The Friends & Family Board with Older Students & Reminding Children of Their "Why"

0:00 so what I did was I took that year and I said okay I'm going to try a couple pieces of it because I don't want to try and do too much and end up not being able to keep the ship afloat so I put in a friends and family board I put in wishwell and I put in greeting and we rolled with those for that year and you know the friends and family boy was probably the biggest hit in the room

0:21 because whenever certain kids would begin to have issues I could tap them on the back and say hey don't you take a trip back to the friends and family boys what I would use that as as I would use it as motivation because with my kids being a little bit older I would kind of say to them hey that's your why you're in a picture with Mom and Dad there that's your why yeah and so that was the

0:44 way that I was able to convince a lot of the kids to to stay on target or come back kind of when they're in the weed so to speak bring them back onto the path and be able to finish or or or continue whatever we were doing what is something that like you have a story of some kid that you just it just spoke to you and your relationship with that child and you saw a turn around do you have a a

1:09 kid that kind of Pops in your head about that yeah absolutely um so I do have a young gentleman who uh I had him in fifth grade and I put a ton of time into him and I put a lot of time into all of my kids but I remember with this one specifically um his life story without going into too much detail mom mom did time and is out now and Dad is not around so basically he was raised by

1:37 grandmother along with his brother and his cousin grandmother was doing the best that she could and she asked for help one of the things that I consistently hammered home with him was and he was able to bring me a friends and family picture so I put the picture up there and I said hey you know T this is your why this is your why we do this every day so whenever you need help just come to me or you can take a trip back

1:58 to the board I said let's breathe and obviously we did all the other skills and things too that that we need that are a key part of Consciousness but with him it was the breathing and it was just taking a moment to gather himself um he struggled academically so there would be times when we'd be doing activities and I could see him getting worked up I could see him getting frustrated I could see him begin to kind of go there and I

2:21 could just kind of make eye contact with him it would be very quietly and we have the we have the breathing techniques so I made very quietly while other kids weren looking just kind of do this with him or I may kind of do this and it began to work over the course of the year so he would not blow up he would not explode he would he would literally look at me and and he's now a seventh grader and

2:45 now I've reconnected with him because now I'm in this different position and he uh stopped me in the hallway and told me a story uh a few weeks ago about how he was almost in a confrontation with another student and something told him to take a step back and just breathe so when he told me that I said okay wow it was worth it I'm glad I'm glad T I'm I'm really happy that's exciting