I learn so much from working with M (an awesome teen with cognitive impairments and various disabilities with whom I assist his family in providing for the needs of, whom I also care very much about, as well as am paid to provide specialized care and support for). More than anything else, and more importantly than anything I could have learned about, I learn about myself and what I bring to infractions.
Working with M, as with children generally, is to work with a force of nature. For one to block or change the course of a natural force or a torrent takes more energy the more it becomes a matter of conflicting and mutually exclusive wills; and the more energy I put into interacting with it, the greater will be the total charge I am handling. And as the charge increases, do does the risk of meltdowns, blow ups, and explosions, that I am exposing myself and also M too, or whomever the child might be that I am working with.
Rather than adding force to the charge, or feeling that I need to, I prefer exhausting alternatives to become a competition and an either-or, and keep as many characteristics of collaboration and choice. I rather try to steer such processes towards an outcome that will achieve something that is enough similar to the desired goal in what is essential, than accept nothing but compliance in every way with both the What as well as the How that I went in with.
Fortunately,I also find in myself ever more creativity in creating and finding ways to retain as much elements as possible of collaboration and voluntary choice.
Every day presents instances requiring me to carefully balance and calibrate. The way I feel and trace when to push, when to step back, and when to let go, reminds me of those wooden maze toys and games where you tilt and shift the plane of a wood labyrinth to move a metal ball through the paths. Except the labyrinth is invisible, the paths are not just changing but created and recreated as part of the process, and in the case of M there is no way that I can use any direct means of communication to explain where I see things as going or to explore his sense of the same.
I have a goal everyday to use as few imperatives and commands as possible, not only while working, but across my entire day and in all our interactions; including my own internal self-talk dialogues. I like to see it as having the benefit of saving my authority for the moments when life and safety depends on me not having wasted its' potency and effectiveness through overuse and misuse.
It helps to be very selective about the goals I decide are worthy of me trying to make someone else change their ways; not "even when" but "especially when" it is a matter of influencing the present and future behavior of a child. The more work it will take, the more I will have to be sure that I know why it needs to be done and the more essential it is that I agree that it is worth it; both to be effective, and to align with my sense of right and wrong.
I want to be present in my choices and actions, and remain aware of what my motivations are in interactions generally and especially when seeking to change a person's behavior, and for choosing one strategy or tactic rather than another to accomplish that. Repetition makes it easier to avoid using methods and language that basically is coercion, commands, threats, or bribery. However, it can be very quick and easy to slip into a mode of struggling to preserve and affirm one's own sense of power, control, and authority. Especially as compliance is often so readily accepted as valid currency and apt token in proving one's competence to the employer when one is hired to provide childcare. Unfortunately, that can mean more than me just not supporting less visible and more long-term outcomes. It can directly harm them.
Parenting is process and product; the What, as in the outcome, that is achieved is a product of How it was achieved. In addition, children are nonlinear and complex systems; you cannot affect one area without affecting other areas as well.
Given all this, while I cannot say I always manage, it is worth the effort and it is the safest method I know. Plus; unless compliance is the only thing that can be called success, then there is no failure. Every instance of me making my best possible effort is an opportunity for M to learn by example and practice valuable skills, and receive modelling and confirmation of positive and constructive ways of viewing himself and other people.