Issue 149: july 2011

‘Nancy, you’ve been home from school 

for three days now. Why don’t you clean

up you room?’

‘We don’t have to clean up our rooms

at col lege, Mother.’

‘That’s very nice, Nancy, and I’m happy 

you’re going to such a free wheel ing in sti -

tu tion. But while you’re in the house, your 

fa ther and I would like you to clean up

your room.’

‘What dif fer ence does it make? It’s my

room.’

‘I know, dear, and it re ally does n’t mean 

that much to me. But your fa ther has a

great fear of the plague. He said this

morn ing that if it’s going to start any where 

in this coun try, it’s going to start in your

room.’

‘Mother, you peo ple aren’t in ter ested

in any thing that’s rel e vant. Do you real ise

how the major cor po ra tions are pol lut ing

our  en vi ron ment?’

‘Your fa ther and I are wor ried about it.

But right now we’re more con cerned

about the pol lu tion in your bed room. You

have n’t made your bed since you came

home.’

‘I never make it up at the dorm.’

‘Of course you don’t, and I’m sure the

time you save goes to wards your ed u ca -

tion. But we still have these old-fash ioned

ideas about mak ing beds in the morn ing,

and we can’t shake them. Since you’re

home for such a short time, why don’t you 

do it to hu mour us?’

‘For heaven’s sake Mother, I’m grown

up now. Why do you have to treat me like 

a child?’

‘We’re not treat ing you like a child. But 

it’s very hard for us to real ise you’re an

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humour 

Clean

your

room

Art Buchwald

You don’t re ally feel the gen er a tion gap until

a son or daugh ter comes home from a term

at col lege. Then it strikes you how out of it

you re ally are. Art Buchwald re flects on an

ex pe ri ence which child and youth care

work ers know only too well. This di a logue

would prob a bly feel at home any where in the 

world.

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adult when you throw all your clothes on

the floor.’

‘I have n’t thrown all my clothes on the

floor. Those are just the clothes I wore

yes ter day.’

‘For give me. I ex ag ger ated. Well, how

about the dirty dishes and the soft-drink

cans on your desk? Are you col lect ing

them for a sci ence pro ject?’ 

‘Mother, you don’t un der stand us. You

peo ple were brought up to have clean

rooms. But our gen er a tion does n’t care

about things like that. It’s what you have in 

your head that counts.’

‘No one re spects ed u ca tion more than

your fa ther and I do, par tic u larly at the

prices they’re charg ing. But we can’t see

how liv ing in squa lor can im prove your

mind.’

‘That’s be cause of your pri or i ties. You

would rather have me make up my bed

and pick up my clothes than be come a

free spirit who thinks for my self.’

‘We’re not try ing to sti fle your free

spirit. It’s just that our med i cal in sur ance

has run out, and we have no pro tec tion in

case any body in the fam ily catches ty -

phoid.’

‘All right, I’ll clean up my room if it

means that much to you. But I want you

to know you’ve ru ined my va ca tion. ‘

‘It was a cal cu lated risk I had to take.

Oh, by the way, I know this is a ter ri ble

thing to ask of you, but would you mind

help ing me to wash the din ner dishes?’

‘Wash dishes? No body washes dishes at 

school.’

‘Your fa ther and I were afraid of that.’

From  Hu mor ous  Sto ries,  Oc to pus  Books

Lim ited 

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“If you tell folks you’re a col lege stu dent, folks

are so im pressed. You can be a stu dent in any thing

and not have to know any thing. Just say tox i col ogy

or ma rine biokinesis, and the per son you’re talk ing

to will change the sub ject to him self. If this does n’t

work, men tion the neu ral syn ap ses of em bry onic

pi geons.” 

                            — Chuck Palahniuk 

 

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NSCC Child and Youth Care Program

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I

n the as sess ment of chil dren we con -

sider a myr iad of in flu ences and fac tors

con trib ut ing to what we con sider “the

prob lem” in order to find some so lu tion

or strat egy to solve the prob lem, al le vi ate

the men tal pain of the chil dren and

strengthen their in nate po ten tial for nor -

mal de vel op ment. Very often how ever,

as sess ment fails to be ef fec tive in its pur -

pose be cause we omit a

very  im por tant  tar get  for

as sess ment:  our selves.

In as sess ment we usu ally 

con sider  de vel op men tal  life

stages, tasks and needs,

fam ily  of  or i gin  his tory  and

dy nam ics,  so cial  learn ing,

emo tional  and  cog ni tive  fac -

tors,  be hav iour  pat terns,  to

name but a few. We gen er -

ally fol low a very eclec tic

ap proach  to  as sess ment,

some times with a stron ger

focus on psychodynamic

fac tors,  some times  so cial  fac tors,  some -

times  en vi ron men tal  fac tors,  and

of ten times a com bi na tion of all of these.

An  eco log i cal  sys tems  per spec tive  sup -

ports such an ap proach, with an em pha sis

on under- stand ing the de gree of fit be -

tween  the  in di vid ual  and  the  en vi ron ment. 

From an eco sys tems per spec tive we look

both at the forest and the trees, to use

this  met a phor.  We  con sider  con trib ut ing

fac tors  from  psy cho log i cal,  phys i o log i cal

and so cial per spec tives, but then we also

“zoom out” and con sider the ges talt of

the  sit u a tion,  the  child  in  en vi ron ment,  a

ho lis tic  view.

In doing so we tend to con sider our -

selves  as  ob jec tive  ob serv ers,  ex perts  who 

ex am ine the child in in ter ac tion with his or 

her en vi ron ment, and who then de vise a

so lu tion for some kind of

prob lem. We don’t often

con sider our selves as part of

the tar get for as sess ment –

part of the en vi ron ment of

the child’s world, part of the

interactional forces, that

both in flu ence and are in flu -

enced by the child as we

ac tively  par tic i pate  in  the

child’s world. We can not be

ob jec tive  ob serv ers  who  as -

sess,  only  par tic i pant

ob serv ers at best. Al though

this is a term we have be -

come used to, es pe cially in re search

cir cles, it is a bit of a con tra dic tion when

you think about it. How can you re ally be

an ob server when you are a par tic i pant?

Of course there are many ways in which

re search  meth od ol ogy  ad dresses  this  di -

lemma,  es pe cially  the  qual i ta tive  par a digm, 

but it all comes down to the re searcher

(or  par tic i pant  ob server)  at tempt ing  to

“step back” and through some pro cess of

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The Assessment of Children

Werner van der Westhuizen

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