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

Week 2 – Natural challenges…

This week was the second week of my 10 week boys youth group. We are working on building a foundation for a healthy emotional future for these boys. There are a lot of dynamics at play in the group environment. I love every minute of it but it’s not without it’s natural challenges.

Our normal group of 5 was down to 4 this week as one boy was absent. I do hope he continues as he is an 11 year old with many challenges in his young life. I will continue to hope he comes back and if he doesn’t, I am glad for the one week we spent together. As for the other 4 one would think that this is a breeze…only 4 boys and 2 adults! However, as we suspected there is one boy who is an attention seeker and dominates the group – even over us facilitators. I am continuing to think about the group dynamic and the purpose of why I am doing this.

Do I intervene and halt the disruptions and silliness? Or do I step back and allow the group dynamics to kick in and see where it takes us?

There is a fine line for me as facilitator to allow the group to manage itself. I am considering this due to the age of the boys. For example “Johnny” tells “Matty” to SHUT UP ! This is the peer dynamic at play trying to work itself out. Matty may be more inclined to listen to Johnny rather than me as an adult. Although this communication did not work this week I have faith it will in the future. After all, the very thing I want for these kids to do on their own away from group is to take charge and not to be afraid of their emotions. If I intervene too quickly and say “Now Johnny let’s not use the words “SHUT UP”, it’s better to say “Be Quiet” then I am disrupting the flow of the group. I think I will sit back and watch how this one plays out over the next several weeks. I am not teaching manners as a foundation for life. It is not that I don’t think manners are important it’s just that I choose to let these kids be kids and try and work things out amongst themselves.

However, I am very aware there likely may be some conflict if we do not get the dynamic I am speaking of here under a little more control. I see the disruptions as a possible trigger for Johnny as I also see some slight agitation in him from Matty’s constant disruptions. I am also conscious of the information Mom has provided to me so these are important things for me to keep in mind in moving forward. As for the other two boys well they just get caught up in all the silliness that 9 and 10 year olds do. I have to catch myself from not laughing as they are really cute and I don’t want this group to be all serious and rigid.

We’ll see what next week brings. We are to talk about Bullying and I may need to change our topic and have a heart to heart about what is going on in our group and initiate some discussions around this. What a great learning opportunity for them to share how they feel.

#BoysNeedToFeel

First group went fantastic!

My first boys youth group was tonight and it went amazingly well! We had 5 boys aged 9-11 years and they are a great bunch. It was important right off the bat to ensure we made a differentiation between what we intended to do and that – we aren’t school!  Everyone felt a sense of relief.

Research shows that most boys who are in a problem situation at school are considered “Alpha” personalities. We saw these in full force tonight, some more than others. One mom was afraid to tell me her son had been diagnosed with Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD)...bring it on I thought, no worries here! Yes there may be some challenges but I believe that for this group to truly be successful and to honour these little guys we need to ensure they and their needs are being met. If a child is displaying bouts of defiance (at 11 years old) then something in his world isn’t working for him. Will we get to the bottom of it in 10 short weeks? Not likely but in the meantime we can plant some seeds about what it feels like to be respected and treated fairly and see where that gets us.

I am in awe of my abilities to throw this together and actually pull it off tonight. Ideally we want the group to be managing itself as the weeks move forward and we saw this towards the end of the 1 ½ hours we were there. I gave my co-facilitator the thumbs up when another little one pointed to some pictures of the emoticons displaying emotions about how he felt today – this is exactly what this group is for!

I am beyond excited as to where this group is headed…stay tuned next week for week 2 updates.

Boys Need to Feel.

How many will come?

       

As of today I have 5 boys possibly showing up for our first group session next week.

We only wanted to take a minimum of 4, maximum of 6 youth. We did this purposely so as to be able to spend as much quality time with these guys as possible. Most and 10 & 11 years old but one is aged 9.

I will go ahead with the group even if the two I know for sure are attending. After speaking to parents/guardians it is pretty apparent that they could use some guidance with respect to a variety of issues. It will be interesting as well to see if the others who have contacted me see enough value in the program to bring their youth. I hope so but if not, another time.

Last night I presented at the Royal Ottawa Mental Health Hospital on the attachment work of Dr. Gordon Neufeld [see excerpt of his work on You tube: http://bit.ly/eMYUDG]. It was a dream come true for me as a student to be present in this space and be offered an invitation to present this work in a room full of mental health professionals. This has empowered me to move forward above and beyond the trepidation I may feel as the boy’s weekly group fast approaches. I know I am doing the right thing and I can not wait for the group to begin.  Stay tuned…

Boys Need to Be Allowed to "Feel"!

I don't believe in telling boys to "suck it up" or to stop crying. Crying is a good thing! But, there is a tendency in our society that says crying is not acceptable; showing your emotions is not acceptable. This is especially the case as it relates to boys. In my life experience I have seen and realized that these boys who suppress their feelings in this way risk growing up into men that have an abundance of problems related to this very intuitive response to feelings.

Stay tuned as I unfold the experience of me as a new child and youth care practitioner embarking on this journey that holds true for me on so many levels, that Boys Need to Feel!