The book's role in healing and recovery is expressed in a therapeutic field named after him: "Bibliotherapy"/ShutterStock
A children's book plays an important role in a child's life, shaping his inner world and his relationship with the environment, instilling confidence, developing language and mediating reality, all of these and more, we talked about in the previous two chapters in the trilogy of articles on children's literature, the third and last chapter we will dedicate to the therapeutic role of the children's book, It has the power to heal wounds, to free from fears, to raise awareness, to accompany him in significant processes and to shape a corrected and healthy experience in his relations with himself and the environment.
The book's role in healing and recovery is expressed in a field of therapy named after him: "Bibliotherapy" - healing through text and it is gaining momentum in recent years as a treatment method from the world of arts.
Bibliotherapy is a method that incorporates into the treatment process a literary text that the therapist chooses, through which a dialogue takes place with the patient's inner world, awakens awareness and brings about a change in the patient's behavior patterns and attitude towards the problem.
The process is done through reading or writing a text, since we are dealing with preschool literature and the children do not know how to write, the process we will take them through will be through reading and conversation around the central theme or character.
Bibliotherapy disguises the direct discourse of the problem the patient faces, to the characters and events in the story, thereby bypassing his resistance to talk directly about his inner world and enlisting him to cooperate. The same, therefore the camouflage using a children's book helps in the process.
Most of us know the children's books thanks to the external signs that characterize them, the size, the cover, the colors and the sweet illustrations, all this goodness is accompanied by a quality that gives it the status of a true partner in raising children, in facing challenges and being able to go through refinement and transformation processes with it.
Parent or carer?
both.
Although bibliotherapy is a treatment done by therapists, the worsening of the problem can be prevented by using a children's book within the home space.
The parent has a central role in the child's life and in his power to act as a therapist, guide, companion and mentor for him in significant processes during the stages of his development and a children's book is an accessible means for any parent who wants to deal with challenges arising from the child's inner world that find expression in behavior patterns and his relationship with the environment.
The more the book will be part of the environment in which the child grows up from a younger age, the choice of it as a therapeutic tool will be assimilated into the treatment process and will be disguised, it will be an immediate choice when the need arises over time, its presence in the treatment process will be natural for him, the process will take place in his organic environment and he will cooperate.
There is no one who knows our child better than us, the community of caring parents is a vast community of parents who are able to improve their children's functioning through involvement, learning, initiative and acquiring tools from the world of care, thereby helping them go through healthy and empowering processes at all stages of development without requiring the external intervention of professionals, starting From treatment of withdrawal difficulties, separation and separation difficulties, adaptation, language, bedwetting, fears and more.
The stage where we move from the traditional role of the average parent, to the role of the caring parent is a clear stage that involves a conscious decision and an informed choice, because it is a hidden but present and active role in the child's life, which may create triggers and can be a resounding success, it depends on our tools and the approach we take and the awareness of the process.
The community of caring parents is growing, some of them act out of parental intuition and some of them by accompanying and guiding a professional from afar, either way, it mainly deals with setting limits, preventing and improving the child's functioning.
Children's books play a very important part in the process because it accompanies us through all the stages of development, imparting values, basic concepts, security and belonging, it is an accessible and available means and exists close to the child in his natural environment.
Being a caring parent is a huge advantage, since we are formative and significant figures for them, we know them well, we recognize the triggers and activation buttons of unregulated reactions or emotions and know how to act and mobilize the environment and the means for emotional regulation, for building discourse, for opening attention and cooperation.
Our power as parents to shape the lives of our children in the era of unlimited possibilities in which we live, is enormous and advantageous and promotes enormous success/ShutterStock
Therapeutic characteristics in a children's book
How will we identify a children's book that we can donate to face a challenge and enjoy it in the same breath and in other words, how will we identify a children's book with therapeutic components.
Using a book as a therapeutic tool does not require the presence of an acute problem, it is enough that we have to deal with familiar situations in the stages of the child's development such as: fears, separation, weaning, separation, etc. Its status as a therapeutic tool will be strengthened, in acute cases where the involvement of a professional will be required.
If so, we can say in a comprehensive way that every children's book has a therapeutic component, we just need to know a few things before we use it as a tool:
to call "the child" by name
- the first thing is to identify what the child is dealing with and call it by name - wetting?
fear?
Trust?
friendships?
Habits?
restriction?
Disease?
and more.
Clinic
- a book that provides a sense of intimacy and closeness, with direct and soft language in meeting the challenge the child faces.
Character
- choose the book that presents the problem in a way that is adapted to the child's personality and his level of awareness and recognition. Is the book direct?
Addressing the problem overtly or covertly?
In a comical and amusing way or serious and poignant?
The Bride
- Pay attention if the book gives space and contains the difficulty the child is facing, looking at it in a non-judgmental and non-dichotomous way, does not define it on the continuum between "good" and "bad" but as a given situation and with the face forward.
herself
- pay attention to whether the book brings the child back to his axis of power, addresses the points of strength and gives legitimacy even to situations in which he is not perfect.
Norm
- examine which norm the book is aiming for, what is the desired state to which it aspires, it is important that it be something that the child can achieve and not an imaginary state that he cannot reach and that the criterion for success is within his reach.
"The Holy Trinity"
- it is important that the book presents, whether overtly or covertly, directly or indirectly, the following three stages: the challenge the child faces, a complication or confrontation that will follow the challenge, and the solution - the solution to the problem and the resolution of the complication thanks to the coping that the book encourages.
In conclusion
, our power as parents to shape the lives of our children in the age of unlimited possibilities in which we live, is enormous and advantageous and promotes tremendous success.
An integral part of the traditional role that accompanied parents in the ancient world was counseling, care and healing of the nuclear family, the pulse of this ancient mission echoes today from the inner voice of more and more parents who take back their place as caregivers, a role that was denied and eroded under the burden of routine and other roles.
The story was also a central part of the healing process and the shaping of the tribal consciousness, even in the ancient world it had a place of honor and it became a narrative that they adopted and recited in ceremonies and events, for which they fought, from which they drew strength and energy, around which they coalesced and which had healing power both on a collective and individual level.
The phrases "grandmother's stories" and "grandmother's medicine" are a direct product of our traditional role as healing parents and an expression of the book's part in the healing process since the ancient world, hence the more we recognize our power as healing parents and the power of the book as an available and accessible therapeutic tool, we can shape the child's world in an optimal way and to help him formulate a positive attitude towards every challenge that will come before him.
, writer and editor of children's books, her book "Afri Okhlet Barya" won in 2018 the prize of the Association for Professional Advancement of the Histadrut of Teachers and appeared in a children's gathering published by "Ofir Bikurim", a doula of children's books - a midwife of children's books and accompanying writers in their beginnings, a creator and a poet - her poems were published in at different times.
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Galit Elroy, in collaboration with JAMA
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