Bikes, trams and snippets of news

"Ladybird in Norwich" by Susie Mallett 

12th September, 2011

Catching up

I have a handful of scraps of paper in my bag, with ideas and hastily written postings on them, all waiting to be typed up in my computer. I have another handful of written articles in the not-yet-published-ideas folder already in the computer and several more still in my head.

I think that it is now time to get some of them written and published however out of date they may be.

This one is from way back in August when the temperature dropped to 14 degrees celcius and the heating got put on. A time when it first became obvious that this summer was going to be memorable for its lack of sunshine and its abundance of rain! Even as I write this, with autumn approaching, I am huddled up in a rug watching the rain. No Indian-Summer holiday for me this year!

Giving the bike a miss

I had given my bike a miss for a couple of days due to too many thunder storms for my liking. I do not mind getting wet but I do not like being out on my bike when the heavens are cracking and flashing. I prefer to be indoors or on a tram!

Leaving the bike at home meant that I had to travell to and from work by tram and bus, giving me time to read and write instead of communing with the weasels, bulls, hares and new born foals that had recently brightened my cycle rides.

I enjoyed filling my note book with ideas and discovering interesting snippets in Time,  New Scientist and the Weekly Guardian, that I had stuffed into my bag.

The snippet of the day was:

“…identifies an important, yet frequently overlooked aspect of doctor-patient communication, patient-centeredness. Doctors generally adopt a paternalistic doctor-patient approach”.

I would like to believe that conductors know all about client-centered approaches and that we generally adopt a client-centered approach with all our adult and child clients.

As I had no time on that particular journey to read a magazine from cover to cover as I usually do at home, I looked through the index of the issue of Time that I had with me and picked this snippet. It rang a bell due to the work that I was doing at the time. I had been in the process of organising our bi-annual “people-working-and-living-with-the-child” meetings for the school children.

Those members of this group who are not able to make it to these meetings are met at a different time, visited in school or at home or invited to the conductive sessions.

The children are always present in these meetings and are asked to prepare themselves beforehand.   

We ask them to think about any questions that they wish to ask, and to think about anything that they feel is important to pass on to the school assistant, the conductors, teachers, their parents, grandparents or siblings.

These children are certainly the centre of this communication and are present in order to make their voices heard.

That long-ago and now lost, Time magazine article, talked about patient-centeredness  “…proving an insight into the patients’ emotional state allowing for appropriate intervention.”

I hope that we, in our team-around-the-child meetings, allow for more than an insight into just the “emotional state”,  but also an insight into the development of whole personality, the social, psychological and physical development too, aspects that are all so important to us in a conductive upbringing and lifestyle.

I must admit that despite the opportunity that the wet weather gave me to read interesting articles and to write myself little notices and memoranda so I do not forget these snippets, even on a cold, damp morning I still prefer to ride my bike than to ride in the sticky, hot bus.

It still amazes me that however hot it is outside a tram never becomes sticky like a bus does.

Planning ahead

Which reminds me, we must make sure that we do this journey with the children soon, so they too can experience the difference between travelling on a tram and on a bus.