Page 31 - Meeting with Children Book

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child. This means we need to recover what you once
knew.

Why We Need to Speak the Language of the
Child
Children are on a developmental trajectory. This
means that as time goes on, the gestures that are sent
from an infant to an adult and back again become
more and more complex; from facial and behavioral
gestures to utterances and words. As a child develops
he/she makes use of an internal working model or
framework (developed between the child and the
main caregivers) to make sense of the world and the
meaning of him/her to others. Bowlby (1973) noted
that over the first few years of life, patterns of
attachment are formed and over time these patterns
become stabilized expectations of how relationships
work. Evolving from these patterns of expectations is
the view of the self within relationships. If you are to
meet with children, this is an important point to
recognize. If children have a history of a secure and
organized pattern in relationships with their
caregivers, they will likely present a positive sense of
self. If the child has had disturbances in his/her
caregiver experiences, they will more likely have less
positive views of self, lower self-esteem and less
ability to regulate their arousal systems and cope with
stress.

Without words, very young children begin to use
objects to express needs, feelings, ideas, and
thoughts. As development continues, there is an
increasing internal structure to hold increasingly