To Feel Belonging
"I would never be part of anything. I would never really belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong, and failing. Always something would go wrong. I am a stranger and I always will be, and after all I didn’t really care." Jean Rhys 'Belonging' by Maria Friberg Too many children feel like they do not belong. In their communities, in their schools, in their homes. When I see children who are persistent absentees, who are at risk of exclusion, I see an unmet craving to feel like a valued member of something, anything. I see a desperate search for belonging that can take them to anywhere and anyone who might offer it to them, whose risks and long-term consequences they are unable to safely evaluate. We know that a sense of belonging is critical to the development of a child. We have know this since Maslow , since Bowlby . The renewed focus in the 1990s, through the work of Goodenow , and Baumeister & Lear...