All the root foundations of growth are of vital importance, but I will focus on one here because I believe that it can often be, maybe not ignored, but certainly not given the attention that I feel it deserves in family support in general and in particular in strategies to assist families in the Focus Group.
That is, identity.
Even outside of family support, I note that in the past decade or so, in our school curricula, history and geography – both of which are important in respect of children developing a sense of identity – are being seen to be of lesser importance than scientific or technological subjects. This downgrading is a retrograde step and (I believe anyway) is linked to the increasing power of the corporate world in education. I said more about this, in particular point no. 7 in this post.
I imagine identity to be the glue that holds all the emotional bits of us in place, like physical gravity keeps everything on Earth in place.