“It is not strongest of the species that survive, but the most adaptable”. 

The source of this quote is debatable but it’s true, regardless. 

Most of us like to think we’re adaptable, but what does it really mean to have a ‘change-ready brain‘?

We’d probably cut children – and ourselves, actually – a bit more slack if we knew how difficult a brain finds change, even when it’s desired.
Young and immature brains in particular are not equipped for unexpected or distressing change;

Bereavement and loss

Sudden house or school moves

  Unexpected living arrangements or placement break-downs

The impacts of injury or illness

 Parental separation

These kinds of changes can destabilise any adult, not just young people, but when these changes affect us, as the supporting adult as well, we need to be able to manage those changes, before we can expect children to.

And yet often, our knee-jerk response is to ‘keep things normal‘. It usually comes from a well-intended place, and it can have value, of course.
But not always.
Not when ‘keeping things normal’ denies kids – and maybe ourselves – the opportunity to process, adjust and adapt to whatever change we and/or they are trying to process, e.g.

We suppress our own stress responses, and pretend ‘it’s fine‘ when it’s not.

We miss kids’ cues, and the subsequent opportunity to help them in the ways they need.

We inadvertently put them under pressure to ‘be normal’ when they couldn’t feel less normal if they tried.

It’s safe to acknowledge that life is ‘not normal’; it doesn’t mean that the child, or we as the supportive adult, are ‘not coping’ or that one or both of us falling apart is inevitable.

Accepting and learning to live with the messiness of life, for as long as that may last, can be deeply uncomfortable.
Releasing the need to try and control everything – including how children feel about and how they respond to that discomfort – can be excruciating. 

But, if we are to give children – and ourselves – the breathing space they need to adapt,  these things are are also necessary. 
So lean into the messiness and the uncertainty, to the questions you cannot answer and the future you can’t yet see.

And relieve the children you live or work – and perhaps yourself – of the burden of ‘normal’.

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