7 July 2013

Alternative ways or solutions: Aware Baby, DMT & KMP




Taken from Aware Baby, Aletha Solter, story on how to meet the needs of the child as well as mother.

'As a toddler, my son would sometimes tug at my legs when I was trying to cook dinner, He wanted me to carry him, and was perfectly happy when I did so, but it was impossible for me to cook dinner while holding him. What did he really need? To be near me and to see what I was doing. What were my needs? To be able to cook dinner, Solution: I pulled a chair over to the counter where I was working, and let him to stand on it. He was near me and was able to watch me, yet I was able to get my cooking done. We were both happy with that arrangement.'

I've involved my godson and his sister in cooking and they were eager, excited and more than willing to participate and cook with clear boundaries and structure. Another time, a friend and I were making salad and involved our friends' two sons. They enjoyed every bit and very cooperative. I enjoyed too cooking with the children and they are age 3 , 5 and 7 and 9.

Sometimes, when we are occupied in completing a task or wanting to get something done quickly, we can be overwhelmed by our own feelings of the urgency to get the things done. It doesn't help when we have a child who needs our undivided attention. It is good to take a step back and see if we can find an alternative way or solutions to meet both needs. Above is a good example. Instead of punishment or rewards, but meet both ways in between.

In dance/movement therapy, the intervention comes in to give the child an alternative way. A case on a child's aggression: A child began pulling another child's hair. What will you do? Are we going to punish the child or to give the child another alternative way to help to channel aggression into a similar, but more acceptable, form of movement quality? Aggressive movement qualities are seen as part of normal progression of movement phases and are not prohibited (Loman, 1992).

Intervention: Taken from an article by Susan Loman

'Father told the child to stop pulling but intervention not effective, child still continued to do so. In response, the father continually shadowed his son, and the atmosphere in the group became tense.

Leader gave the children a large box of tissue paper into the room and encouraged children to explore it. The children squeezed it into balls, put it on their heads, tore it, and threw it. At first, the hair-pulling boy was delicate with the tissue paper, but after seeing what the other children were doing, he began to experiment. He especially enjoyed an interaction with the group leader which involved a 'tug of war' with the tissue paper that used the same movement pattern as hair pulling. A little later in the session, when the boy again attempted to pull the younger child's hair, the leader intervened immediately, offering him the tissue paper and saying, "We can't pull the children's hair, but we can pull the tissue paper." The boy was provide with tissue paper after each attempt at hair-pulling. By next week, he had completely stopped pulling the younger child's hair.' (Loman, 1992)

This is to help the boy to release his aggression and it takes time to intervene as well as for the boy to understand that pulling someone's hair hurts.

My encounter:

A little girl was crying frantically one day when she came into the centre with her mother after I came out of my session. The owner of the centre carried her and tried to comfort her but she just kept crying. Later, she passed her to me as she needed to attend to the mother who came by to purchase some baby products. I sensed the baby was very upset and kept crying for her mummy. Her mummy didn't know what to do and I heard that the baby had always been crying and it had been a regular episode. While the mother was looking at the products for her baby, I took care of her baby.

I sensed that the baby needed to cry and also to express herself. I just used very gentle swaying rhythm (KMP), supported her by holding her close to my body as I stayed grounded. I gave her the space to cry and express herself. I acknowledged by whispering into her ears that I was listening, I heard her and I understood. I reflected back with my words in a calm and low tone of voice and letting her express her feelings through crying. It came to a point, she actually started to communicate with me. I could hear the change of the cries into a talk as she talked to me about her feelings in sobs. I continued to acknowledge her. After for about 15 to 20 min, she stopped crying and had expressed what she wanted to say, she became so alert and happy. She began to look for her mother with a smile. Her mother was completely amazed that she actually stopped crying and smiled. This was an encounter with the baby whom I had never met. I followed her cues and attuned at that point of time to her needs and it worked. She did not speak a single word yet as she was a very young infant perhaps 6 months or less. It would be great if I had it captured in the video how I had intervened and you get an idea of it.

*This is not the first time I have observed that it worked. Understanding and reading baby's cues and needs can help a parent how to meet baby's needs as well as yours.*


Interested in understanding the developmental movements based on Kestenberg Movement Profile (KMP), check our website Embodied Movement for 'Moving The Rhythm' workshops. Read our participants' sharings who have done the workshops.
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