People watching – admit it, most of you love it!!! It is a favourite past time of so many of us. It is so interesting when we get to sit and start watching how other people walk, watch people talk to each other, watch what they are wearing, where they might be working, make up stories about their lives etc etc. Sometimes I look at other couples and think how beautiful it is that they show each other affection and, in that moment look as though they are in love. Other times I watch parents with children and chuckle to myself remembering those developmental stages where the kids chuck a massive wobbly over something small and then parents go red in the face hoping that this ‘stage’ would please end soon. Most of the time, my thoughts are positive and they enter my brain and leave just as quickly……….

My therapist brain, however, sometimes goes into over drive and I find ‘people watching’ fascinating. I like to watch human interaction and make observations on predictable behaviour and patterns I see in behaviour. I enjoy it. I keep learning every day.  I look at body language, listen to tone, listen to the language used in conversations and find myself making assumptions and assessments and then craving to know more. Weird but true. Human behaviour is fascinating to me. And after listening and working with thousands of people over the years, you see patterns emerge quickly and your curiosity grows.  It isn’t about right or wrong, it is just about observing. Sometimes I see things other people don’t and sometimes I want to intervene and make some suggestions about where this continued behaviour could lead (and in case you were wondering, my mouth sometimes does get the better of me and words just come out before I can stop them – foot in mouth disease).

On holiday’s recently I had the awesome opportunity to observe children playing at the park on a daily basis. Our apartment was right opposite a park and everyday it was full of children and families. On any given day, there was loads of interesting stuff happening. On one particular day, I asked my husband to conduct a small social experiment and watch the park with me. I asked him to observe the park and then we would come back together in the apartment and chat for two minutes about what he saw versus what I saw.

This is what my husband observed in a 30-minute period – “a bunch of kids and families playing in the park”. The end. Not quite the conversation I was looking for, but my experiment was interesting.  So, he asked me, “what did you see?” This is what I observed in a 30-minute period:

• A young dad arrived at the park with his son. The little boy would have been approximately 2 or 3 years old. Dad parked his car, walked to the park with this son, plonked him in the main play area and then went away to an outer seating area and sat watching all the joggers jogging by. His son, fell a few times and got up on his own, he asked his dad to play a few times by attempting to give him his toy truck but his dad remained seated and continued watching other people. Eventually the little boy gave up and sat on his own filling his truck with sand and then emptying it. I found this interaction sad to watch as this little boy really wanted to play with his dad and he didn’t get the interaction he was craving. There was no ‘delight in me’ moments or ‘watch over me moments’. Taking your child to the park and making them play on their own without any interaction is not play, nor is it fun.
• A mum of two young children under five arrived and assisted her children to take their shoes off and then went and sat on a park bench. Her mobile phone came out of her pocket and she proceeded to watch something incredibly interesting on her phone for the duration of the park play time. One of her children started crying at one point and she looked up, but seeing the child was not in too much distress she quickly returned to her phone. Too often this scenario is all too familiar. Parents take their children to activities and spend the duration glued to their phones. Children want and need interaction from their parents. Watching one of the children hurt themselves and then not seek comfort from his mother, showed me that this had happened a lot in the child’s life and he had learned that his carer (his mother) was not always there to comfort him.
• There were other older children playing at the park too, but I hadn’t realised they were a family until a short time. They seemed to play on different equipment at the park at varying intervals, however there was one child who wasn’t so keen on playing but rather swinging routinely on the swing without much emotion at all. She was staring ahead intently and then I realised she was watching her parents fighting at a park bench away from the main park. I can’t be sure that they were her parents, but at times the children would run to them and say something or go and get a drink. In any case, there were two adults fighting while the children were playing. My therapist hat wanted to go over to the parents and remind them that although they were arguing at a distance, their non-verbals and body language was speaking a thousand words and one of their children was clearly not able to enjoy her play as she was too worried about her parents. I also wanted to go over to the swing and distract the little girl on the swing with some kind words of reassurance that, ‘sometimes parents fight and it is okay for them to talk things out’. It made me wonder whether this child had anyone to help organise her feelings?
• At the edge of the park another father arrived with his two younger boys. They would have been approximately 4 and 6 years old or close too. They were running around hitting each other and running into other children and adults while they were dodging hits, slaps and kicks from each other. At different times, the elder boy would start crying and then the younger one would start crying. Clearly their attempt at play was not working and they were fighting with each other with no regard for themselves or the other people that were collateral damage. The father seemed content talking to other women at the park and did not seem to react to his children’s behaviour or cries. When I watched these two boys running around causing havoc, I began to think about what life at school and in other social settings would be like for these children. They had a parent who was not able to set appropriate boundaries or teach them any values around empathy when they hurt other people during their own hostility between each other. The fact that the father did not see an issue with this behaviour and did not attempt to discipline or intervene, concerned me that he had such difficulty in addressing his own children’s anger towards each other and others. Anger was a clearly a feeling that triggered him and he could not deal with.
• And then there was the ‘helicopter mum’. She was hovering around her daughter who would have been about 3 years old. The mum walked up the slippery dip with her, walked in front of her ensuring the ground was safe, and ignored her child’s pleas for independence. She wouldn’t allow her daughter to swing on the swings and the more she didn’t allow it, the more the child wouldn’t give up on her quest to want to use the swing. Whilst this mum appeared loving and caring in one sense, her over protectiveness showed me that she had difficulty with her child’s need for exploring and seeking independence. This behaviour was more about mum than the child. To me it showed an anxious parent with the hall marks of developing an insecure child, as her mum was teaching her the world is unsafe and you need to stay close to me.

Back in the apartment my husband said “Omg, I am tired just thinking about all that!!!!!”. So, he says, “Okay, I want you to look around the apartment room and tell me what you see?” I spent two minutes talking about a bunch of lights, furniture and some décor. Then he spent the next 10 minutes describing to me in more detail about the lights, the type of lights, the electricity, the air conditioning unit, paint, wall structure, issues he saw and improvements he would make etc.  The point was, when we have a passion or a skill we look at situations, people and things differently.

Observations of people and behaviour is my thing. I use the learnings and skills from the Circle of Security (COS) to work with children, families and couples.  I see things a little differently to other people, but it isn’t about critiquing, it is about sharing what I have learnt, challenging habits and up-skilling where I can.

 

Affirmation: Children don’t say “I had a hard day, can we talk? They say, “Will you play with me?”