By Sarah Chana Radcliffe
"I like it the way it is - I don't want it to change!"
Change is hard on everyone and particularly hard on some. We like things to stay the same. When kids or adults are thrown a curve ball, when something important is about to go all different - one's home, one's school or job, one's family structure - we feel ungrounded. Even if it's a good change - a bigger bedroom, a new school, a long-awaited marriage - we lose our bearings. We feel insecure even if excited and when the change is an unwanted one, we experience our insecurity along with loss, anger and disappointment. The first step in negotiating the journey of change is to acknowledge the feelings you or your loved one is experiencing. Putting words to feelings helps settle, comfort and release them.
Dangerous, deceptive, manipulative, illegal, extremely inappropriate....... When a child does something that is SO wrong, SO destructive, SO inappropriate that you are having trouble thinking what sort of punishment could possibly drive your point home, chances are excellent that punishment is not the intervention you should be considering at all. When a child is that far off, professional intervention - for yourself and/or the child - is more likely to be the helpful and successful path to preventing further incidents of that kind.
