Boundaries

This is one of the topics that comes up most frequently about working with the kids here, both as a volunteer hanging out with them, and as a teacher in the school. The question is, at least in my mind, about how to create a positive emotional environment for the kids that will help them grow up and get past the traumas --not to mention the general emotional difficulties of having no family-- that they come in with.

And interestingly, providing a positive emotional space often (if not all the time) means setting up boundaries with the kids that they understand. In fact (and I've already seen this in action), setting up boundaries with the kids often seems to make them like you more. Why is that?

Anyway, two stories and one really nice moral:

One tiny experience that keeps coming to mind is actually from Clark Park Soccer: while we were playing another team, one of the other team's players was pushing one of my really cute kids. So I pulled him aside. After telling him that we don't push people here, and that he could go back and play if he wasn't going to push anyone, he told me: "I don't like you anymore". "You don't have to like me, you just have to not push people", was my response. He just wandered around picking at the grass the rest of the morning, and I felt bad. But as he was leaving, he smiled at me and waved, and then continued to come say hi to me the rest of the season.

The other story is from earlier this week, in one of the more difficult classes. The kids in the class were watching a movie (they get points towards a movie when they act good), but one student who didn't like the movie choice got really angry. He had a fork and a spoon that he was throwing across the room, and then banging on a desk. Their usual teacher was out that day, so the (really awesome) special ed/guidance counselor teacher was watching them. After Angel was making all that noise, she calls him over to her and says, forcefully but calmly, "Look, I don't want to get you in trouble and tell your tio, actually I like you a lot, and I know you know what to do to be respectful of the other students now. I don't care if you watch the movie or not, just be respectful of the class. Now it's in your hands to decide whether to be responsible".

And, of course, after murmurring a little bit, he sat down to watch the movie, and ended up complaining when we had to stop because class was over.

So it seems like providing boundaries for the kids often makes them feel more comfortable or secure. Maybe there's a sense of security in the knowledge that even if you push the boundaries and receive a consequence, that person will still be there for you and will still care about you (and maybe that kind of confidence gets rid of some of the self-esteem issues that cause a lot of these kind of problems to begin with...). And in fact, maybe limits can even be reassuring sometimes...

Anyway, after that class I was feeling sort of overwhelmed, but when we were talking at the end, Profe Loli (the special-ed teacher from earlier) said something I'm going to try to remember: when working with these kids, who have had so many difficulties in their lives --though I'd think this philosophy could apply to our interactions with anyone-- you have to remember that everything you do with them is like planting seeds in them. Seeds of confidence and respect, both for them and for others. And we may not see those seeds grow, but we have to keep trying to plant them there in the hopes that someday they will.

A cute little kid from the ranch (not the one from the above story) wearing my hat.