An Ecology of Validation: What is it & Why Teens & Adolescent Service Providers Need it
With one foot still firmly planted in the smaller more familiar world of the family and one foot dancing in and out of the less familiar and perhaps more challenging larger world, the adolescent needs to feel that they are welcomed, that it’s safe to take chances and to be vulnerable, to do their work of figuring out who and what they are. While we all need places where we feel we belong no matter our age, for adolescents these places are crucial. Such places and experiences will inform who they are and who they will become far into their future and most likely for the generations that come after them.
We need to create and sustain ecologies of validation for our young people. Not only do we need validating ecologies for our teens but we need them for ourselves as the adults who have the responsibility to guide, usher, scaffold, and companion our youth into their adulthood.
“Ecology”
Let’s begin with the word ecology to be sure we know what we’re talking about here. James Bridle in his astounding and timely book Ways of Being—Animals, Plants, Machines: The Search for a Planetary Intelligence writes, “[E]cology is not merely the study of where we find ourselves, but of everything which surrounds us and allows us to live.” He goes on to say that “ecology is the study of the place we find ourselves in, and the relationships between its inhabitants.”
The place in which teenagers and adult service providers find themselves and the relationships between and amongst them is most definitely a particular ecology.
Some ecologies to consider where teens and their service providers, or key adults in their lives, create and interact within their relationships and places:
Schools and the school districts
Places of employment where lots of young people are employed
Outpatient and inpatient behavioral health programs
Individual Therapy
Families - nuclear, blended, and extended
Churches
Sports teams
Extracurricular clubs and activities
Camp
Group homes for adjudicated youth
Juvenile detention centers
“Validation”
When we have a validating interaction, we communicate with them in such a way that we elicit their embodied experience of feeling seen, heard, accepted, valued, and loved for who they are in the moment as they are. While it’s a simple concept, I have found in my clinical and consulting work and in my own personal practice of validation that it is complex and sometimes quite difficult. However, it’s a skill that you will want to learn as it is foundational to all other effective communications. If you want the adolescents in your life to respect you, listen to you, want to talk with you, take accountability, then you will need to know how to validate them.
Putting it together: What is an ecology of validation?
An ecology of validation, then, is a relationship in a particular place that creates, contains, and sustains relationships between and among the individuals who interact in that space such that there are ongoing and multiple opportunities to validate and be validated by others.
Being an adolescent service provider can be stressful, challenging, frustrating, and heartbreaking. Many of us are called to the work and are invested mind, body, and soul in being there for our kids as effectively and courageously as we can. To prevent burnout, compassion fatigue, and vicarious trauma, a validating ecology is essential for all of us.
In an article on repairing toxic work culture, the author presents research which found five key dynamics that set successful teams apart. However, they discovered that by far the most important of the five, “the underpinning of the other four”, was psychological safety. The term psychological safety was coined by Amy Edmondson, an organizational behavioral scientist at Harvard. Edmondson defines psychological safety as “a belief that one will not be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes.” To frame this in the positive, psychological safety is the experience of not being perfect and to still have the embodied feeling that we are accepted for who we are in those moments as we are.
As an educator, I see this in every setting in which I have taught. Students will not retain their learning if they
do not feel safe. As an Internal Family Systems and depth psychotherapist, I see how this lack of safety drives so many of our protective parts or behaviors, often to the detriment of our relationships, work, and lives. The nervous system does not discern between physical and emotional or psychological safety. Our bodies are wise and will do exactly as they were designed to do—move into some measure of survival if threatened in any manner. Significantly, even just the perception of threat can trigger protector parts and behaviors. Psychological safety is crucial for early and late adolescents in the home, in schools, in the workplace, and for ongoing healthy development.
Qualities of an Ecology of Validation
Our organizations, schools, and clinical environments should aim for brave space.
While safe space is comfortable and safe, there are some disadvantages. This is the space from which the sentiment “but this is how we’ve always done it” operates. At the opposite end of the spectrum where it is unsafe there is a feeling that things are out of control, and there is a lack of structure. Brave space is safely uncomfortable, relationships are dialogical and flexible. It takes courage to be here, enough to challenge us but circumstances are not such that we feel we have to fight for survival.
The ways we achieve brave space are wide and varied, though there are some core strategies:
See failure and mistakes as opportunities for growth and learning.
Work towards collaborative problem-solving amongst all parties. Adolescents need to be involved in these processes as part of their adolescing.
Learn the art of dialogue. This extraordinarily powerful strategy goes far beyond conversation and discussion. I highly recommend David Bohm’s brilliant essay On Dialogue.
Make it safe to question the status quo. Use the inherent nature of Adolescence throughout your organization to critically and constructively challenge what’s already in place.
Have respect and be responsive to everyone’s needs. This does not mean that all needs are met, but they are taken into consideration and validated.
Develop relevant interventions and strategies.
Discern, articulate, maintain, and respect boundaries with integrity.
Validate. Validate. Validate.
In conclusion
As the adults in the room, we are obligated and responsible for continuing to come into relationship with our Inner Adolescent. We must be curious about why we feel how we feel and react the way we react to certain interactions. Identifying where we are on the love/fear spectrum in our relationships with our colleagues and our clients will go a long way to regulate our emotions. And always we want to be reaching for an encompassing compassion for ourselves and for these young people that we are in service to. Our adolescents are counting on us.
Some of these phrases and reflections on brave spaces come out of an ongoing conversation at a recent Internal Family Systems training I attended. I want to be sure to credit the participants who contributed their thoughts.
Image by: Subphoto