They are teaching me.

Saturday I worked on the boy cottage with boys aging 8-12. These boys were a lot of fun, inappropriate, and, enjoyable.

The day started at 9 AM as they all began to wake up and do their morning hygiene. As all little boys do, they were going back forth antagonizing each other. One boy had been having stomach problems for the last couple of days and had an incident in the night. The first thing I heard while walking down the halls was the boys cutting up about how the boy had "hershey squirts" in the shower while sleep walking. This would be the talk of the day because the offender kept bringing up the situation. OH BOYS.

Later in the day a couple of the boys were having trouble and were getting into a verbal disagreement and racial slurs began to be said. This greatly upset one of the boys and he asked to be excused so that he wouldn't act aggressively. I thought that was incredibly mature for a boy around the age of 8.


At the end of my shift the next staff member came in to take over for the rest of the day. I think he is in there consistently with those boys because they knew him. They started the shift with a "check-in", this consisted of a review of the boys behavior points and any boy who lost points explain why he lost his points.

The boy had been called racial slurs was up next to discuss his points. He lost points for saying he really wanted to beat up the boys who were calling him names. When it was his turn to explain his loss of points he said " I lost points because my peers were calling me names so I got upset and threaten to beat them up." That explanation sounded right to me but it was not acceptable to the staff directing this group. He asked if any of the other boys could point out what was wrong with this boys explanation. One of the other boys raise his hand and explained "He was blaming his peers for his actions and making excuses, what he needs to do is use "I" statements." After the explanation the young boy tried again " I lost my points because I threaten to beat up my peers"

You see the purpose of the point sheet is to keep track of one persons actions. The point sheet only says what one person did to lose points. The point sheet is not a group effort. The point sheet is up to the individual. The only person's behavior you can control is your own. The point sheet helps these boys realize this.

I started to think about that... how often do I explain away my own situation by blaming it on other instead taking ownership of my actions. How often do I start a explanation with excuses and blaming instead of using "I" statements.

The only way they will grow is if they begin to understand this concept and the same can be said about me.