I was a trainer of youth workers who worked directly with the youth who came from shelters and some who still lived on the streets. These were the girls and boys you find outside your hotel, sifting through trash, shining shoes and playing with self-made toys from scraps of garbage. They were desperate and poor, and for the most part, forgotten by the rest of society.
I had the privilege of scratching beyond the surface and getting a true glimpse of what these kids are about. I visited a youth shelter on an island called Mindoro in the Philippines. These groups of kids were considered too challenging for many of the organizations so they were shipped off to this centre in a final attempt to rehabilitate them. I spent a week getting to know these kids whose stories are often too painful to share.
Once trust was established which was no easy feat, they spoke of their desire to live life and to follow their dreams. Conversations tended to lean towards what they want versus what they don’t have or what’s been done to them. How utterly misunderstood these kids are.
These kids taught me a great deal. Many of the lessons are transferred in my work as a family mediator.
I facilitated Train the Trainer workshops. One of the themes I address in my workshops is around Intended and Unintended Consequences of drug use. I continue to use this workshop with parents in mediation and parenting coordination. The focus is not on drugs but rather their behaviour and how it impacts the children.
For example, how we talk to our kids and what we say can be quite different from how kids receive the information. This seems like an obvious statement but parents are often surprised at what is produced on the flip chart after the discussion.
Another lesson I learned from these street kids is around judgment. I made assumptions about the lives of these children and how quickly I realized I was mistaken.
Neutrality of the mediator is a pivotal component of mediation. With neutrality, there is fairness. But in order to be fair, one must be non-judgmental of the parties in order for them to express themselves, and this is when the work can truly begin. It was only until I let any judgments go, did the kids start to open up. This lesson has been valuable in my work as a mediator.
Through working with street kids, I learned about the human spirit and how it can survive through difficult circumstances. In my work, the emotional turmoil children often experience when going through a high conflict separation makes me think of these kids in Southeast Asia. There material circumstances are quite different but the spirit of survival and their ability to navigate through these difficult waters is familiar.
Whether they live on the streets of Bangkok or caught in the middle of warfare between parents, children deserve the opportunity to be children.
