Re-Ed

Because of where I work I belong to the American Re-Education Association. Re-Ed is this philosophy of practice more than a prescribed method of practice. It is based on 12 principles that seem basic and very common sense until you consider that these kids don't have these principles in daily life.
"1. Life is to be lived now, not in the past, and lived in the future only as a present challenge.
2. Trust between a child and adults is essential, the foundation on which all other principles rest, the gule that holds teaching and learning together, the beginning point for Re-Education.
3. Competence makes a difference; children and adolescents should be helped to be good at something and especially at schoolwork.
4. Time is an ally, working on the side of growth in a period of development when life has a tremendous forward thrust.
5. Self-control can be taught and children and adolescents help to manage their behavior without the development of psychodynamic insight; and symptoms can an should be controlled by direct address, not necessarily by an uncovering therapy.
6. The cognitive competence of children and adolescents can be considerably enhanced; they can be taught generic skills in the management of their lives as well as strategies for coping with the complex array of demands placed upon them by family, school, community, or job; in other words, intelligence can be taught.
7. Feelings should be nurtured, shared spontaneously, controlled when necessary, expressed when too long repressed, and expolored with trusted others.
8. The constant challenge in a Re-Ed program is to help groups build cultures that sustain children and adolescents in their efforts to manage their lives in ways satisfying to themselves and satisfactory to others.
9. Ceremony and ritual give order, stability, and confidence to trouble children and adolescnets, whose lives are often in considerable disarray.
10. The body is the armature of the self, the physical self around which the psychological self is constructed.
11. Communities are important for children and youth, but the uses and benefits of cummunity must be experienced to be learned.
12. In growing up, a child should know some joy in each day and look forward to some joyous event for the morrow."

(I did not wish this would take so much time to type when I started)

So, I just returned from their conference. 4 days of being around adults, who like myself, are stuck in school. I had some good experiences at this conference and some not so good. The workshops I attended, Top-notch. I got some great ideas for working with the kids I work with. My personal favorite is "Let's Play". We did all these group building activities. I am not sure yet how to apply them to individual therapy, but have no fear, I am very creative. First was a simple variation on the name game, you catch the ball, thank the person by name who threw it to you, say your name then toss the ball. Then we figure who we threw the ball to and who threw it us and then we timed how quickly we went threw the sequence. Then We took suggestions on how the speed it up and impliment it. There were 50 or so of us and our first run was 2 minutes. Our last run through (6 times later) was 5.8 sec. So, there was a sense of accomplishment, communication, problem solving. Good stuff.

The not so good experience, you may ask? I will start off by saying I am not a drinker. I may have an occasional adult beverage, Margaritas are a weakness of mine, but one has always been my limit. With that being said, each evening was a opportunity to cut lose and many people took the opportunity. I had a strange man banging on my door in the middle of the night, and kept trying his key in the door. With the safety bar firmly in place, I asked if I could help him. Apparently, he thought that it was his room. So, he then began trying all the doors along the hallway. I did not realize that there were so many people in my profession that felt the need to cut loose. Makes me wonder... Were they awake for the 8:00 am session the next morning or is this the reason that those sessions were sparse????