Here are some top tips from A New Way of Being on how to build relationships with children and young people.

“ Parenting and working with Children and young people has been one of the most challenging and rewarding achievements I have ever undertaken in my life! There has been joy, laughter, tears, flying chairs and shoes, awkward silences, moments of rage that quickly turn to moments of pride and achievement, challenging behaviours, challenging perspectives, building relationships, strengthening bonds. It has been quite a journey but It is indefinitely the greatest decision and achievement I have ever made in my life!”
(Sam A new way of Being)

In this short read we have attempted to combine out twenty years professional and parenting experience to share with you our top tips on how to engage with and build positive and supportive relationships with children and young people.

Self-Awareness

• When working with children and young people it is vital to have a clear understanding and awareness of yourself, what makes you tick, what baggage you carry, what you bring to the table, the styles in which you relate.

• Becoming as self-aware as you can possibly be and having a clear understanding of your own possible stress reactions will allow you to achieve more considered, responsive, and successful outcomes.

• What are your own morals, values, ethics, and beliefs especially around your motivations for your work with young people?

• Why have you chosen your role with young people? What do you hope to achieve? how you hope to do so?

• How to you respond or react to challenges, frustrations, stress, risk, and danger? What triggers you? How do you respond to challenging behaviour swearing? Spitting? Hitting? Racist language or abuse? Becoming as self-aware as you can possibly be and having a clear understanding of your own possible stress reactions will allow you to achieve more considered, responsive, and successful outcomes.

Building safe and supportive attachments with neuro diverse young people

• Providing calm, structured supervision for children as much as possible.

• Think for the children where necessary. E.g.- It seems you are getting very angry now is there anything we can do to help you calm down.

• “Think Developmental age” - remember that these children are emotionally at a very young, toddler stage of emotional development. Respond gently and respectfully as you would to a child of 2 or 3.

• Remember teaching, not punishing - these children may be lacking skills not the will and are likely not disobeying. They need a different chance at the rules because they have had a different chance in life.

• Try to establish a strong relationship with the child – make time, keep your promises.

• Give small amounts of attention frequently to let the child know you are attending to them during lessons.

Confidentiality and safeguarding discussion on day one!

• When engaging with any young person is it vital that you make them aware of your role and your duty of care to young people. This involves.

• Ensuring they are fully aware that there are some things that they may discuss with you that you would have to pass on to your manager or another professional and could not keep confidential.

• This includes if they are being harmed or harming someone else.

• We offer training and support with this, but would advise having this discussion on day 1 so the trust can never be broken.

Treat others how you want to be treated.

• Create an equal learning space for the young people you are engaging with.

• Although you are a leader who is required to lead, remember that you are part of a team, and all deserve mutual respect and understanding.

• When you are fully open to the two-way learning process you may find that children and young people have much to share and are likely to end up teaching you a thing or two if you are open to this!

Honesty is always the best policy!

• Always ensure you can deliver what you promise to young people.

• Many of the young people we work with may be vulnerable and may have been let down by adults many times; a relationship can quickly be damaged by a false promise or a forgotten appointment.

Getting to know you.

• After a first conversation with a young person, you will have been able to gauge a little about personal likes, dislikes, hobbies, or interests.

• Prompt yourself to remember not only their name but something about them. Remembering little details can have huge meaning for young people and can help to make significant strides when building relationships with them.

• It is also encouraged to have open discussions about possible trigger behaviours and responses and how each group member would best like the rest of the group to support them with this.

Using and interpreting body language.

• Young people have an innate ability to sense how you feel about being around them!

• Think about how you are presenting.

• Keep your arms uncrossed and smile and engage. Maintain good eye contact and be fully present and aware in your interactions. Give your full attention to the interaction and mirror back what the young person says to you. Allow space for silence - you do not have to fill all the gaps; sometimes great reflection is birthed in silence.

• Take genuine care in the relationships you build, and the rest will follow.

You are the adult!

• It can be tempting to engage with young people on their level, but it is my advice not to act like them!

• However much you want to build relationships with young people remember you are acting as a positive role model and although it may take a little longer to build a relationship you will gain much more respect and effective leadership by ensuring you always model positive and appropriate behaviours to young people.

• That includes in your wider life such as social media, the way you dress, keeping professional relationships with young people.

Listening to understand not to reply.

• I cannot stress the importance of fully listening to what young people are saying.

• As kind, caring people it is often in our nature to want to provide solutions or attempt to fix situations for young people.

• This is not our role and by ensuring we listen to understand this will help us to ask open questions e.g. How did that make you feel? What do you think you could do about that?

• This will help you to override the instinct to solve a problem and instead assist young people in finding their own solutions.

Active Listening

Listening to young people is paramount in building positive relationships. And there is a difference between listening to hear and understand, and listening to reply!

Completely focus
When you are engaging with young people make them your sole focus! Do not be half listening but give them your full, undivided presence and attention. Yes, this can be tricky in a busy session, but you will develop this with practice.

Making time for listening
Sometimes it can be hard to do this for each young person in a short session. Use the check-in space for this and ensure staff are available to pick up any issues that arise in that space on a 1:1 if required.

Talk less, listen more
The best listeners often say extraordinarily little. It can sometimes be incredibly challenging for young people to open up and talk about their feelings, so give the young person the time, space and occasional prompt if required for them to tell their story in their own way. Silence is okay and can be extremely healthy when people are working through their own thoughts, feelings, and emotions and how to share them with others.

Never judge
Sometimes sharing with an adult or others can be scary and challenging for young people and they deserve to be met with non-judgement and acceptance. Resist sharing opinions or personal thoughts with young people; just listen to what you are being told.

Ask considered questions
Using questions such as “It sounds like you are saying” or “Are you saying that you felt” are a great way of demonstrating that you are listening and enables you to confirm your understanding of what the young person is communicating.

Clarify what has been said
It is important that you ensure you have interpreted what has been expressed to you correctly and you can do this by repeating back the young person’s sentences to them in your own or their words. This helps you to clarify what has been said and reassure the young person that you have been listening to them.

Show empathy, compassion and understanding

It is especially important that you demonstrate empathy and understanding to young people.
It is about really trying to understand what is going on for that person, attempting to perceive the motivations, thoughts, and feelings of another person.

Be a positive role model.

• We are placed in a special position in the work that we do and are helping young people to shape their own values, morals and beliefs.

• It is vital that we act as positive role models and always use appropriate language and behaviour when engaging with young people.

• It is importance to balance good professional boundaries with a nurturing and supportive approach to your work with young people.

• It is also important to remember this when engaging with young people on social media platforms and outside of the work that we do in sessions.

• We ask that staff dress appropriately during all sessions e.g.no sleep vests during sessions and are mindful of this during group trips.

Use everyday situations and challenges as valuable personal, social, and emotional learning opportunities

• We are in the most perfect position to assist young people in developing their vital social and thinking skills! Just because they have not yet formed it does not mean that they are not able to do so.

• As young people participate in new ways of behaving and managing their feelings emotions and behaviours, they are training their brains to create new neural pathways. The pathways get stronger with repetition until the behaviour eventually become the new normal.

• As educators we are in the best possible place to socially engineer everyday situations into opportunities for these young people to rebuild these vital neural pathways that enable them to develop rational thinking skills, manage frustrations and make helpful behaviour choices!

Now as I am sure you are already aware this process will:

• Be unique and bespoke to everyone; it can be handwork and there is no one size fits all method or approach!

• It can at times be messy, frustrating, repetitive, and gruelling but I can reassure you it is equally as nourishing and rewarding!!!

• It takes hard work, dedication and commitment and requires an ability to see past any behaviour and assist each young person in unearthing the root causes that are driving those unhelpful behaviours.

• It requires you to be self-aware at all times and be aware of your own helpful and unhelpful emotional responses and how you will manage this during times of crisis.

• And if you can do this then you are in the most perfect position to turn everyday situations into the most amazingly powerful learning opportunities for children and young people.

Self-care-keeping you safe.

• Have a regular self-care routine.

• Build the self-care practices into your daily routine.

• Be aware of your styles of relating and when you are in each role.

• Recognise your own stress triggers and responses and step out when required.

• Be honest about your own motives for working with young people.

• Don’t be a rescuer support young people to support themselves we cannot fix it for them.

• Get supported when needed. Never do something if you are no comfortable to do so.

• Do not take any behaviour personally. It is never about you!!!!

If you would like more details on anything that we have discussed here please feel free to contact us.

# Inspiring, Educating and Empowering young people # Trauma and young minds # Therapeutic approaches to work with young people # Challenging Behaviour#Self-awareness and self-regulation