Inspiring Children with a Vision

Several weeks ago I attended a secondary school and was inspired to put fingers on the keyboard to create this article.

In my quest to deploy the Life Skills for Children course to as many young people as I can, I regularly meet teachers and their assistants that evoke a wide range of emotions from me. Unfortunately, most of these emotions are negative.

I am constantly questioning the reasons why some people have chosen the teaching profession to earn their living. 

As I entered the classroom to greet the group of young people that sat before me, I was pulled to one side and introduced to a teacher who would be assisting me in the delivery of the curriculum.

I paused for a moment to digest her name (Michelle) and then my brain started to work at pace to ascertain how I was going to adjust the Life Skills curriculum accordingly to accommodate an additional teacher who to my knowledge had no prior experience of the course content.

Upon asking Michelle if she had experienced any of the course material before, she gently smiled and replied in one word “No”

She then went onto explain that that group of young people in front of us both had all been assigned to her over the coming term and she was determined to create a positive relationship with them. 

What a breadth of fresh air. A teacher that realised that the most important ingredient to educating young people was to establish the right relationship from the start.

A little confused and only half convinced her statement was heartfelt, I proceeded to start the lesson and introduce my new colleague.

I decided to provide a platform for Michelle to speak about herself so that she could create the groups first impression.

I remember the exact words she used because silence fell across the classroom when they came out of her mouth.

“Good morning, Over the next few sessions I am going to get to know you, enjoy your company and together we are going to create a vision of your future that we both can work towards.”

One of the more vocal students amongst the group felt the need to utter some immature comments towards the front of the classroom. Before I could respond, Michelle had absorbed the comments, smiled and dissolved the negativity of what was said by going and sitting right next to him. 

Without confrontation, his comments had backfired as the rest of the group laughed in support of Michelle’s actions. 

At this point of the article it is relevant to note that the group of students within the course had all been identified as having serious behaviour issues which in many cases was likely to lead to permanent exclusion.

In light of this, Michelle had drawn the first of many victories I witnessed in just 4 hours of working together.

The curriculum for the first lesson involved getting the group to identify the reasons why they so disliked school and felt the need to be so disruptive.

This particular lesson within the course is normally a little hit and miss. It is not unusual to get a large percentage of the group refusing to participate in any of the written drills or open discussions. After all why would they want to expose the reasons for their negative behaviour when solutions might be found to stop giving them the excuses to carry on creating havoc.

As the lesson developed and several members of the group attempted to disrupt the class with silly comments, Michelle took the opportunity to build a better rapport with the group.

Without warning and breaking the lesson curriculum, Michelle decided to inform the group of details about her child hood, schools experiences, likes and dislikes and the poor qualifications she received in her final year of education.

The group was shell shocked and sat mouths open, eyes fixed as Michelle created an image in their minds of this out of control girl who thought school was boring and teachers hated her. 

She went onto say how her attitude at the time influenced the people she went around with outside of school and how smoking and drinking was something she regularly did on school premises.

You could see the group of students in front of her being taken on a roller coaster ride of emotion as many of them related to her experiences. Over the 15 minutes that followed, members of the group would ask questions to clarify in their minds what Michelle was saying. 

The tension and mild hostility that many members of the group had previously shown Michelle and to be fare show most of the other teachers was dissolving in front of me.

You could physically see the barriers many of the students have placed around them lifting for just enough time for them to be influenced by a vision.

By the time Michelle had finished painting a picture of her younger years, the group had moved onto more relevant questions such as “Why are you a teacher, if you hated school?” 

Michelle had the groups attention and used the small window of opportunity she had developed to install what changed her and how she developed a vision for her future.

She went on “Despite numerous people telling me to concentrate at school, be respectful and listen to your teachers, the moment that changed me was when the kids I used to hang around with who were much older than me had left school with no qualifications and spent every day out of work, drinking and smoking”.

“I realised when speaking to them that their lives were seriously boring and they had nothing to look forward to. Some of them were getting into trouble with the Police and life was pretty rubbish.”

Michelle then acknowledged that she had no reasons for behaving the way she did, She came from a loving family, was given everything she wanted. She just thought she could get away with being bad.

I remember a couple of the group members looking at each other almost accepting that they to had no real reason for their poor behaviour. 

In just a few minutes, Michelle had entered the lives of this disruptive group of young people, acknowledged their poor behaviour, identified with them and gained an important window of opportunity to install a very powerful message.

One of the group members, a young girl named Sophie asked without doubt the most important question of the lesson. “What is this Vision you keep talking about?”

Michelle took this opportunity to tell the group that she had to return to college to improve her grades and in the process met a teacher that inspired her with vision.

He asked her to list down all of the wonderful things in life that she wanted to achieve, or visit or do. With a little help and nudging, Michelle said she had developed a long list of goals, which excited her and gave her a good reason to study and behave properly.

Michelle shared some of her goals list with the group and in the process collated their opinions and dreams to start creating their own list. 

Upon being asked why she became a teacher, she replied “up until the day when I met the teacher who taught me how to create my vision of my future I was lost. He made my life make sense, and I want to do the same for somebody else”

Needless to say the scheduled curriculum for the lesson was put back to the follow day, but what I witnessed in a short period of time was the secret to teaching.

Every day of my life I talk about the importance of building rapport with students in order to create the right learning atmosphere. Michelle had taken a hardened group, excepted their current mind set and approach to life, demonstrated that she was once in their shoes and more importantly demonstrated how one moment of inspiration changed her life. 

The remainder of the Life Skills for Children course was full of as many ups and downs as every other delivery, however the relationship with Michelle was great and with a consistent approach to creating the right vision the outcome of the course was very successful.

Power of the People

First it was Egypt and then over the next few months several countries followed in their foot steps. All around the world we have been reminded that positive change can be initiated by the people. 

• Politicians change their opinions to suit the people who elect them
• Community leaders are driven by the thoughts and attitudes of the people they serve
• Companies are motivated by the responses from their customers

Many of the significant world changing moments in history have been inspired, motivated and driven by huge groups of people supporting a set of common values and beliefs.

Even dictators such as Gaddafi have succumb to the power of the people’s wishes over the last few months.

And yet I sit here writing this article pondering the many different issues that we have as a society and wonder why so many of us have the same opinions and yet do nothing about it.

Let me highlight just one issue out of the mountain of issues that are continually discussed daily throughout the media, in social arenas and around the dinner table.

Statistics demonstrate that the youth of this current generation and quite possibly the last one to, have been let down considerably by Government policies which have seriously diluted many of the core values that this country was built upon.

To openly discuss these polices and the negative affect many of them have had on communities across the country will take me of my main focus for this article and will inevitably increase the size of this article substantially.

The way in which we raise children in this country has changed so significantly we have many parents who are not sure what measures they can lawfully take to discipline their children and provide them with a good code of conduct.

One such example is a parent I recently met at a Life Skills boot camp event where I was teaching his child some basic skills around the subjects of respect, social responsibility and positive attitude.

In answer to a simple question I had directed towards him to ascertain his opinion why his child has become this out of control, angry and abusive individual, I was greeted with the uneducated response “What can I do. If I smack him I am breaking the law and if I don’t I am being accused of bringing up a bad kid”

Whilst the answer was easy to dismiss as a throw away comment, I have heard this comment enough to suggest we as a society are not providing the adequate education to young people to prepare them for one, growing up as responsible individual and two, understanding the huge responsibility of becoming a parent.

It is important to note that a majority of parents have the singular mission of providing their children with the best opportunities they can, which includes the provision of a good education and the right social skills.

However, we have a growing number of young people that are growing up with insufficient skills to interact positively in society or who are growing up in fear of being bullied as they are not taught any skills as an early intervention process to assist them in identifying and avoiding potentially dangerous situations.

Providing children with some key skills to increase their safety, their ability to work and play positively in social arenas and ultimately increase the opportunity for them to become positive forward thinking members of the community is essential to stopping the growing number of young people that are causing themselves and society so many problems.

Oh, those of you who continually telling me that you are tied of paying for the mistakes of others as you do not have any children yourself. Your right. Why should you continually pay into a system that is failing to provide the youth of today with the right skills to support your investment and make the place in which you live more prosperous.

What makes it worse is that your paying twice. You pay into a system that is providing inadequate skills to the young and then you pay again once these young people fall into crime and anti-social behaviour. Recent figures provided by the House of Commons suggested that the cost of anti-social behaviour in the UK is around 3.4 billion.

So what is the solution. We already established at the beginning of this article that those fortunate enough to be in positions of power are reactive to the opinions of the people.

Waiting for Government policies to be produced to reinstall some of the core values this country has lost will by in large be like waiting for it to snow in the sahara desert. 

Life Skills for Children provide key skills training for young people to learn and appreciate an agreed code of conduct. They learn how to increase their safety, communicate professionally, create positive thinking attitudes and how to identify with the required skills to become confident young people.

Life Skills for Children is just one of many groups that has a realistic solution to what has become a very difficult problem.

I personally have lost faith in politicians and community leaders as I have lived long enough to appreciate the many different ways they use to manipulate their positions to appease the people. 

Promises after promises with very few results.

If the people of countries such as Egypt can stand together to send a message so powerful it creates change, we to should speak as one, stand together and force the change required to help our children and our children’s children.

A majority of parents will tell you that the welfare of their children is paramount and that providing them with everything they require to grow and live a healthy and enjoyable life is all that matters to them.

Whilst this natural emotional response to having children has to be applauded, I have to ask why so many of us sit back and do nothing when something goes horribly wrong with the children of others. 

Whether we have children or not, this problem affects us all and just a small change in the education of our young ones and some parents can benefit us all.

Join the Life Skills for Children group and show your support for change

 http://www.facebook.com/groups/174225645985714/ 

We have the answer to solve the youth related problems within this country

In light of the recent riots and subsequent debates throughout the media about why and how society has got to the point where thousands of people have taken to looting and burning buildings in cities across the country, it is time to provide an important part of the problem solving puzzle. - Life Skills for Children

I am perplexed at the amount of different excuses being thrown into the air as the reason to trigger such destructive behaviour.

Of course there are many reasons for our society to decline to such a low level of social order that we all have to witness such ugly scenes. Previous Government policies, cultural integration, poor education are all very much apart of the problem mountain.

The truth is many of the core principles that made our country great have either disappeared completely or have been so badly diluted in an attempt to appease the growing diverse population that we have lost our way.

Amongst my friends and colleagues are individuals of all colours, religious beliefs, and economical backgrounds. They by in large are all decent human beings who are all equally appalled by the scenes witnessed across the media in the past week.

The answer is EDUCATION. 

So much enthuses has been placed upon literacy and numeracy that we have forgotten the importance of providing young people with an education in social responsibility, respect, positive thinking, presentation skills and professional communication skills.

Another problem within the education industry is that so many of the teachers do not have the required skills to command respect and teach. Teachers will argue that Government policies have made there job virtually impossible to do, however I meet teachers all of the time that have the right personality and skill set to overcome the issues young people bring to the classroom and therefore stroll through each day developing positive relationships with the people they are teaching.

Several years ago I laid down the blueprints of a course for young people to learn some of these core values and at the same time experience some simple and effective ways to increase their personal safety with the objective of reducing the negative effects of bullying.

This course has now been successfully delivered to hundreds of young people from a wide spectrum of social and economical backgrounds. 

The course content includes:

• Understanding the affects of anti-social behaviour
• The destructive qualities of our personalities
• Identifying the reasons for my actions - All talk and NO action
• Physical Team building - Ability to work within a team environment
• Positive qualities of your personality
• Life Skills training – Take away the excuses of feeling unsafe
• No excuse is big enough
• Goal Setting for the future
• Positive Key skills training
• Developing a positive Life plan
• Communication Skills
• Problem solving Skills

Within its pilot phase I together with MAMAA (Mothers against Murder & Aggression) sat in front of ministers including Beverley Hughes, Tony McNulty and Vernon Coaker to discuss a preventative measures educational course that was and is continuing to make a real difference. Of course like most MP’s they are very good at talking and very little else.

To make the required positive changes to our society with have to appreciate that we are dealing with two distinct groups of people. 

• Young people that are good law abiding citizens
• Young people that have lost there way 

We have to stop the rotten element of our society and yet at the same time provide a preventative measures approach to the rest of the young community so that we can once again take control and know that the next generation will be educated in some of the core values that this country was once known by.

Life Skills for Children provide a boot camp style educational experience for those young people that have lost there way. This experience is a direct and very effective education in which a strong set of basic messages are presented to young people. 

A softer, friendlier approach is deployed to young people that do not come onto the radar of becoming a nuisance to society. The theory is “To keep good kids good”

Life Skills for Children has even developed and deployed courses for teachers and parents on how to educate, control and build positive relationships with young people.

The Life Skills for Children approach to solving this problem is simple and with the right support can start the process of positive change quickly.

The question is, can we rely on the Government to make the required decisions to support such a basic reform in education. Of course we can’t. Remember most of them just talk and no more.

I believe the power of positive change lies in the hands of the media. The riots clearly demonstrated that young people use every aspect of the media to communicate and therefore we should use the media to educate.

With over 20 years experience developing and deploying training courses like Life Skills for Children, I have created a unique train the trainer system which could role out Nationwide over just a few weeks and months. 

I have the material to make the required changes and I am calling upon the media to assist by working with me to produce some powerful educational media to provide parents, teachers and young people themselves to learn and grow.

Prevention is better than CURE

Training to beat Bullying: First national survey estimates over 16,000 childr...

Training to beat Bullying: First national survey estimates over 16,000 childr...: "A very interesting read with some alarming facts.... In August 2010 Red Balloon Learner Centre Group commissioned the first national surv..."

First national survey estimates over 16,000 children are absent from school due to severe bullying

A very interesting read with some alarming facts....

In August 2010 Red Balloon Learner Centre Group commissioned the first national survey to ascertain the number of young secondary school children aged between 11 and 15 absent from school because they had been subjected to severe bullying.  The research was undertaken by NatCen, Britain’s largest independent social research organization, and was funded jointly by Red Balloon Learner Centre Group, the Foyle Foundation and the Anti-Bullying Alliance (ABA). Its findings are dramatic. 

The report estimates that of the six million young people who are in Years 7 – 10 and who attend a state school bullying is the main reason given for persistent long-term absence in between 13,400 and 19,600 cases. This research is the first of its kind to seek out the number of children self-excluding from school as a result of severe bullying. All previous research about bullying has focused on children within schools.

Questionnaires were sent to two groups of parents whose children were absent from school and whose absence was likely to be due to bullying.  The first involved children who are frequently absent from school, the second those who were home educated.

Commenting on the Report, Dr Carrie Herbert, Founder and Chief Executive, Red Balloon Learner Centre Group said:  “ This research has given a well-founded estimate of how many children are unable to go to school because they have been so badly bullied. We are indebted to the Foyle Foundation and the ABA for enabling us to commission this research, the first of its kind.  We know the Government appreciates the damaging consequences of severe bullying and of children missing education, including the long-term effects of low self-esteem and a poor academic record if these children are not recovered. Red Balloon has an impressive record of enabling the recovery of such children. 95% of the students who come to a Red Balloon Centre and stay longer than six weeks are able to return to school, go on to college or enter employment. However, to ensure this provision is secure Red Balloon needs the Local Authorities and/or the Government to set aside money to fund places at these intensive care educational Centres. ”

David Hall, Chief Executive, Foyle Foundation, added: “As a funder which supports learning, we considered it essential that Red Balloon undertake this important research which was a real gap and which will inform their expansion programme.”

Sue Steel, National Manager of the Anti-Bullying Alliance said: “The ABA welcomes the report commissioned by Red Balloon and hopes the findings will encourage government, schools and the wider community to address this important issue.”

Founded in 1996 by Dr Carrie Herbert, Red Balloon is the only UK charity that specifically recovers severely bullied children who are out of school and missing an education, through the provision of short-term educational, pastoral and social programmes.

The various research projects and independent assessments that have previously been undertaken have helped to clarify the whole bullying picture, from how many children are missing education to why they are bullied and to the best ways of helping them recover from its effects. This valuable quantitative research by National Centre of Social Research will complement the findings of Red Balloon’s own qualitative data collection, which includes interviews with Red Balloon graduates who left at least five years ago.  Independent evaluations from external organisations such as Ofsted help us complete the picture by validating our methods of recovery

Red Balloon, whose Patrons are Esther Rantzen CBE, founder of Childline, Doug Richard, a former ‘dragon’ from BBC Dragons’ Den and Professor Peter Smith, author, academic and expert on bullying, currently has four Centres operating in the UK as well as a virtual “Red Balloon of the Air”. Red Balloon works with Local Authorities, schools, parents and teachers to help severely bullied children, half of whom have considered or attempted suicide, to recover from the effects of their experiences.
 

Each Red Balloon Learner Centre provides a safe full-time learning environment for fifteen children aged between 11 and 17. The amount of time needed for students to recover varies from four weeks to three years. To date more than 170 of our students have been able to return to mainstream education or enter employment. With distraught parents of bullied children contacting us on a regular basis we have ambitious plans for growth.

Training to beat Bullying: The devastating affects of BULLYING

Training to beat Bullying: The devastating affects of BULLYING: "As i enter the fourth day of an intense mentoring course for disaffected young people, i can’t help but notice that one of the students in f..."

The devastating affects of BULLYING

As i enter the fourth day of an intense mentoring course for disaffected young people, i can’t help but notice that one of the students in front of me is nursing a slight limp. His normally active and vocal persona had diminished into a shy and reclusive shell.

As with any other session, i started by engaging in some small talk with the group to ascertain their mood and what their previous nights activities had been. It is common for me to receive negative and sometimes offensive comments as the young people within the course struggle to communicate positively hence their involvement on the course, however as a life skills mentoring tutor i always establish relationships with individuals on each course that feel comfortable speaking openly in front of their peers.

On this particular occasion, the young man with a noticeable limp of whom would normally speak freely refused to participate. Whilst attempting to encourage the student to open up a line of communication, he suddenly burst into a rage and started to use abusive language before using physical force to throw a chair in the direction of the entrance into the room.

One of the problems with working with groups of disaffected young people is that when one or two individuals become the focus of attention the remainder of the group use the slightest of excuses to create havoc. The abusive banter between the group is difficult enough to control, however dealing with individuals that sit on the fringe of the action and continually create surges of negativity can become a real problem.

In many schools classes might consist of one, two or if they are unlucky maybe three very poorly behaved young people amongst a group that in the UK would normally consist of between 25 and 35.

On the Life Skills mentoring course the whole group normally consisting of 20 young people have been identified as persistent bad behaviour offenders. This behaviour will range from having difficulty in complying to the rules of the school to the other end of the spectrum which normally involves a level of violence often fueled by drugs and alcohol.

Once the young man in question had calmed down the session commenced, however some glaring questions needed to be addressed preferably at the close of the session but definitely by the end of the 10 ten day course.

Over the next couple of days i witnessed this individual jump through a range of emotions from what can only be described as depressed to hyper active. It was clear that this young man was experiencing some difficulties but he never allowed anybody enough time to establish what the issues were in order for them to assist him.

I dedicated some serious time to establishing the views and opinions of his teachers, friends and finally his family and from these conversation a clear pattern started to develop.

This individual was a popular, bright young boy as he sailed through his primary education, however at the transition time when he moved into a new school, his parents noticed a significant change in his personality.

Initially both his mother and father put these dramatic changes down to hormonal changes as he was fast developing into a teenager. After all they could not see any other reason as to why their son would suddenly develop a very angry side to his character.

His first parents evening in his new school was a far cry from the previous events his parents had attending in his primary school. They were alarmed to be notified that academically he had fallen to the bottom level of achievement in every class. Several teachers painted a very negative picture of their son siting behaviour issues ranging from shouting at teachers to criminal damage on school property.

Most alarmingly his relationship with his parents, brothers and grandparents had diminished into nothing with constant arguments, violent rages and incidents of theft at home.

Some of his friends described his change in behaviour towards school and his home life was natural as they felt the same anger towards certain things as he did, however a majority of his friends were alarmed at how easily he would change his mood and as a result stopped hanging around with him.

Here was a young boy who in the space of just 12 months had completely alienated himself from his family and most of his friends.

In speaking to some of his teachers is was interesting to hear that the common belief amongst them was that home life for this young man was very poor and this was the reason for his self destructive personality. At this point i was a little perplexed as previous conversations with his family did not elude to his home life being in anyway responsible for his dramatic personality change.

Of course the answers to my many questions could only come from the young boy himself so a major enthuses of the Life Skills mentoring courses was to build enough mutual respect between the two of us that i could ask the questions that previously this boy had ignored.

An important part of the mentoring course is to educate young people in how to record facts around an incident so that it can used as evidence. Through the final days of the course i was pleasantly surprised to be handed a small bundle of reports from the young boy.

Upon further investigation i discovered that many of the reports were duplicates where he had written the same information down on paper several times.

A pattern quickly developed and without asking a single question it was clear that in front of me stood a young boy who had and was experiencing some severe bullying. This small bundle of reports was quite simply his way of asking for help.

Following this break through I took the opportunity to open a discussion and clarify some facts.
It seems 12 months earlier when moving to the upper school he had difficulty making the transition smoothly. After being the amongst the eldest in his previous school he was suddenly thrown into an environment where everything was alien around him. In an instant he was no longer one of the eldest instead he was one of the youngest in a school with a population five times bigger than before.

Like so many of his friends the early days in the new school involved having minor scuffles with older boys. On one occasion a minor scuffle turned into the start of a year long nightmare that would turn his life upside down.

Three older boys had targeted him for a barrage of verbal and physical abuse.

Initially it was easy to ignore the comments thrown in his direction as he thought they would get bored and move onto another individual, however after one particular incident when the group of boys decided to take their bullying tactics to a whole new level he realised that the situation around him was getting out of hand.

Angry at himself for letting the bullying get to such a bad level, he found himself hiding the bruises, cuts and grazes from his family through embarrassment. The longer the situation developed the more reluctant he was to tell his parents or teachers.

After several months of this daily grind on his personality he started to struggle to concentrate on anything else other than the bullying. He fantasied about doing horrible things to the boys as he saw this as the only way out of the situation and the more he thought about these negative thoughts the more he was aware he was treating those around him including his family and friends very badly.
 
School life became unbearable and he would do anything to be removed from class. Academically he took a nose dive and started falling behind on class work rapidly and the more the teachers tried to communicate with him the more frustrated he got.

At this point of our conversation i realised that we needed to collate as much evidence about these three boys as possible so we could finally put a stop to his ordeal.

He clearly recalled 23 incidents of physical assault and at the time of our conversation was wearing a couple of bruises and a swollen knee from when he was pushed down the stairs.

I decided to ask for his permission to open our conversation to include his parents and teachers, which by this time he agreed to.

It was disturbing to see the unbelievable damage these three boys had done. A happy, enthusiastic young boy had been bullied into becoming a violent, moody and very unhappy individual who spent every minute of every day thinking about ways to get rid of his enemies.

The consequence of this negativity was that he lost the relationships in his life that really mattered.

Thankfully, enough information was gathered to punish and remove these three boys from the school. In fact it became apparent that this horrible group had bullied several other young people over the same period of time. All of those being bullied failed to mention anything and thought they could deal with it themselves.

It will be some time before the young boy restores his confidence back to the levels it was before the ordeal began, but now that the situation has been addressed both the parents and teachers have started to notice a positive difference in his whole approach to daily life both at home and school.

Bullying is a very difficult topic to tackle and can clearly have some dramatic and devastating results on everybody around the victim.

The most disturbing part of this story was that in this particular school the boy had tried on several occasions to tell certain teachers but was swept away with comments like “Grow up and stop being silly”

This situation could have been dealt with much earlier but the listening and communication skills of some teachers is very poor.

Life Skills for Children unfortunately have to deal with similar situations on a weekly basis.

Please do not under estimate the damage bullying can do to an individual.


Further information can be found at www.lifeskillsforchildren.co.uk