Reflection Paper

One Last Hug: Three Days at Grief Camp

One Last Hug is a three days camp grief camp, which seeks to counsel children who lost loved ones. The camp encourages children between the ages of seven years to 17, to share their feelings, hence providing psychological counselling. In this camps, counsellors use non-directive counselling, whereby they allow the children to tell their stories, before giving them any form of support (Irene, 2014). This type of counselling is commonly known as permissive counselling, since the counsellor allows the counselee to give the story, before the counsellor comes up with the solution of dealing with the problem.

Most children have benefitted from this camp, since the camp provides teachings which are helpful for their upbringing. Sharing stories one of the best techniques which the counsellors use, making the children to understand that most people are also passing through similar problems as they do (Irene, 2014). Through listening to different stories, a child becomes aware of how to deal with certain problems. In addition, most children also get to understand how to relate with other people, in order to avoid indulging in problems.

After listening to the stories, counsellors use religious teachings, as a means of counselling the children. Using the religion helps in making the children to have faith in God, hence forgetting about their troubles (Irene, 2014). Furthermore, most children tend to shift their beliefs to the religion, hence living according to the dictates of the religion. This allows them to be able to focus on their studies, hence being able to perform better, than they actual did before the counselling. Similarly, the children, who are also the clients, were able to understand how to deal with the challenges which they face.

Tashi and the Monk

            Tashi and the Monk is a documentary which focuses on the life which Tashi goes through, after the death of her mother, and being abandoned by her alcoholic father. The Monk takes care of Tashi together with other 80 children (Andrew, Johny, 2014). The Monk uses directive counselling, as a means of infusing a generosity of spirit to the children, and encourages them to be thankful for being alive. The Monk reaches to the clients who are also the children directly, advising and counselling, thus making them to feel appreciated hence being able to do their best in their daily lives.

            Direct counselling is effective particularly to children, since they will grow up doing what they have been taught (Andrew, Johny, 2014). The Monk emphasised on making the children to understand their worth, thus making them to do their best in their education, without thinking about the death of their parents. Tashi, together with other children, benefit fully from the Monk, as he seeks to provide the best advice to the children, thus making them to remain focused in achieving their goals, and not to be pulled back by what they went through.

            The counselling was helpful to the clients, since it helped them to understand how to carry on with their daily lives. In addition, the counselling also opened the clients’ eyes, making them to realise their worth, thus making them to do their best in their endeavours. Moreover, the advice enabled the clients’ to change their way of thinking, hence focusing on the tasks ahead of them, thus being able to achieve more (Andrew, Johny, 2014). The kids will therefore grow up following the dictates of the Monk, hence being able to reach their goals.

How to Dance in Ohio

            In this documentary, the counsellor, Dr. Amigo focuses on counselling his clients through a series of therapies. The therapies are aimed at enabling the counsellor to understand the problems which the clients are passing through (Alexandra, 2015). In that process, the counsellor counsels the clients, thus providing them with skills on how to cope with their daily lives. The technique of counselling involved in this documentary, is non-directive counselling, whereby the doctor focuses on understanding his clients’ problems, before providing a solution.

            The dance is organized, in order to understand the way clients relate with each other, and how to change their behaviour. Clients are taught how to behave, a move which allows them to be able to relate with other people in the best way possible. In a week leading to the event, the clients are asked to pick on someone to be their date, and to also say no politely (Alexandra, 2015). In addition, they are also taught how to react to body contact in slow dance moves. The dance basically acts as a test, since it enables the clients to understand how to react.

            The counselling and the dance works, since the clients are able to relate with their date positively during the dance. In addition, they are also able to say no politely, thus showing how an understanding of how they had been counselled (Alexandra, 2015). The doctor has not only been able to counsel the clients positively, but he has also been able to incorporate a sense of understanding into his clients, thus making them to follow his counsel to the latter while dancing. The technique of counselling was therefore effective, and it allowed the clients to understand how to react.

Helping Children Succeed

            In this documentary, the counsellor Paul Tough, advices parents how to improve the way children relate. Paul consequently provides skills which are necessary for improving the understanding of a child (Paul, 2016). He advises parents to not only focus on teaching their children self-control, but to focus on providing a good environment which can enable a child to prosper. Throughout the documentary, Paul seeks to change the norm of teaching used by parents thus, allowing children to develop a sense of understanding. According to Paul, children require to be in a conducive environment, which promotes their behaviours, hence allowing them to do things in the right way.

            In this documentary, Paul uses directive counselling, whereby he directly provides parents with techniques on improving the understanding of their children. In this scenario, Paul has looked at the problem, which poor modes of teaching used by parents. Secondly, he has come up with approaches which seek to improve the understanding of children (Paul, 2016). Finally, Paul explains the reasons as to why his approaches are better as compared to the ones used by parents. Paul’s advice consequently works, since most children tend to become rude, a move which makes it hard for their parents to teach them on how to conduct themselves. Paul’s methods allows parents to make it easier for their children to understand how to conduct themselves. This method is therefore effective since it allows children to understand how to behave by themselves, thus making it easier for them to conduct themselves in a good way.

Discussion and Conclusion of the Text

            Counselling children is not an easy task, and it requires technical approaches in order to make children to understand what they are being taught. Different techniques of counselling may therefore be used, when counselling children. However, non-directive technique of counselling is the best method for counselling children, since it allows the counsellor to understand the problems which children face, thus providing the best solution. Moreover, since children may not easily understand whatever they are being told if their past experiences are not linked with the counselling, it may not be good to use directive counselling techniques.

            The understanding of children tends to vary depending on the environment surrounding them. Parents should therefore better the environment which surrounds their children, in order to make them learn how to conduct themselves. In addition, if children are surrounded by people who keep lamenting, then the lives of the children is likely to be affected, since the environment corrupts their behaviour. This consequently means, in order to counsellor a child, one needs to improve the environment which surrounds the child, making it easier for the child to adapt to whatever he or she is being taught. On the contrary, a child may counselled using the best technique, but he or she may not change the behaviours due to the environment surrounding him or her. It is therefore necessary to ensure that the environment surrounding a child is conducive, hence enabling the child to learn and to also understand without having to be heckled. Finally need therefore be counselled after improving their environment in order to ensure the counselling yields good results.  

Reference

Irene T. (2014). One Last Hug: Three Days at Grief Camp. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBcpt2PqG7Y

Andrew H, Johny B. (2014). Tashi and the Monk: Documentary Storm.

            Alexandra S. (2015). How to Dance on Ohio: Retrieved from: http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/how-to-dance-in-ohio

Paul T. (2016). Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why? Amazon.com