Week 5 “Preserve the ties that empower…” (G. Neufeld)

This past week’s boys group was another successful one. Four of the five boys in group who attended a local tween dance I was chaperoning came up to me at the beginning of the dance to say hello. It is this small gesture that lets me know the attachment relationships are continuing to evolve in our group. It is at this time that we can begin to do the ‘hard’ stuff, the life lessons so to speak.

Dr. Gordon Neufeld speaks about making the relationship the priority. This is the case for any adult who is in the life of a child or youth. It could be a parent or a teacher. It could even be the guy at the local grocery store who is there week after week. A smile and a kind gesture can make a child or youth feel good, feel important. This is all it takes.

Dr. Neufeld says that “the child is more important than what he does”. So does that mean when the child yells F#@k you to your face that the relationship is still more important? Yes. The relationship must come first, the behaviour second. Let me explain further. If giving space and time for the child to express what he/she needs at that moment means accepting the yelled profanity then that is what we do. The individual child/youth has not only the right to that expression but also deserves the reassurance that the relationship is still intact. Once the relationship is made safe we can proceed with addressing the behaviour, the yelled profanity. Even as parents we must do this.

Here is an example I came across this week depicting one parent’s struggle to always love and show love to her child. Laurie is a mom of Zach, a 10 year old boy with a mental illness who has shown severe fits of rage at times. Have a look: Exposing-Family-Secrets-of-Mental-Illness-Video

Putting the relationship first with your child is no easy task.

In this fifth week of our boy’s building blocks group it is apparent now that the relationships have grown and evolved. As a child and youth practitioner my job is to create safe spaces for these boys. I am confident I have done that. The more in-depth work can begin now.

We plan to begin speaking about feelings for week 6 and week 7. What they are, what they look like to each one of us. This is the only topic we are dedicating two weeks to in our ten week group and this is the most important topic. The timing couldn’t be more perfect to begin these discussions with the boys. We have their attention and have now created a context for them in which to learn. Had we not used the first five weeks creating this context and building these relationships, there would definitely be some challenges. It’s not to say though that we don’t have our own natural challenges!

Working with five boys aged 9 to 11 years old is no easy task! The funny (ha ha) ‘let’s pee all over the toilet seats for the next guy’ kinda funny is present…but this is all taken in strides and boundaries are set. I am patient and remain committed to building relationships in order to plant seeds towards understanding. I will preserve the ties that empower these boys.

#BoysNeedToFeel

Resources

Neufeld, G. & Mate, G. (2004). Hold on to your kids: Why parents need to matter more    

than peers. Toronto: Vintage Canada

Week 4: The sensitivities of middle to late childhood...

I am doing this group for boys aged 9-11 years old because I believe boys need to feel and they need to know it is okay to feel a certain way and to share that with others without worrying about ridicule.

Boys aged 9-11 years old are busy boys. They are emotionally very sensitive. At this stage – middle to late childhood - these budding personalities are becoming more evolved in their understanding of who they are and how they are perceived. This is self-understanding and it increases at this stage in their young lives. Social comparison, essentially differences between one another, also increase and kids are beginning to take notice of their differences and the differences in others. This is a developmental shift. Do you have a child in grade 5 or 6 that you can see this happening?

Self-esteem and self-concept are also evolving in middle to late childhood. When social comparison increases self-esteem can begin to decrease as the youth evaluates him/herself as less than favourable when compared to their friends. Self-esteem is the “global” evaluation of self meaning the social comparison plays a role.

One can begin to understand the incredibly important developmental period and how it relates to boys in the context of feelings. If society says ‘suck it up’ and says it is not okay to cry then what message are we sending our boys? It is not a message of acceptance for who they are naturally. #Boys Need to Feel.

This week we spoke about bullying in our group. We did not focus on who was a bully or not. In fact I know for a fact that at least two of the boys in the group were labeled as bullies at school. This wasn’t important to me for the purposes of this group.

During a role play scenario prior to watching the videos one boy hinted at a bullying situation and pointed to another boy and said “You tell her”. This was a clue to me that this other boy may have been involved or at least had details of the situation and it also told me this little guy was not comfortable sharing what had happened. That is okay, I was not interested in pushing him into talking about something he wasn’t comfortable talking about.

We watched three videos. The first one was ‘The Price of Silence’ where one bully was shut down in the end because someone stood up to him and others followed. The second video was ‘Bullying or Not’ an explanation between what bullying is and what it is not.

After we watched the videos the little guy I just spoke about blurted out what had happened to him and that he indeed was the victim of bullying. What an amazing accomplishment for me as the facilitator of this group! To hear him rather quickly provide details of his situation during our group was awesome. This tells me we are creating the safe space these kids need to talk about their feelings!

I purposely ended group with a video of Mr. Nick Vujicic as an inspirational message and someone who likely would have been a victim of bullying. I assured the boys that I had every confidence that in any situation they have the power to stand up for someone they may see being bullied. This session wasn’t about who the bully is; kids know who the bully is. The session was about empowering the boys, giving them a voice, a script so to speak about what to do next time they witnessed someone being bullied.

#boysneedtofeel

Sources and Resources:

Santrock, J., MacKenzie-Rivers, A., Leung, K., & Malcomson, T. (2008). Life-span development.

The Price of Silence:

Bullying or Not?:

Nick video No Legs No Arms No Worries:

Week 3 – “All growth emanates from a place of rest…” (G. Neufeld)

What an amazing feeling moving from the trepidations of - Am I doing the right thing? Should I really do this boys group? Will they want to come back each week; to seeing the boys enthusiasm for group this week. Phew!

After pondering the next step regarding how to address the constant interruptions or to address them at all I decided to forgo this week’s topic on bullying. I did this in favour of having the boys continue to be comfortable in group to continue to open up. It was very relaxed and purposeful but not in the ‘specific agenda’ kind of way, just in the ‘letting boys be boys’ kind of way. At one point they found some old pillows and said they wanted to sit on the floor and watch the movie. Yeah, that lasted long! They were hitting one another within 5 seconds! PILLOW FIGHT! I think this is a tween's place of rest! 

I have no budget at all for this group so our meals together are low cost. This week the boys made Kraft dinner and hot dogs. You can tell they all really enjoy being a part of this togetherness. I sat and had opening circle with the boys first before we started preparing dinner and this did not go unnoticed. We have creating some simple traditions in the short three weeks we have been together and this is a wonderful sign that we are connecting. A really important element when running a group for kids aged 9-11 years old.

As the group continued who I would say has been the most disruptive, the most enthusiastic and unable to contain his excitement – Johnny just wasn’t himself tonight. Johnny has not been living with mom for quite sometime and there are some sensitive issues here that I am aware of. He was eager to please in preparing the dinner and very much enjoyed perfecting slicing cucumbers! He did such a great job. He likes to hide and scare me when he can – and, he gets me every time! Geesh!

One activity I do with the boys is a “How I am Feeling Today” activity. We briefly talk about how they are feeling on that day. I got a “scared” from Johnny…“There are bullies at my school” he said. Something was bothering him, now I know why he wasn't himself.

My co-facilitator and I are working with not only group dynamics but also trying to integrate the concepts of Dr. Gordon Neufeld in our work. He’s attachment based paradigm is a great addition to our work and one that I believe will help to create positive experiences for these little guys. At least that is my goal.

#BoysNeedToFeel

http://www.gordonneufeld.com/about/gordon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUHnMfa_aKE