Each Newsletter will explore an aspect of the Focusing World you may not be familiar with. In this edition we will explore the world of Children’s Focusing.
In my experience, children already have a vibrant sense of Focusing. Our education system and our culture etc often distance them from this vibrancy.
What a gift it would be if we could maintain this capacity in our children. Enabling them to enhance a sense of value and meaning within their own bodies, rather than having all valuing external to their own living.
The International Focusing Institute have understood the value and need for this enterprise and have a section of their website dedicated to the area of Children’s Focusing https://focusing.org/children-focusing/children-and-focusing
As you will discover from the above link. This community is active and passionate about the importance of sharing Focusing with the next generation.
I have had the privilege to attend the 2014 International Children’s Focusing Conference held here in Ireland. As well as presenting at the 2022 online conference and hosting a Children’s Focusing roundtable discussion in 2023.
I have had the opportunity to share Focusing with children in schools, as well as with my own daughter. I can honestly say that I have always learned more than I have ever offered in these gifting experiences.
If you are interested in this area of Focusing – a good place to begin would be with Marta Stapert and Erik Verliefde “Focusing with Children: The art of communicating with children at school and at home.”
Marta was a wonderful lady with a passion for sharing her wisdom with children and those who care for them, and is deeply missed by the Focusing community.
Mary Jennings had an early influence on the development of Children’s Focusing in Ireland. We are delighted to share some of her memories of this here.
John Keane
One evening in 2009, in All Hallow’s College, René Veugelers from The Netherlands, was in Dublin, giving a workshop on Children Focusing. It was a one-off event, part of a fundraising drive for a Focusing project in Gaza. René, in his inimitable way, offered ways to really listening to children, their hopes, their fears, their inner sense of rightness, in a natural and gentle way. And it was fun!
Later that evening, news of yet one more report on child sexual abuse in Ireland was published. A sense of deep anger arose in me, hearing yet again of how we treated our children in Ireland. Then, an epiphany: what if we had a way of really listening to children, giving them skills to trust their own instincts, what might happen? We had just been shown a way just this very evening! Instead of anger, I felt energised! What if there was a way to bring Children Focusing to Ireland to change the situation? René readily agreed to come and offer training. With a generous grant from the Irish Focusing Teachers’ Association (forerunner to IFN), over the next 18 months, 20 people were trained in the practice of Children Focusing. Among them were parents, grandparents, teachers and people working in children’s services.
Many of them are current members of IFN, who have used their training in Children Focusing in many different ways: listening to their own children and grandchildren in every day life; devising programmes in schools using Focusing, working with foster parents and children in care to improve services and relationships. Some have gone on to take further training in the practice and can train others to use Focusing with children in so many ways.
It was a start. A small bag of seeds. It would be great to think that, with regards to children that ‘all is changed, changed utterly’, but there is more to be done; let’s keep going.
Mary Jennings.
