CHILDREN’S MINISTRY MAGAZINE
INTERVIEWS DR. ROBERT COLES

Dr. Robert Coles is a child psychiatrist and the author of more than 60 books and 1300 articles. Dr. Coles’ books include the Pulitzer Prize winning Children of Crisis series. Dr. Coles has received numerous prestigious awards for his research and his writing throughout his notable career. This transcript of his interview with Children’s Ministry Magazine has been edited for length and clarity.

CM: Many adults who are working with kids might only see them once a week for an hour or two. Any general rules this adult could use to connect with the child’s parent or offer support to the child’s parent?

Robert Coles: Well, the obvious answer to that is to talk to the child and to the child’s family and find out whatever it is that may be prompting whatever difficulties or worrisome behavior is taking place. There’s nothing like a good conversation. I would not advise getting into a lot of psychological gobbledygook or overwrought medical concerns or psychiatric concerns.

As a human being, you see a child that’s ailing or hurting, you try to find out what it’s about. I hope we’re not going to turn to experts for that. I hope our humanity enables us to respond to a troubled child without calling in some big fancy psychiatric expert to deal with something like that. I hope it’s within all of our abilities as human beings to do so without reading a lot of fancy psychological books about it. Our human—if our humanity can’t address the troubled, hurt, ailing child in a human way, then I think the problem is much larger than one to be solved….

If I may quote Anna Freud herself, the daughter of Sigmund Freud: "Sometimes analysis can lead to paralysis." We get so bent on the analytic interpretation or figuring out of something that we lose all perspective. And by the way, common sense is not to be dismissed in all of this. It’s a very important part of our humanity and what we might be able to do for others simply by reaching out to them mind, heart, and soul. And with all due respect for the mind, let’s keep the heart and soul in this. People I meet sometimes, I’m afraid to say, sometimes forget the heart and soul, busy as we are with the mind.

CM: How would you describe a child’s resiliency in a churched versus an unchurched situation?

Robert Coles: A churched situation fundamentally is a human situation, an institutional human situation, but so is a school, a department store, or an athletic club, or a movie house—in other words, where people assemble or where they enjoy something together, or respond together, or in an existential sense are together. And remember, church often is for both the parents and the children a place of coming together, of congregating, of assembling, and it’s also a place that moral concerns are emphasized. So the growing conscience of a child surely is in some way ignited or stirred by what happens in a church. People are together. They’re singing, listening, nodding, speaking, and whatever else…so it’s a very important time conscience-wise for all of them—not only for the parents but for the children. Without a conscience, we become all to impulse-ridden and at the mercy of impulse. The development of conscience is the development of "civilization" in a particular child and the family. Parents bringing up children are being brought up by children, too. Some of us forget this. Children bring up their parents. They reacquaint them with concerns and values that they the parents had that they may’ve forgotten. And they remind the parents of what their purpose is in life and what their obligations are. They’re a constant presence and a constant challenge, and maybe even a constant source of inspiration since we are, I hope, inspired by our children sometimes.

CM: If you were advising a teacher or volunteer who has limited access to a child, are there any actions or red flags you would tell this person to avoid?

Robert Coles: I’d always check in with the family. I’d check in with others who know the child, whether it’s his or her [unintelligible] or acquaintance. Always go to those who have been with the child. Other teachers, other people who are in the neighborhood, but of course for the child you go to the family first. Ask the parents. Tell them what may have occurred to you, the worker, volunteer, or whatever, and go from there.

But I keep on saying, a little common sense can go a long way. Even in a child who seems agitated and troubled, the best way it seems to me from all the years I’ve worked with children, is to find out what it is that’s happening to the child that bothers you, the observer, but the best way is to talk to the child directly. Tell the child what is on your mind in a friendly and direct way and if that doesn’t seem desirable because of the way the child is behaving, you’re either frightened or the child seems too distant or hard to communicate with, always go to the family and with others who know the child in the adult world. Other teachers, sometimes in Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, there’s a troop leader, there’s a world of adults who come to know particular children one hopes and prays. One turns to those folks.

CM: For example with a child who has withdrawn, is it actually pointing out specific behaviors that you see or is it sitting down and playing a game and trying to draw him out of himself?

Robert Coles: I would try to on a human level to draw the child out. I wouldn’t point out initially almost diagnostic way, I wouldn’t start there. I would just use one’s common sense. But also one’s interested, thoughtful, responsive self. See if you can have a conversation with the child or play a game with the child, or find a way of bringing something up without it turning into one of these overwrought, clinical moments... What I’m saying is, anyone who works with children has probably figured out—I hope—or has tried to figure out how you get on with those children. You can occasionally talk with them. Share a glass of milk or an ice cream with them. Mention something indirectly, "How’s it going?"

CM: Can children who suffer a trauma—anything from the divorce of parents to being bullied in school to sexual abuse, all those things—can they ever truly heal from that trauma in a way that it doesn’t affect the rest of their lives?

Robert Coles: That’s a question that the answer is never is as one hopes and prays. I won’t say yes indeed, but I won’t say never, either. What I’ll say is, look, we are human beings who can be hurt but who also can be healed by time, by new experiences, and by people with whom we connect. One doesn’t want to become too fatalistic and almost categorize the child as a child who’s been hurt, so the child will never get out of that because we’ve imposed an airtight label on this poor child and the child is going to be almost forever branded in our minds. One has to be careful of that. On the other hand, we keep our eyes and ears open for pain and hurt, and the various ways those pains and hurts are expressed by children sometimes indirectly. But you know, we’re human beings. We know these children and we can usually tell if something isn’t going on okay, and the best way to address that is to first address ourselves and try to figure out what we’ve noticed, and secondly either talking to others who know the child or who know about children, and in some way talk to the child… I think it’s our responsibility and our opportunity as adults to learn from children, to respond to their cries of distress, and to let those cries of distress fall upon our eyes and ear, our hearts and our minds and our souls in such a way that we reach out and say, "Yes, here I am."

There’s a wonderful remark that E.M. Forster, the novelist, once said. He said, "Only connect." What he meant by connect was not a lot of overwrought psychology sessions, but rather our humanity and somehow being part of the shared humanity we need everyday in other people within families and within our own families, and within our work as teachers, or camp counselors, or you name it—various doctors, nurses, and social workers, any of the things people do. It will sometimes bring them in touch with very vulnerable and sometimes very hurt children, yet children are also seeking to understand the world and often are very ready for a helping hand. And by helping hand, I don’t necessarily literally mean holding a child’s hand, although that can be fine, too. The helping hand of attention and affection that is offered with care and concern and that isn’t going to be overwhelming to the child but is going to be a signal or sign to the child that there are people in world who want to sit and talk or take a walk or bring up something that maybe the child would like to have brought up. It’s very necessary for us to be tactful and sensitive, of course, thoughtful in our own way, and—I keep coming back to that one phrase—common sense. We become too self-consciencely helpful, if you know what I mean. There’s a certain guile, a certain mixture of being casually attentive without overwhelming the child and frightening the child with that kind of attention. Also showing a kind of earnest goodwill. Which is a challenge to us adults to find with those we work with who are younger than us. Also, it’s often helpful to remember one’s own childhood and recall those moments. I certainly look back at my age—75 years old—I can remember being in camp and I can remember a particular counselor helping me out. I was basically homesick of course, and I remember that counselor helping me out and sharing an affectionate thoughtfulness with me by teaching me how to pitch a ball, hit a ball in a baseball game, also helping me learn how to swim better, occasionally telling me little remarks that I still remember. "The summer’s soon over, you’ll be home. When you’re home, you might even find that when you’re home some of the things that’ve happened here, you really miss, because that’s the way life goes." One moment you miss some people, the next moment you don’t, and you remember others whom you miss. There’s a long statement telling you that I learned that as a boy of 8 or 9 at a camp. I still remember that. That kind of helpfulness that wasn’t overwhelming or scary, that wasn’t suffused with a lot of technical talk…It was a kind of casual, spontaneous generosity of person that I now, six decades later, can still recall.

I worry sometimes when people become experts, as you no doubt have gathered (laughs). I think you should include, if you don’t mind my saying so, I understand the need for calling upon those with a certain kind of knowledge and experience, but let us not underestimate our own possibilities and our own humanity in the form of our willingness and our eagerness to be of assistance to children. Otherwise, we start second-guessing ourselves every minutes, always wondering what this or that expert’s going to say, and look, some of us experts are in the same boat that everyone else is trying to figure things out. And sometimes we do, and sometimes we fall flat on our faces. And let’s hope that sometimes there will be a few children and a few families that’ll teach us a little more about what we might’ve done or how we might’ve thought about things. But in any case will teach us that the challenge that others present to us every day, new challenges, new moments in the lives of children and families—it’s always something that offers us the possibilities of new lessons learned and thereby giving us new enthusiasm and confidence in the work we do. But the children so often are our teachers, and their families too. We the learners are very lucky because of that. There’s a constant education that takes place courtesy of the work we do.