Poverty in Paradise II: I m Perfectly Different

Poverty in Paradise II: I’m Perfectly Different 
By Angela Fields

   I am a person who is called to nurture the community. To clarify what I mean by community, community denotes neighbors or people and places God puts in your path. Community could also be people and places you may never see but the hardship therein pierces your heart.

   As I venture deep into socially excluded communities to support and encourage families, I discover that we are rapidly moving toward a society that celebrates intolerance, violence and unforgiveness. I constantly interact with adults who are suffering from the lasting effects of poor family support and adverse upbringings. Adults, ideally, are the positive role models of emotional and social management through behavior and the verbal and emotional support they offer children. However, severely broken people are modeling life for our children.

   Frederick Douglass once said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken {adults}.”  But the reverse is happening. We are attempting to change behaviors after they are already established. As a result, communities are deteriorating quickly. Suicides, risqué behaviors, maladaptive behaviors such as sex, fighting and other aggressive behaviors, and drug use are destroying children and families.

   I have also observed that self-conscious emotions such as pride, humiliation and shame, along with problems of self-worth, lead to aggression, anger, dissociative rage and violence.[1]  As such, homicide and suicide are interchangeable as the number two and three leading causes of death among adolescents.[2] Moreover, I realize there is a disconnect between loving and respecting oneself and valuing the life and liberty of others. On the epithelial level, it appears that there is a general lack of respect for oneself and others.  At the core, however, there is a lack of love and emotional maturity.

   The children’s book I’m Perfectly Different is for children ages four to nine to create a space to discuss positive social and emotional development. I’m Perfectly Different promotes constructive thinking and behavior among young people through the use of storytelling. However, I learned that more is needed to reinforce the message. Poverty and broken spirits leave both children and adults emotionally vulnerable.  Community factors, such as residential instability, crowded housing, lack of positive relationships, and views that violence is acceptable behavior[3] amplify the brokenness. 

   I often ruminate on 1 Peter 5 where Peter writes about being shepherds of God’s flock, watching over them and being examples. Who are more God’s flock than the children? What happens to the flock if the shepherds, or parents, lack the ability to lead them? As we are fortifying children with positive social and emotional measures, we also have to build families using the same measures. 

   I am in a unique position to assist both children and families. Therefore, I have a responsibility to the entire flock, i.e. children and families. My findings are that there is not a powerful discourse on the benefits of building social and emotional maturity among children, families and communities. It is beneficial to explore a wraparound model for social and emotional development to include families.

   There is no other way to receive clarity about what it means to live life than to enter into healthy relationships with one another. How we relate to each other is the basis of community.[4] Social and emotional competence is profoundly interrelated with the health of our communities.

   “Social and emotional competence is the ability to understand, manage, and express the social/emotional aspects of one’s life in ways that enable the successful management of life tasks such as learning, forming relationships, solving everyday problems, and adapting to complex demands of growth and development.” [5] 

    Studies have shown that parents admit to having little information on social and emotional development, even though they admit their actions greatly influence their children`s development.[6] Churches, community organizations and other charitable groups offering life enrichment classes should take social and emotional learning into account. Parents and children who receive comparable social and emotional development services contribute to changing volatile environment by modeling healthy interactions, behaviors and experiences. Moreover, using interpenetration[7] and self-efficacy[8] methods are key.

   The I’m Perfectly Different curriculum teaches love, self-realization and coping strategies. The pedagogy of love helps children and families by interjecting new measures of love. One vitally important function of love is compassion or empathy. Empathy is a way to strengthen social bonds by connecting to another person – “knowing what another person is feeling, feeling what another person is feeling, and responding compassionately to another’s distress.” [9]  

   I recognize that love and compassion flow out of our beliefs, thinking and values – the totality of who we are.[10] It is what you see, hear and are taught. This is why I could not negate God in my teachings. There is no greater example of love and compassion known to humanity. The Bible not only contains examples of authentic love and compassion, but it contains the love that will feed individuals after classes are done.

   Self-realization dovetails the pedagogy of love. Self-realization introduces the value aspect – value of one’s own life as well as the lives of others. Valuing one’s self and others increases the perception of community value because we are now viewing our neighbors through the lens of ‘as worthy as the self’.

    “A holistic view of the human experience holds thought and emotion together. Therefore, emotion becomes vital in what we do, how we think, and how we understand.”[11] Coping measures center on expressing emotions adaptively versus maladaptively.  

   Additionally, when serving children and families, it is important to know 1) how emotions are influenced by culture and 2) the prevailing emotion held within the community. Both the understanding and expression of emotion are influenced by culture. Cultures vary in terms of what one is expected to feel, and when, where, and with whom one may express different feelings.[12]

   Understanding the community emotion helps to modify discussion for maximum permeation. For instance, if apathy is the emotion most commonly felt within the community, you will interject hope.  If the community is angry, you overcome anger with acknowledgement and love.

   Building communities is my life’s work. I am fully committed to doing my part to heal the land. It is imperative for communities to increase prevention strategies to curtail violence. I realize that there is not one cause of communal violence; however, communities can see great reductions in violence by helping parents build healthy relationships with their children, establishing healthy problem solving skills, relationships and experiences. Healthy social and emotional development helps the family become self-confident, able to handle stress, empathetic toward others and less likely to become violent.

 Angela Fields is a writer and aspiring pastor who holds a Masters of Divinity from James and Carolyn McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University. Angela has a passion for nurturing the spiritual, social and emotional well-being of the community.  Angela loves seafood, retail shopping and a great pair of pumps.

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