In most situations that involve care, it's good to have a team. To care for others all by yourself can be a stressful proposition because it's challenging to put all that responsibility on one set of shoulders. Instead when you work with a team, you have someone to bounce ideas off of, give you a break, and enjoy the positivity caregiving can bring.
As a young person, I was part of my family care team. I helped Mom and Dad to take care of my younger siblings and aging grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Rather than be in charge, I was simply a helper in these situations, a helper who was a babysitter, driver, and at times, but rarely, a household assistant. My parents didn't ask us to do that many household chores, but I did care for my siblings often. I loved this role as I always enjoyed caring for children.
As an educator, I shared in the care of the students in our school with countless others. We had all kinds of systems in place to manage student care and learning. And in my life today, I share in the care of my father and within my family, my husband and I share care for our children and each other in many ways though at this point everyone is fairly self sufficient.
Care teams profit from regular meetings, designated roles that play to people's strengths, and common understanding of the care needs, potential, challenges, and goals. For example, as I teamed with colleagues at school, we had a common understanding of what student success and what that looked like. For our team, we wanted students to be happy, well-served, and meeting as many of the identified learning standards as possible. That spelled success.
All parents can be considered care teams, and when you look around, you'll notice quite a bit of variety when it comes to how parents care for their children. In general, parents employ similar goals with a range of dedication, effort, and effect. For example, most parents have rules in the home, but those rule vary with regard to strictness, volume, and enforcement. Most parents foster good times for the family, but again those good times vary in regularity and style. When parent care falls far from acceptable standards, there are government institutions in place to investigate and make change if needed. The same is true for care in most, if not all, institutions and groups.
As I think more about sharing care, I think some of the most important categories of that endeavor include the following:
- safety and good-as-possible health
- empathy and compassion
- positive development
- comfort
- good times
- common goals and strategies
- positive communication
