Page 40 - Meeting with Children Manual

Section 4 P a ge | 38

with you. Begin open-ended … only naming things the child has named in
your exploration of any of the art products/ activities
 Camera – take pictures of each of the activities

STRUCTURED CHILD MEETINGS

Schedule a one-hour meeting for each child and divide the hour into 2 parts:
a) Introduce an activity to the child and b) Activity of child’s choice. It is recommended
that you meet with children individually. This is not a fast rule that you would not meet
a sibling group, but due to individual differences between children and age and stage
of development needs, and sibling influence, it is best to meet individually at least
once.

Prior to beginning the first and second Child Friendly Meetings:
Invite the parent who brings the child, and child(ren) to come into your office, and
meet for five minutes together. In front of the parent “inoculate” for parent
questioning of the child by saying in front of the parent and child that you have asked
their parent not to ask questions after his/her special time with you and explain
confidentiality to the child in front of the parents. Repeat this small introduction again
when the other parent first brings the child(ren).

Confidentiality
Younger children may not easily understand the term confidentiality. For children,
confidentiality is described in the following way:

SCRIPT
Your Mum and Dad really want you to have a special person to be able to
talk to and play with. That person is me and I listen to kids and I have

some special activities that might be fun or interesting for you to do.

SCRIPT
When you come here, it is your special time. Mum and Dad have their
special person and his/her name is (XXX). XXX is helping your mum and
dad to make plans about how to help make things easier for you now that

you have your two houses.

(If you are the mediator or parenting coordinator and not an external child consultant,
you can explain that you are trying to assist the child’s parents).

SCRIPT
Our time is Private, but not Secret. You can tell your parents anything
you want to about what you do here – BUT – I will only share things you
say I can share. The only things that can’t be private are if you tell me

© The International Centre for Children and Family Law Inc. This material cannot be copied in whole or in part without the express written permission
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