Joy can be disarming.
I’ve just been reading a book about trauma-informed teaching, and it introduced me to the PACE model: Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy. Playfulness leads the way. In almost any situation, the authors show how a playful response creates the possibility for a child to respond differently:
- Is a child wrenching back a stick they are using as a weapon? “Oh, but unfortunately I am stuck to this stick!” [mime how stuck you are]
- Is a child being rude? [puts on robot voice] “I’m sorry, I am a robot with a rudeness filter and I cannot understand you. Please try again”
- Is a child having a strong reaction to a fall? “I just saw your trip, and although you landed on the soft grass I wonder if your leg was so surprised it has forgotten how to work for a moment! Let’s try skipping to the other end of the field to wake it up”.
As children cannot experience joy and fear simultaneously, helping them to experience joy also reduces their fear. In turn, their fight, flight or anger response diminishes significantly.
It strikes me that this approach is not limited to children. If I had just bumped my leg, skipping across a field with someone would cheer me up too.
But I also know that I can find it really difficult to enter into a spirit of playfulness, or to work out how to turn an ordinary moment into an opportunity to find joy.
Thankfully, I know that joy is something you can practice. One of my top recommendations for practicing joy is inspired by one of my brothers – who always wears headphones to clean. I now hoover only while wearing headphones playing exuberant gospel music.
I enjoyed a little head-bop while walking to the library this week listening to the following song and I recommend it to you for the next time you hoover:
What do you do to practice joy? Please share in the comments, I want to know!
thejoyofrachel 