Wednesday's Child Read Online Free PDF

clear.
     
    The girl glanced briefly over at Andi, then shot her attention right back on to me.
     
    ‘I hear you had a bit of a row today.’
     
    No response.
     
    ‘It’s no big deal. You’re not in trouble or anything. I hear that you were kind of pushed into it. Not that attacking someone is always the best way to deal with stuff, but sometimes we all lose the head.’
     
    The same silent stare. The shakes were lessening. It seemed they
had
been caused by nerves. As I spoke, I infinitesimally edged forward.
     
    ‘I think that what the Sister and the other teachers are most worried about, Gillian, is the fact that you maybe haven’t been eating much lately.’
     
    A slight reaction – a twitch of the lips – barely noticeable.
     
    ‘Could we talk about that? I’m not gonna make you do anything you aren’t comfortable with, and I know that right now, eating probably makes you feel very uncomfortable, but we need to talk about it, okay?’
     
    She looked over at Andi again, then a quick glance over her shoulder at the Sister.
     
    ‘I know that if I were to tell you that I was going to fix you up something to eat, and that I wanted you to eat it, it would make you feel sick to your stomach. It would be like I was trying to poison you. Does that sound about right?’
     
    A ferocious nodding of the head. She was listening now.
     
    ‘So right off, I am not going to try to make you eat today. We will have to get to that, but you need a little bit of help before we try it out. I’m here, and I know you won’t believe this right away, but I’m here completely for you. My only job is to listen to what you have to say, and to make time for you and to try and help you to have it easier at home and at school and with any other part of your life you want to talk to me about.’
     
    She looked puzzled at that statement. I doubted that anyone had ever stated the job description ofthe community-childcare worker so baldly to her before. The truth is, there is no specific job description – it depends on the worker and the region, but as far as I could ever understand, that was it. You represent the child and are the specific liaison between the child and any other official agency they are in contact with.
     
    ‘So, do you want to talk about how you’re doing today? Andi and I came out because we heard you were having a tough time, and that maybe you needed some help. I’m here. Andi is here in case you felt a little scared talking to me, seeing as we never met before. Would you like it if I asked Sister Assumpta to just let us hang for a few minutes?’
     
    A barely perceptible nod. But a nod for all that. I was in.
     
    ‘Sister, could you leave me and Andi with Gillian? You can keep the door open and wait outside, but you see, my job is to be here just specially for Gillian, and I need her to tell me how I can help her right now. Would that be okay, Gillian?’
     
    A small nod. More obvious this time. I know it may seem like I’d been wading through treacle with this girl, but this was actually alarmingly swift progress. I felt the tension begin to ease from me. I let emotion flood back in, and did a quick internal check of how I was doing. This was a trick I had developed while still a student. We tend to be very aware of how we are making the children we work with feel, how they are responding to us, but we often forgetto examine how they are making
us
feel. As a human being, you need to constantly reflect on your own emotional landscape. I quickly did just that. It had been a tough day so far, but I was still more or less intact. I was struck by the child’s courage, and knew that I was responding to it. She had been in a physical confrontation earlier in the day, an incident that must have exhausted her, and now she was being hassled by a stranger from the Health Board, an organisation that had probably caused her little more than grief in the past. It was remarkable that she was dealing with me at