Activists' Community

Two weeks ago we wrote an announcement to D, to say that we were going to resist his agressive behaviour towards the children in our setting and to objects (beating), the threaths he expressed (I will beat you, I will bring a knife), respecting bounderary's of other children (when D asks a cooky and they say no, D should stop asking the question) an smoking in places he can't smoke (for example his room; the danger te whole place would catch fire!). As said in my previous message: these 'problems' were expressed by the group, during the groupmeeting, so our authority came from there.
A week later we planned to do an sms, but the people who were supposed to dot it, changed their mind because they had the feeling that an SMS would increase the agressivity at that moment, so they did an 'aandachtsgroepje' (group of attention) instead. The focus here is more on giving attention, looking for a solution together, giving care, showing concern etc, not so much on showing resistance. First I felt a little disseapointed because I was really curious about what the SMS would be like, but than I thought that since he is not staying in our setting for such a long time, there hasn't been so much real 'talks' with this youngster. I was sure that his behaviour was not going to stop, so was ensured that we would have enough chances to do an SMS in the nearby future. The week later we had our teammeeting, the youngster was at that time in our center because he is expelled from school, so we decided to do an 'sms' at our teammeeting. It was a little bit an impulsive decision. We saw it also as an excercise for us in silence. We were there with five staffmembers of our group, and our psychologist/teamcoördinator. Actually it was not a real sms but maybe even more an exercise for us: our goal was to keep quit for 5 minutes. (Every start is difficult).
During the last two weeks we collected data: we made a list of all behaviours that concerned the announcement. For example: When D goes to sleep, we ask for his mobile phone. The rule in our group is you can't keep it at night under the age of 15. When we ask it, he gets very angry, saying 'my stuff, my rules' and slaps with his door so hard that his door is a little bit broken. So, since this is 'damaging property', this is part of the sms. Last time I askes his mobile phone, I did it very gentle just saying 'Dieter I am here to collect your mobile phone', instead of giving it to me he throws it away so it is broken. Damaging (his own) property again. The list contained 5 'cases' where he crossed the line that was drawn by the announcement.
So at the SMS we said that he has problems giving his mobile phone so he throws it (damaging property), and he is busy finding out if it's really broken so he is in his bed 30' later than he should be. Since 'not giving his mobile phone' nor 'respecting the timetable' is in his announcement, I was worried that the message we gave was maybe a litlle bit to complex? Because we find it difficult that everytime we ask for his phone or playstation portable or whatever, this turns into a dramatic reaction from his side, as a result he is in his bed 30' later or starts his study 30' later... But it's not a part of the announcement, and we can't make it part of the announcement because than we have to much things to resist to. (It's now allready too much I guess?) Sometimes we have the tendency to say 'hey, this we can resist to because it's also sort of respecting boundary's', but I find this difficult because than it is not concrete enough, and we are actually resisting everything.
I was wondering what the rest feels about this. How can we than 'make' our message?
I also realise now that we didn't even asked the group to collect data with us: when Dieter crosses the boundary or does anything else expressed in the announcent, they should come and report this, because we need it for the sms. We did say they have to tell us when we don't see it, but were not transparant enough to say it really specific.
Also I have the feeling it is such a stronger message when we do it togheter with the parents, I was even wondering if we could do it together with some youngsters, because the group is resisting, or do we bring them than to much on the level of the adults, when it's actually our responsability and not theirs?
I'm sorry about the very long and complex message: it was more a thinking process while writing. The last thing I think about just now is that for this youngster we should make a good boy book, he really wants to do it right but he is not so strong and very impulsive...

Byebye NA-network : )
thanks in advance for the response

Hello Ulla,

great to hear how your team keeps on experimenting. It's always interesting to see what the reactions are. The description of this boy makes me wonder if your team is supported by anyone in it's authority. So, your suggestion to recrute the parents is very important, I think. And also, school! He was expelled from school... Does he have any contact anymore with youngsters from school, but more important teachers.Is he expelled to never return? I think it's crucial he gets the message that behaviour in school was unacceptable, and hence getting expelled, BUT he must get some messages of support from the school (if not teachers, maybe someone from "CLB", sorry don't know the English word). Maybe your team can repeat what behaviour (if it's not clear, this will have to lead to contacting the school to be able to describe the concrete behaviour) couldn't be accepted in school, that your sorry it happened and that your now here for him to think together.You could then tell him how you think about him (the positive things you said). Maybe your team can invite him to do a reparation act towards the school (even he is never to return there). And if it's possible in any way, motivate the parents to do this request together with your team. They could then think about what they could do as a reparation act, in case D. doesn't want to. This is what I think I would suggest in my team if a boy was acting like this.
I hope this can help a little.

Doing this makes you realize how we're all just one little part of the net. A ward can't solely replace the network that really matters to children, don't you think?

And now I'm off to my next supporters meeting (the one Ishay helped me with). I'm curious how it will go. The father was amazingly confident when we prepared yesterday and at ease (not expecting anything, only for me to talk about new authority). he's almost more relaxed then me :-)

Ulla, lots of success with this boy. I hope you can get your message strengthened.

Kind regards,
Elfi

Hello Elfi
Thanks for your remarks. He's expelled to never go there again, and will go to a special school (buso) next week. Think the reparation act was just a sorry, and the parents were not involved in that. It's a good idea to think about, I will bring your FB back to my team.
you're very supportive on this forum! : )
I think it's great that you're doing supporters meetings. This is a challenge that lies there for us also, I think. Hope this can be part of our 'parentgroup' were building. Next session wil handle about escalation, with roleplay, so I'm very curious about that also... But the parents without a network... No go! Third session is about Network, so very curious! Let us know how it went! Good luck!
Ulla

Hi Ulla,
You raise some important and complex questions and i doubt i'll get to them all (my own kids have drained me today :-) )but what stands out is the question of what do we do with those kids who have negative behavior all the time? Or what if we have violent behavior behavior as part of the announcement but on top of that the child all of the sudden doesn't want to take a shower, and so forth. I think your concerns are valid and that you can look at it two ways, the first one is if we take your phone example than instead of concentrating on the 30 min delay in schedule you can just stick to the "red" behavior and react to his aggressive (and throwing objects is aggressive behavior), and not even mention the fact that it means he goes to sleep late. That way you keep the message simple, the act concrete and stick to teh announement target. Another way is to consider dividing the behavior into the different baskets and to make sure that what is not in the red gets different reactions or you mightalso decide to ignore some of the problematic behavior for the time being until the bigger stuff gets settled. The two problems with having too many target behavior is 1) the staff feels overwhelmed with having to react to so many different behavior 2)the child feels that he is constantly being reprimanded .
and lastly before i go to sleep, using the good boy book or any other form of saying to the child "we see you and REMEMBER when you are nice/good" is excellent for these kind of kids that keep getting into trouble because of their impulsivity.
best of luck
michal

Thanks a lot for your answer
it is allways very helpfull and strengthening to get an answer of 'the professionals' : )
Ulla