First club visit

Today I went to the Boy’s and Girl’s Club for the first time. Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised with several things. Based on the conversations we’ve had and what we’ve heard from people who work there, I wasn’t expecting much facility-wise. I know that it’s not ideal conditions, but the Club was much nicer than the afterschool program/summer camp where I worked throughout high school. All of the kids seemed to have something to do, including a big screen TV with a Wii. Obviously there are other programs out there with much better resources and facilities, but the kids looked like they were having fun and they all looked happy.

In addition to the facilities, I thought our Conflict Resolution session went extremely well. I wasn’t able to go to the actual first session, so this was the second time that Cait, Brady, and Laurel had been there. There were six kids, something which I found pretty manageable compared to the 15-20 I had everyday this summer. Obviously it wasn’t perfect, they were talkative and goofed off a lot during the role playing exercise we did. For the most part though, they payed attention and participated much more than I was expecting. Based on their comments, I could tell that they remembered things from Tuesday, which is great because the main thing we’re worried about is whether or not they will retain anything we teach them. Not only that, but they were very respectful when we were talking and seemed genuinely interested in what we were doing. According to the others, it went much better than the first session, which matches what the other groups said about the first session being the hardest. In fact, as we were leaving one of the employees said that we must have really been holding their attention because they weren’t acting up as much as they normally do and it looked they were really interested.

I’m very excited about the ropes course on Saturday. I think that letting the kids do something fun like that will further develop their desire to interact with us. Honestly, I’m not expecting the Conflict Resolution program to transform the kids lives and completely alter the way they deal with other kids. I think a realistic goal is to at least impact them enough so that they personally consider the things they learn whenever the encounter conflict. I doubt they will do much as far as trying to influence others, but I hope that they internally change some of their conflict resolution ideas.