: am I a falcon,
a storm, or a great song?
I sent it to Gail that night. “Perfect,” she wrote in reply.
Editor’s Note: A scholarship fund has been established in Gail’s memory. For more tributes to Gail, links to some of her art and her writings, and information about the Gail Eleanor Carney Scholarship Fund, please visit our Gail Remembered page.
As we collectively grieve the death of faculty member Gail Carney, we continue our series of personal stories and anecdotes to share glimpses into the impact she made on her colleagues and friends.
Our guest contributor for this piece is Bridgett Miller, a Neufeld course facilitator who offers courses to parents and works with educators in the Coquitlam school district helping them to make developmental sense of the children in their care.
Over the years I have gathered many fond memories of Gail but what I have chosen to share here are two recollections that are very special to me because of the tremendous impact they have had on my life.
Many years ago while attending the week-long ‘Intensive’ in Vancouver, I had the opportunity to head outside into the beautiful sunshine during the lunch break. I would usually go and walk for the hour but on this day I found myself sitting on a bench in Vanier Park staring out at the ocean. Gail, too, had wandered outside and she sat down next to me. It wasn’t long before we struck up a conversation.
Back then I didn’t know Gail very well, but in true Gail style, she knew exactly who I was. Nothing got past her, not ever! We spoke about my interest in the Neufeld courses I had taken, my work with children as a teacher, and most importantly how much better I understood my own children because of this new lens I was seeing them through. During our conversation Gail made a suggestion that would change the trajectory I was on, but I had no idea of the extent of this back then.
Gail invited me to apply for the Advanced Studies program because she felt that I would be a ‘good fit.’ I remember looking at her and saying, “Really, do you think so?” She nodded and smiled her great big beaming Gail smile. That was it, that’s what I was to do and so I did! So much has happened since then.
This past summer Gail invited me to visit with her at her house. I arrived to find her home exactly how I always imagined it would be. It was so very Gail! She took me on a tour showing me many of the projects she was working on, her special quilt, her art, her collection of tins and books and one of her prize possessions: her coloured stove that she chuckled over when she shared that she had blown most of her kitchen budget on buying it because she really, really wanted to own it. Ophelia, Gail’s cat, who apparently isn’t much of a socializer, came over and allowed me to stroke her… which I was then told was was quite the honour! We sat at her kitchen table and sipped tea and talked and talked and talked.
It was during this visit that I had the opportunity to remind Gail of the conversation we had on the bench. I shared with her how my following her lead had taken me places I would never have imagined going, doing things that I would never have believed I’d be up for doing. She smiled and nodded as if what I was saying wasn’t news to her because she had known it all along. I am forever appreciative that I was able to thank Gail in person for all that she has done for me, and to let her know just how deeply she has touched my life and those in it.
Gail may be gone, but because of who she was to me, she will always be close to my heart. I feel truly blessed to have known her.
Editor’s Note: A scholarship fund has been established in Gail’s memory. For more tributes to Gail, links to some of her art and her writings, and information about the Gail Eleanor Carney Scholarship Fund, please visit our Gail Remembered page.
As we collectively grieve the death of faculty member Gail Carney, we continue our series of personal stories and anecdotes to share glimpses into the impact she made on her colleagues and friends.
It’s children’s book season. The Caldecott and Newbery awards have just been announced, so it’s the time of year that Gail Carney and I are usually discussing the books – and their art and authors – that garnered the industry’s prestigious awards from the American Library Association.
This year, I beamed with joy when one of the books we’d picked for the Neufeld Institute’s list of recommended children’s books won both the Newbery Medal and a Caldecott Honor: Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña. I wished I could Skype Gail right away to squeal about it, but her death from metastatic breast cancer came four weeks earlier. The two of us had read the book together at a coffee shop last March – on our lunch “break,” after we’d been working all morning next door at Vancouver Kidsbooks to review dozens and dozens of other books.
Hardly work, though, I spent the year looking forward to my book-review day with Gail, which had come to be a cherished annual tradition for us both. Looking at children’s books is already a treat of time. Reviewing them with Gail – an artist with an encyclopedic mind, combined with an unmatched brazen at expressing her true thoughts… well, that was a hoot.
We’d poke around the bookstore gathering up books and then plopping ourselves into chairs to look at them together. The whole time, bookstore employees would drop off fresh suggestions and their favourites to pore through, too. Within a matter of minutes, our pile was quite a leaning tower of books!
In the name of efficiency, Gail and I would take turns grabbing the top book from the pile to start our simultaneous review process. But efficiency was soon trumped by the fun in looking at the books a second time together and discussing them at length.
Together, our review process was akin to the picture-book storytelling process: where words cannot tell the complete story without the crucial elements added by the pictures. Gail’s keen artist’s eye would notice details in the illustrations that my perspective, prone to getting swept up by the words, had missed. Reading A Fine Dessert, by Emily Jenkins and Sophie Blackall, Gail found particular delight in details like the blackberry stains on the aprons of mother and daughter, along with the brilliance of illustrating the different mixers in each generation’s vignette. I wouldn’t have appreciated these lovely details had it not been for Gail.
I think we derived just as much pleasure talking about the books we liked as those we considered duds. “Kids can’t relate to art like this. It’s too abstract. They want to see themselves,” she’d say.
“Gah! Another mindfulness book. Ridiculous!” Gail would laugh and then further editorialize. “Children are not developmentally capable of meditating to calm themselves down. Stupid. It’s just so stupid!”
She was ranting to the choir, of course. I’d been her student and mentee at the Neufeld Institute for two years, friend for longer. We’d talked about the same trend in picture books the year before. And the year before that. Still, I nodded and listened – and laughed. There was always something to learn from Gail.
“Here’s our reject pile,” Gail would announce to the booksellers, waving the first of several baskets off for re-shelving. She didn’t apologize or pussy-foot around why she didn’t like these books. When asked, Gail loved the chance to tell the booksellers exactly why the books weren’t a fit. “Too many children taking care of their parents. That’s too alarming.”
Then she’d point to the pile we wanted with pride, gushing about those. Last year she raved so much about In My Heart by Jo Witek and Christine Roussey, the booksellers must have thought she’d been planted by the publisher to help boost book sales!
In addition to leaving the bookstore with a long list of books to share at the annual conference, neither of us ever walked out of that bookstore without a big pile of books to buy for ourselves and the children in our lives. (Expensive play it was!)
Gail so often surprised me, this short woman with her metallic turquoise cane and later, shiny silver walker. Cognitivel
y, I knew Gail was suffering from cancer – and yet she was ever bold, strong, elegant, frank, and playful. It was hard to reconcile these things and believe she wouldn’t always be sitting with me at that bookstore table.
And yet, I know she will always be at that bookstore table. Like the title of her favourite book, Gail remains in my heart, in the heart of the Institute, in the hearts of the countless people she touched. Like the cover of this same book, with its layers of concentric, heart-shaped die-cuts, the many facets of Gail will continue to offer gifts to us.
Editor’s Notes: Gail founded the Children’s Literature & Neufeld’s Approach collection on our virtual campus, a review-library of hundreds of recommended children’s and young-adult books, updated each year and available to conference attendees and anyone with a campus membership.
A scholarship fund has been established in Gail’s memory. For more tributes to Gail, links to some of her art and her writings, and information about the Gail Eleanor Carney Scholarship Fund, please visit our Gail Remembered page.
As we collectively grieve the death of faculty member Gail Carney, we continue our series of personal stories and anecdotes to share glimpses into the impact she made on her colleagues and friends.
During my first two visits to Vancouver I enjoyed the honour and fun of staying at Gail’s house. The first time she even gave me her (and her cats’, who didn’t really accept that strange change!) own sleeping room to sleep in her bed. She tolerated with humour my raw food experiments in her garden, showed me her art works, and discussed with me all aspects of driving a Volvo car (and very many other things). I accompanied her to her special swimming training every morning, she lent me a wonderful diary of Charles Darwin’s wife — and I managed to send it back to her as soon as I had finished it because it was very important to me to show her my reliability.
She hoped to visit me back in Germany as soon as her feet and leg would serve her better again. This was never to happen.
I was deeply impressed by her openness and warm humor, together with so much self-reflectedness and straight sincerity. I’ll never forget how I once, in the midst of my divorce turmoils, showed up for a faculty master class and she said with her unique voice and tone, “Oh, Dagmar, what a rare guest!” She was right, of course, and her remark was honest — a cue for me and at the same time full of humour and without any judgment.
I very much loved her sharp intelligence and comprehensive knowledge and literacy, her independent thinking, together with her rare self-irony and readiness to take nothing for absolute, not even her own convictions. She had an intense interest in other people’s life, thoughts, feelings, and the dynamics of all of it. She wasn’t euphemistic at all, except in an ironic way. I am grateful that I have known her.
Editor’s Note: A scholarship fund has been established in Gail’s memory. For more tributes to Gail, links to some of her art and her writings, and information about the Gail Eleanor Carney Scholarship Fund, please visit our Gail Remembered page.
As we collectively grieve the death of faculty member Gail Carney, we continue our series of personal stories and anecdotes to share glimpses into the impact she made on her colleagues and friends.
What I treasure most about Gail is there was something solid in her you could lean against and find rest in. She exemplified what it meant to be a caring alpha in so many ways from her shielding, matchmaking, collecting, and how she continues to bridge to this day. She didn’t shy away from hard conversations, offered unique perspectives on topics and issues, and didn’t fail to lead, even when it came time to helping us let go of her. As I reflect and try to find words to describe who Gail was, I feel the smallness of these letters in relation to her strength, courage, and magnitude as a person.
Photo by Gail Carney
Gail left so much of herself behind. Her writing and teachings still live on, preserved in perpetuity on the Neufeld virtual campus. I also hold onto memories of shared times including afternoons of theoretical conversations, exchanging information on new books, doing pottery with my kids, and laughing about all that was absurd in our lives.
While Gail visited me one day, my four-year-old started circling us like a shark, conveying her need to be the centre of my attention. I tried to engage my daughter’s interest in colouring, but she took the piece of paper, crumpled it up, and threw it. I sat my daughter on my lap, but she proceeded to sit on the floor. On and on my daughter’s resistance went, with Gail quietly taking note. At one point I just stopped and asked my daughter if she was going to continue to do the opposite of everything I suggested. My daughter burst into a big grin and said, “Yes!”
I can still hear the roar of Gail’s laughter, and mine shortly after, as my daughter’s counterwill was on display and celebrated. It was this counterwill instinct that I felt most akin to Gail with and it was the unspoken ease with which we gave each other permission to have our own minds that I will dearly miss. It is her voice in my head sometimes in remembering her proclamation that, “The problem with alpha caretakers is you don’t say ‘no’ enough and you ought to remember to do this more often!”
Gail was a formidable woman, is truly irreplaceable, and exemplifies to the core what it means to be “one of a kind.”
Editor’s Note: A scholarship fund has been established in Gail’s memory. For more tributes to Gail, links to some of her art and her writings, and information about the Gail Eleanor Carney Scholarship Fund, please visit our Gail Remembered page.
We are sad to announce the death of Gail Eleanor Carney, senior Faculty member and key administrator of the Neufeld Institute. Gail died peacefully in her sleep on December 15, 2015 after a long battle with metastatic breast cancer.
In the words of Greek orator Pericles, “What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”
As we collectively grieve this immense loss, we will be sharing personal stories and anecdotes about Gail written by her Neufeld colleagues, students, and friends whose lives she has touched. We will kick off this series by sharing Dr. Gordon Neufeld’s personal tribute to Gail, written upon her 2015 appointment to faculty emeritus and delivered to facilitators at the 2015 conference.
Gail holds a very special place in my heart, in the writing of the book [Hold On to Your Kids], and in the development of the Neufeld Institute. She came into my life in the 1990s — attending some of the courses and day seminars that I was giving at that time. Once you meet Gail, you do not forget her. Even when I hardly knew her, she was impressive. The more I got to know her, the more I have come to deeply admire and respect her.
Because of the sharpness of her intellect, the breadth of her knowledge, her ability to critique, and her critical thinking, I asked her to be part of the focus group for the writing of Hold On to Your Kids. She helped to guide the shape of the book.
I was delighted that she accepted my invitation to internship and was among the first to receive a faculty appointment. Her retirement from Emily Carr University was a godsend for us, as we became the beneficiaries of her administrative experience, her fierce intellect, her demanding expectations, and her incredible devotion. In 2009, she took on the directorship of our newly formed Directed Studies program and has been the main driving force behind our facilitator training program ever since. She has been a one-woman wonder when it comes to scouting and recruitment. Most of you [our facilitators] will be here because of Gail.
If you don’t already know this, I would like to share with you how remarkable this woman is. She is an artist with the mind of a scientist. Without any formal education in psychology, she has surpassed my professional colleagues as a scholar. She knows the field so well, she alone knows where I begin and where I end as a theorist — what are my contributions and who I am building on.
Gail gained my utmost respect as I witnessed her in her first battle with cancer — many years ago now. She invited me to be part of that process — and for that I am ever grateful and deeply honoured. She never shrinks from battle or from difficult challenges – she has often been my go-to person when I am not sure how to proceed with issues of the Neufeld Institute.
I have come to depend upon Gail as a friend, a confidante, as an advisor, and a source of inspiration. I have come to depend upon her fierce independent intellect for giving me an angle I had not yet considered. I have come to depend upon her mastery of the paradigm to provide me with critiques for my work.
Editor’s Note: A scholarship fund has been established in Gail’s memory. For more tributes to Gail, links to some of her art and her writings, and information about the Gail Eleanor Carney Scholarship Fund, please visit our Gail Remembered page.