Challenge to Respond

Reacting v. Responding.


I've written about this a bit before, and all of us are faced with the choice to react or respond many, many times each day. It's just life.

For some kids, daily life includes gigantic, tough issues. Violence, trauma, poverty. These are local and global issues, and for too many young people they are very personal issues. Adults who work alongside kids who grapple and wrestle with these issues know that their own choices--reactions or responses--can have big impacts on these kids.



Yesterday, I had the privilege of attending the University of Minnesota's SEL Symposium on the SEL Challenge. Eight expert youth serving organizations across the country teamed-up to embark on two years of research, with the help of the Weikart Center and the Susan Crown Exchange, Together, they took a long, hard look at why and how their programs achieve such positive outcomes for kids. One of our excellent veteran local youth serving organizations, Voyageur Outward Bound School, participated in this process. VOBS participation really highlights the power and potentially deep impact of nature-based youth development, but each of the eight organizations brings a very different perspective and approach to the table.  Here's a list of the outfits involved:

Voyageur Outward Bound School
Wyman
Philadelphia Wooden Boat Factory
AHA!  Attitude, Harmony, Achievement
YWCA Boston
Youth on Board
The Possibility Project
Boys and Girls Club of Greater Milwaukee



Paul Griffin, President of The Possibility Project, was on the panel at the symposium yesterday. TPP meets kids where they are at through theater production, with kids managing every facet of producing a show-- teens even do the hiring of all professionals involved. It's rewarding, but very hard, very focused work, and the kids involved have hard lives-- harder than many. Griffin said something yesterday that goes straight to the heart of best practises in youth development:

"We practice being aware of the moment when it arrives. 
A fight is an opportunity. 
Struggle is an opportunity."



So the kids are the curriculum. And the people working with the kids have to respond to trauma and violence, for instance. If they react, they shut down the opportunity, they close the door on growth. Griffin shared the story of a young woman whose practice was to fight-- she spent a lot of time reacting to stuff, fighting. She and another kid on the production team didn't get along and the adults and the kids could see something brewing. One day, during a team retreat, she and this peer had a big physical fight, a real blowout. Adults and kids broke up the fight and the girl had an opportunity to find her own space, but she wasn't excluded or banished. She stayed in that space and cried for an entire day.

This kid had never cried after a fight before. She had never cared about fighting with someone, never cared about hurting someone, until that day. "Good," said Griffin, "now we have something to work on." If the kid was exiled from the program, or some other strong, swift punitive measure was taken, she wouldn't be there to do the work of changing, to grow empathy, and the youth workers wouldn't have the opportunity to support her growth. To respond is to walk a fine line. Support safety and care of the group, but open the door, instead of slamming it, when the sh** hits the fan. Responding communicates care and inclusion to the larger group as well. Reaction communicates that old top down, authoritarian message and more to the point, it just stops growth cold.

"We say, 'no help, no fix, no save,' and that means that we don't do for our young people if they can do for themselves, and they can typically do a lot more than most people anticipate or are wiling to expect from them."  --Paul Griffin, Founder & President of The Possibility Project

For more information on the brain science of responding, check out this link to Stanford research on the topics of compassion, and empathy.