EMP 754 C. Crawford 3 credits
The Spiritual Life Of Children
Description
This course will explore the spiritual life of children within the context of healthy human development. It will focus in depth on the roles of intuition and empathy in a child’s life. Focus will span from how to support children at home, school and interpersonally, to how indigenous cultures support the inner life of the child. This course will support students in their current and future work with children, as well as in building more understanding of how childhood disturbances in healthy development may be impacting adult client fulfillment. Personal reflection on student’s own childhood experiences is a valued component of this course of study.
The spiritual life of children is an often overlooked or misunderstood part of childhood. This course is designed to explore, celebrate and understand the rich inner life of children, especially as it relates to intuitive and empathic development.
This course is grounded in holistic theory in child development and incorporates modern psychology, neurobiology research, art therapy, spirituality, intuitive abilities, indigenous wisdom traditions and life-span theory. Students will come away with practical skills to incorporate in their future work with children, families and adults healing from the psycho-spiritual wounds of childhood. This class encourages thinking outside of the traditional box of viewing children as well as your own creativity in the process.
Objectives
- Know how to identify intuitive empathy in children.
- Cultivate ways of supporting the psycho-spiritual health of intuitive and/or sensitive
children in their family systems and communities.
- Learn how to spot disturbances in the psycho-spiritual growth of adult clients that
likely began in childhood, assess for these challenges and plan for how to support healing
and integration.
- Commit to an honest exploration of your own experiences as a child — as pertains to
this subject matter — to assist you in being an effective, compassionate witness to your
future clients.
Topics
- The life of a highly intuitive child at home, school and interpersonally.
- How to support the spontaneous inner life of a child through play, art and nature.
- Review of attitudes within the family of origin, extended family and culture at large that support or thwart a child’s healthy spiritual development.
- Explorations in multi-cultural support of children’s intuition.
- Energy hygiene practices for children
- Spotting an intuitive or empathic child in distress; how to help
- Supporting boundary setting in intuitive and empathic children 10 Skills for Success for Intuitive Children
- Reflections on students own spiritual development (including intuitive)
Texts
- Catherine Crawford, MA, ATR, MFT, The Highly Intuitive Child: A Guide to Understanding and Parenting Unusually Sensitive and Empathic Children(Hunter House, 2009)
- Tobin Hart, Ph.D., The Secret Spiritual World of Children: The breakthrough discovery that profoundly alters our conventional view of children’s mystical experiences (New World Library, 2003)
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