Some useful skills in communicating with and counselling children: Take a ‘one down position’, which means showing a child that he or she knows more
about certain things than you do, as an adult. Develop good listening and attention skills. This involves not interrupting a child, asking
follow-up questions, and being willing to sit in silence and to listen. Use minimal encouragers. This means using brief words and gestures to encourage the
child to go on talking without interrupting him or her. Be as fully present as possible. Giving the child your full attention; ‘the whole of you
should be there’. Externalise problems. This involves separating the problem from the child, for example, not
labelling a child a truant, liar, bed wetter or orphan. Always call children by their names,
without making any reference to their race, height, size or place of origin, and most importantly,
by not labelling them in relation to bad behaviour. Encourage enactment. One way to help a child communicate is to ask him or her to act
or show what happens when the problem arises. Children can be asked to act out both the
problem and the solution. Enactment or role-paying is especially useful with children who
may not have words to describe what happened in detail. Enactment may also be useful to any
CCC members who are observing children to review the communication process and identify
where the children’s problems lie. Summarise. Summarising means repeating back to the child what you understand that he
or she has told you, in order to affirm and validate the importance of what the child has said
and to make sure you have understood correctly. Reframe(or re-label). Reframing involves restating the situation the child has described
in a more positive way. For example, if a child says that a playmate has told him that his
mother has AIDS because she is a sinner, the counsellor can explain that AIDS affects all
kinds of people, and that AIDS is not God’s punishment. Clarify. To understand what the child understands or means by any given information or
situation, a counsellor can ask open-ended or specific questions, such as, ‘When you said this,
did you mean...?’(^180) Unit 2, Module 2 Guide to Mobilising and Strengthening Community-Led Care for Orphans and Vulnerable Children