Introduction
Below you will find the audio podcast recording. The transcription will appear within 48 hours. I have left comments on, however please only comment if you are a LUNCH Groups® participating family, otherwise it will be deleted.
Audio Recording
Transcribed Text
Hi, parents, this is the audio progress note for group #3 for the middle schoolers. We had new students tonight. It was definitely an active meeting and we had a total of 12 group members tonight. We will have one or two more who will join us next time and then we should be pretty full.
We had one student who was a newcomer and was having a hard time adjusting to group, that's the bottom line, and I expect that it will get better. It really does put into play that when you have someone who's having a hard time, how does the group respond? What was wonderful is that the group basically didn't respond. So in other words, they didn't take a problem and make it worse. That was really nice to see. There was no teasing.
Probably the biggest problem we're having, you might remember me talking at one point about our happy impulsive kids - well, that's who we're having a problem with it's our happy impulsive kids and we don't want them to accidentally get injured. One of them was just standing one minute and the next minute he fell down. Another one bumped into a table at the very end of group and there was someone sitting at the table. So these are the kinds of things that are happening and we want to help them be more aware. I'm convinced that self-monitoring helps them self-regulate but let's go back to the beginning.
They came in and we were going to do LUNCH Points, but it turned out, none of their parents gave them LUNCH Points. Hopefully, between now and next group (beginning of November), there is plenty of opportunities for you to go ahead and give your child a LUNCH Point certificate. If they turn it down, fine, but you want to have at least gone through the effort of offering it to them and making it something meaningful.
We talked a little bit then about LUNCH Points [during group] and I made sure that your kids knew what kinds of things they can do to earn them. They were really clear about that and they participated. We also spent time talking about, well, we will have to do a few of our nicknames. And what was interesting, for those of you who came in to see any video, was that a child had difficulty with their nickname last time, but it wasn't a problem this time. That's one of the things that's so important when you're dealing with oppositionality, or sometimes even impulsivity, that it's important to practice and take time to make sure that you're not focusing on the problem, you're focusing on the solution. And what I mean by that is if your child, say, for example, swears, telling them they shouldn't swear isn't the issue. Grounding them, taking something away - If it makes you feel better, fine; otherwise there's no real research that indicates that it helps. Having them practice saying something that is meaningful and gets their emotions out or feelings out or point across, without the swear language, that's where the money is. So I'm hoping that that's something that you can adopt.
We watched a video and it was the same video I showed the group yesterday, but my plan was to kick it up a notch developmentally because they're elementary school students and you have middle school students. Behavior in the group made it such that we just were not as efficient today as we would have liked to have been and so things moved more slowly and we didn't get to really do the summary that I had hoped. We will pick that up next time because I want them to finish this exercise and activity. It helps with oral comprehension. It helps with their academic readiness skills so they can quickly respond to something and they can do so on point in class. Then we will use that as a springboard for being able to create our own animation in November. I'm pretty sure we do have two meetings in November but pay attention to the calendar. In November and December, we will most likely have two meetings, but some of the groups only have one meeting so the calendar will always be updated.
Also, if you're not attending the parent meetings and haven't had a chance, there are more parent meetings coming up. There's a webinar tomorrow night (Thursday). There is a parent meeting this Saturday and the invitation will go out on Thursday. Then there's another parent meeting next Thursday morning - lots of opportunities.
Back to group once again! We finished our project in terms of talking about it and going through some major points and then it was time to go off to Jersey Mike's. Well, again, walking with your kids - it's almost a little harder walking with this group and having them do it safely than it is with the younger kids because they're kind of rule-oriented and your kids have gotten more creative. The teens actually are also not quite as enthusiastic in terms of the various ways that they try to vary the way that they walk and things of that nature. So we just work on basic safety basic awareness, not being too loud, and being aware of your environment. And that was a lot of today. So in Jersey Mike's they sat at tables. As you'll see in the videos, they were constantly talking and enjoying themselves. Everyone but one child ordered something. For that one child, we gave lots of opportunities, and then I also contacted the parent, just to give them a heads up. If ever you get a call from me, it doesn't mean something terrible is happening; it simply means that your child, maybe has engaged in some behavior that I want to give you a heads up about.
They ordered sandwiches and they had some chips. We made it a soda night. They have their sandwiches and we hung out there for just about an hour, maybe a little bit longer. It was a nice good quality dinner time. Then, we left at 6:25 to get back to you on time, but we were having safety issues again.
When there are safety issues, we're going to stop. We're going to talk about it for a moment. We're going to have them practice. We had to do that about four times. And that was when one of the students fell down. That was when one of the students bumped the table. That was also when a student decided that that was the moment to put their arms inside their shirt while they were talking. We're working on a lot of what I'm going to call these pivotal skills and self-regulation self-awareness. All of that is what we're working on: how to sit in the restaurant, how to get up in and out of your seat, asking someone else to move rather than crawling under a bar that was never meant to be crawled under. All of those are the kinds of things that are happening at the moment as we're helping the group settle in.
If you have any questions, don't hesitate, you are welcome to email me as often as you wish. In the meanwhile, hopefully, you'll be able to come to one of the different parent meetings and participate in the webinar. If you can't attend the webinar live, you can hear the recording. Thanks so much for listening.