Page 43 - Meeting with Children Manual

Section 4

P a ge | 41

NOTES
You could use a big piece of paper in front of each of the doll houses and the child can
set the scene on the paper and use drawing materials as well if they would like to. You
can further set a line or divider between each of the houses. The younger the child (5-
7 year olds) the harder this activity is to do based on the preoperational period where
symbolic thinking is beginning to develop and abstract thinking is not yet on-line
(Piaget, 1977, 1983). This activity requires a number of cognitive steps such as holding
images of two parents and the child’s interactions with each. You are also asking the
child to focus on other family members and to represent them using symbols.

Once the child has done the set-up… you begin the guessing. Some things you could
get wrong so that it makes it a bit fun. Once you are guessing what activity they are
doing and you guess the characters right (you could encourage kids to include anyone
they want in the scene – such as grandparents or nannies or cousins etc.) but you
definitely want them to include mum, dad self and sibs in each scene.

Be prepared if the child says “I don’t want to” at the outset of your invitation. You
could immediately modify the same exercise if necessary and ask them to do the
guessing game with only one house. You need a back-up plan if the child continues to
refuse. Do not insist the child partake in the activity. Back-up ideas could include a
picture of their choice, or making something of their choice (clay or play dough) or
building something (blocks). You could also switch the order of the activities below
and try another one. Refusal is important to sort out. It could be because your
instructions were too complicated or that the child simply can’t hold creating a scene
at TWO houses or that the activity is too close to consciousness and the child needs
more distance from their current circumstances. Remember child development and
how difficult it is to be asked to do something that could bring up uncomfortable
feelings. Even if a child refuses your initial invitation to the Guessing Game and
engages in an activity of his/her choice, you will learn about him/her re: what she or
he likes/does not like, or, for instance, who the child makes something for etc.

If time permits, for the second part of the meeting the child/youth is offered an activity
of their choice using any of the other items you have available or to just talk if the
young person is older.

YIELD
What do you learn about the child through the guessing game? This is an interesting
activity and you learn about what people are included and excluded by the child and
you learn if parents are active or passive (watchers vs. involved), roles of parents, roles
of children, proximity between parents and children, if there is a primary outdoor or
indoor experience represented at a parent home. You get to see the value of pets and
generally what actions or memories are most salient for the child. You can, once you
have guessed, ask lots of different questions like how often children engage in the
activity, how much they would like to engage, what other things would they like to do,
you can ask how easy/hard it is to go across from one house to the other (this is why

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