Dibs: In Search of Self

by Virginia M. Axline

Understanding grows from personal experience that enables a person to see and feel in ways so varied and so full of changeable meanings that one’s self-awareness is the determining factor. Here one can admit more readily that the substances of a shadowy world are projected out of our personal thoughts, attitudes, emotions, needs.

We must avoid clichés, quick, ready-made interpretations and explanations.

Some people think this is very bad — to keep hope alive when there is no basis for hope.

A child is only

confused by questions that have been answered by someone else before he is asked.

She was remote, precise, formal.

I wondered if she ever smiled — or even felt that there was anything light and amusing in the world. If so, she was well disciplined and concealed any individual identity and spontaneity.

Dibs’ mother greeted me graciously, but seriously.

This playroom was on the ground floor. The room was bright with sunshine. It was a more attractive room than the other one, but the equipment was essentially the same. The windows looked out over a parking lot and on the other side of the lot was a large grey stone church.

I attempted to keep my comments in line with his activity, trying not to say anything that would indicate any desire on my part that he do any particular thing, but rather to communicate, understandingly and simply, recognition in line with his frame of reference.

Any exclamation of surprise or praise might be interpreted by him as the direction he must take. It might close off any other areas of exploration that might be far more important for him.

He needed to develop strength to cope with his world, but that strength had to come from within him and he had to experience personally his ability to cope with his world as it was. Any meaningful

changes for Dibs would have to come from within him. We could not hope to make over his external world.

A child gets his feelings of security from predictable and consistent and realistic limitations.

I was interested in the manner in which Dibs had been displaying his ability to read, count, solve problems. It seemed to me that whenever he approached any kind of emotional reference he retreated to a demonstration of his ability to read. Perhaps he felt safer in manipulating intellectual concepts about things, rather than probing any deeper into feelings about himself that he could not accept with ease. Perhaps this was a brief bit of evidence of some conflict he had between expectations of his behavior and his own striving to be himself — sometimes very capable, sometimes a baby.

The child must first learn self-respect and a sense of dignity that grows out of his increasing self-understanding before he can learn to respect the personalities and rights and differences of others.

Dibs arrived at the Child Guidance Center, he greeted me with a quick smile, and walked back to the playroom ahead of me.

This was purposely avoided because it seemed important for Dibs, as all children, to learn by experience that no part of his world is

static and controllable.

Now that he had encountered concrete evidence of his changing world it would be important to work with his reactions to it — not with reassurance, not with lengthy explanations or apologies, not with words, words, words, thrown at him as a substitute, but with the experience he might ...

with the realization that things outside ourselves change — and many times we have little control over those elements, but if we learn to utilize our inner resources, we carry our security around with us.

Sometimes it is very difficult to keep firmly in mind the fact that the parents, too, have reasons for what they do — have reasons, locked in the depths of their personalities, for their inability to love, to understand, to give of themselves to their children.

The crux of the problem was not an intellectual diagnosis of the reasons behind their behavior — although many people accept this tenet as basic to improved personal development. If you understand why you do and feel certain ways, many people believe, then you can change your ways.

Who can love, respect, understand

another person, if they have not had such basic experiences themselves?

“Two frightened, lonely, unhappy people with their defenses crumpled and deserted... a relief to know that we could be human, and could fail and admit that we had failed.”

I think every child should have a hill all his own to climb. And I think every child should have one star up in the sky that is all his own. And I think every child should have a tree that belongs to him. That’s what I think should be,” he added, and he looked at me and nodded with emphasis, as he spoke.

“I have made here a little world of houses. I have planted the trees around it. I have imagined the sky and the rain and the gentle winds. I have dreamed up the seasons. And now I’ll call forth the spring. The trees are growing into leaves. It is nice and beautiful and comfortable in this quiet little town. There are people walking down the street. The trees grow silently along the way. The trees are different. The trees have different kinds of bark on their trunks.”

And the tree cries out ‘I want to go with you. I don’t want to stand here, alone and sad. I want to go with you. You seem so glad.’ Oh, well...”

I was astonished. “Therapy?” I said. “Well, let me think for a minute.” Why had he asked this question, I wondered. What explanation would make a sensible reply? “I would say that it means a chance to come here and play and talk just about any way you want to,” I said. “It’s a time when you can be the way you want to be. A time you can use any way you want to use it. A time when you can be you.” That was the best explanation I could come up with then. He took the card out of my hand. He turned it to the other side.

“If you want to sing, you sing,” I replied. He laughed.

He started to sing, and as he sang, he held up the jar of paint and moved it rhythmically, from side to side.

He walked up to me with the jar of paint. “It’ll spill. It’ll slop. It’ll run. It’ll drop. My lovely, blue paint, it will.”

He set it back on the easel and picked up the jar of green paint. “Oh green paint so green. You are quiet and nice.

Around me in spring. Around me in summer. In leaves, in grass, in hedges, too. Oh, green! Oh, green! Oh, green!”

sable

emphatically.

“Oh red, angry paint.

Oh hate. Oh blood. Oh tears.”

“Oh mean colored yellow,” he said. “Oh angry, mean color. Oh, bars on windows to keep out the tree. Oh door with the lock and the turned key. I hate you, yellow. Mean old color. Color of prisons. Color of being lonely and afraid. Oh mean-colored yellow.”

Why had he shown so much negative association with the yellow paint?

“And I, Dibs himself, can make of the water a fountain and can turn the color of the water to blue.”

“You liked Grandma sending you the surprise, didn’t you?” I commented. “Yes. Oh, yes! And on May twelfth Grandma comes home!” Dibs announced. He looked at me, eyes shining, a big smile on his face. “Grandma comes home,” he repeated. “Be glad!” he exclaimed. “May twelfth and grandma comes home.”

“To Dibs, with love from Grandma To Dibs with love, with love. Grandma comes! Grandma comes! Grandma comes marching home With love!”

His tone of voice changed. It became restrained, a little on edge. He imitated perfectly the precise inflection and expression of his mother’s voice. “If there is to be a tea party we will do it properly,” he said.

Dibs set the table. He drew a chair up to the table. His manner became meek, subdued, quiet as he drank his tea in the little cup.

He reached across for the toast and upset one of the cups. He sprang up from the table, a frightened expression on his face. “No more party,” he cried. “The party is over. I spilled the tea!” Quickly he emptied the cups and returned them to the shelf. “The party ended because you spilled the tea?” I asked. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” he cried. “It was an accident,” I said. “Stupid people make accidents!” he shouted. There were tears in his eyes. “The party is over. The children are all gone! There is no more party.” His voice choked on the tears. This had been a very real experience to him. “It was an accident,” he told me. “But the party is over.”

I am not stupid!” “No. You are not stupid,” I said. “And it upsets you when something like this happens.”

“You feel that sometimes you expect something to happen and you are disappointed?” I asked. “Yes,” he replied. “It can happen. But if you say you believe, there is something else I must do.”

I was wearing a silk print dress. “Oh look, Mother,” Dibs cried. “The pretty colored dress. Aren’t those pretty? Isn’t the dress pretty?” “Yes,” his mother said. “It is a very pretty dress.” “Colors,” Dibs said. “Beautiful colors.” This was quite different from his usual quiet entrance. His mother smiled. “Dibs insisted on bringing one of his birthday gifts to show you,” she said. “Is it all right with you?” “Of course it is,” I said. “If he wanted to bring it with him, it’s quite all right.”