The Camp Kesem Behavior Management Strategy

  1. Understanding behavior & choices
  2. Helping kids develop positive behavior
  3. Staff Communication & Teamwork – clarity & consistency
  4. New philosophy on negative behavior – roles, responsibility, & role modeling
  5. Logical consequences vs. Punishment
  6. Age based discipline strategies

Understanding behavior and choices: Why do kids make the choices they make?

Kids make choices based on a set of underlying principles or ideas

  1. How do I fit in with the rest of the group?
  2. What do my friends think is cool and/or not cool?
  3. What can I do to be more (or sometimes less) socially central?

Simply put, they ask, “Am I cool?”

  • They are looking to figure out how they currently relate to everyone else

Kids have insecurities “the Freak Out”

  • Known
  • Clothes, friends, abilities, race, gender, etc.
  • Unknown
  • Family history, recent trauma, associations, etc.

Kids create coping strategies based on wanting to fit in and connect, then having an insecurity about those connections

  • Healthy
  • Make new friends, actively participate, seek out adult reassurance, etc.
  • Unhealthy
  • Withdrawal, bullying, acting out, etc.

This is turn creates a web of connections to the immediate peer group and the camp community at large. They create a social space where they exist based on the expectations of others learned from the choices they have made.

Which feeds the cycle as each kid continually reassess how they fit and are connected to everyone else (back to “Am I cool?”).

If we know that they make choices based on this reliable cycle, then we can help them manage their choices by manipulating the cycle.

Am I cool?

  • Get to know everyone in the group
  • Games, activities, distraction
  • One-on-one time
  • Create strong group identity
  • Group responsibility, jobs, and duties

The freak out

  • Different leaders / pairs for games
  • Non-competitive choices
  • Diverse choices and variations of activities
  • Process & procedures = culture (Were you explicit about your expectations? Do they know HOW to do things?)

Coping strategies

  • Teach to the undeveloped skill (more on this in Problem Solving and Conflict Management)
  • Praise good choices
  • Offer them choices they can actually make
  • Will I let them do this?
  • Appropriate choices
  • Choices that boost responsibility

Connection

  • Variety of small group experiences (small groups within cabin or core unit group)
  • Diverse choices and variations of activities
  • Creating cabin/unit rules or expectations (as a group)

Training Suggestions:

  1. Introduce them to this cycle and the concepts in each stage. Then have them brainstorm different ways to manipulate the cycle. Use the ideas of prevention and intervention to have them come up with ways that this can be useful. Even if there are ideas that they already do (i.e. like playing name games on the first day) have them frame it or explain it using these new ideas.
  2. Have them identify and discuss how they themselves are going through this process. What are their insecurities, how do they cope, etc.
  3. Constantly review and connect this cycle to other sessions or ideas you are presenting during training.
  4. How does this topic/idea relate to one of the stages in the cycle?
  5. What may cause campers to feel insecure during this procedure/time/activity?
  6. Why do you think a camper would make that choice?

Examples:

Bullying

  • Using this framework actually makes Bullying & Teasing behavior normative (albeit still unhealthy and damaging). It is a coping strategy that some kids use to create connections. I prefer to talk about bullying in this framework because it takes some of the “overwhelming” out of the concept of it. When we frame it like this, staff understand it better and can even identify with it, then it seems more doable to prevent it or intervene when it is happening.
  • Instead of seeing bullying as a lack of social skills, this framework assumes that bullies are actually fairly socially adept. The whole point is to help counselors identify with bullying as a strategy for creating connections and relationships, that way they are more apt to actually see it when it happens.
  • If that is what we know they are trying to do when they pick on another camper, then the most effective and logical consequences are to take away the power of the group, thus breaking the cycle of social centrality.

Kids are not listening

  • Thinking about listening using these ideas gives the adult a completely different agenda for what they are saying.
  • How can you foster connections, limit insecurities, teaching coping skills, etc. by giving better directions, instructions, expectations, or guidance?
  • How can you include the kids in more of the discussion?
  • How can you make them the expert?

Campers are being disrespectful

  • What does the camper have to gain by being disrespectful? How does it elevate them in the eyes of their peers? Who are they being disrespectful to?
  • If it is a new counselor to camp, then the solution may be for that counselor to become more familiar and a part of camp culture. The camper that “picks on” the new counselor is seen as someone that is carrying the torch for camp and that respects the history and culture. It is more than “I know more about camp than you” although it may come out that way. Kids are deeply connected to the culture at camp and someone that cares about the culture and traditions, seems knowledgeable about the HOW of camp, and is clearly liked and included by other staff will have more respect to begin with.
  • Remember that being disrespectful is a coping strategy for feeling some sort of insecurity. How can you turn that around by making it desirable and “cool” to do the opposite or to be respectful?

Helping kids develop positive behavior

In order for any Behavior Management technique, strategy or idea to work there are 4 big ideas or principles that we have to train to the staff, teach constantly, role model ourselves and really believe in.

  1. Selective Negative Focus
  2. This is how they learn
  3. How you feel about it won’t help
  4. Kids are in control of their own choices

Selective Negative Focus

Most kids (in fact most people) do the right things most of the time, as adults in their lives (or as anyone with power over someone else) we take a passive approach to managing 99% of the behavior we see. It is only when they screw up that we feel we need to “do something” about it or take a more active approach. There is actually a psychological term/condition that refers to this, it is called Selective Negative Focus, which is the tendency to not only dwell on the negative but to actually screen out what ever contradicts it (in this case all the positive stuff kids do).

Lets instead decide that we are going to actively and consciously ENCOURAGE AND SUPPORT all the positive behaviors that we see constantly that are a part of everyday life. For this to work however, you have to do the hard work of seeing and recognizing all of this behavior as conscious choices (see What am I looking for?)

This is how they learn

Kids have a natural ability to figure out what they can get away with depending on who is around. How do they do this? They are constantly testing the limits and pushing on the boundaries. They are learning how to navigate through life by doing this. When they get away with something one time and not the next, it teaches them that adults (or at least that adult) is inconsistent and may not be trustworthy.

How you feel about it won’t help

Too often adult’s emotions cloud their thinking about a particular behavior from a camper. No matter how mad, upset, angry, disappointed, frustrated, or whatever the adult is, that won’t necessarily help the camper learn from their mistake. When our emotions and feelings are at the forefront of our discussions or leading our thinking on consequences it is harder to be fair, consistent, and clear with our expectations and any particular consequences. However, there is some camper behavior that upsets us, therefore we need to get help and support during any or all of our behavior situations.

Kids are in control of their own choices

This is the one that seems obvious, but is usually not how we actually handle behavior, especially when we train counselors and frontline staff in how to talk to and handle specific situations. It is not our job to control their choices, it is not our job nor is it possible to control the decisions that kids make, we can only be there to help support and encourage good choices and to deliver consequences for bad choices. WE ARE NOT DISCIPLINARIANS, they are. They should be the active player in any discipline strategy.

What am I looking for?

Getting what we want = knowing what to look for

Teach your staff (and your selves) to always ask themselves that essential question whenever they are with kids, “What am I looking for?” The answers that they need to come up with are the life skills, values, characters, etc. that are important and integral to your camp.

According to your website The Camp Kesem Difference is:

  • Fun, friendship & memories
  • Tools to be confident
  • Develop skills to last a lifetime
  • Self-confidence & pride through challenge
  • Encourage discovery
  • Strong sense of family
  • Healthy & active lifestyles
  • Encourage new experiences
  • Nurture individual interests
  • Improved social skills

So, if that is the difference between Camp Kesem and every other camp out there, then you have to be really good at helping campers develop those skills. If that is what we are looking for then what do we do when we see it and how do we actively engage in role modeling and teaching it?

Praise

Teach counselors how to specifically praise the behavior they want to see.

  • Be specific
  • Say something you saw or observed
  • Praise the process, not the product

Practice

Teach counselors how to practice not only seeing the behavior, but actively setting up opportunities for kids to practice each skill (just like having patience at Archery or persistence at the climbing wall)

Present

Teach counselors how to present or teach a skill when they see the opposite. Instead of just telling a kid to stop name calling (disrespectful), we should be talking to them about how to be respectful.

Training Suggestions:

  1. Develop 20-30 typical scenes or scenarios that happen every day at camp. Make them purposefully vague and not necessarily noteworthy (i.e. There is a group of kids playing basketball and one of the campers fouls another one pretty hard. He immediately says he’s sorry and shakes the other camper’s hand.). Then have the staff in small groups try to come up with as many life skills as possible that they might be looking for in this moment.
  2. Make a list of all of the activities that campers do at camp. In small groups have the staff develop lists of life skills that campers could learn and/or be presenting during each activity.
  3. Do a life skills brainstorm, just like rainy day activities.
  4. Decide on themes for each week of camp. Keep the list to only 3 or 4 skills. Those are the specifics that the staff will be on the lookout for.
  5. ROLE MODEL – make sure that every member of the leadership team is doing this everyday with their staff.

Examples:

Bullying

  • Bullying and teasing do not happen as isolated incidents or inside a vacuum of behavior. They are tools in a range of social choices and strategies. Just that framework alone will help counselors and staff see more of the positive behavior and praise it.
  • Bullying mostly happens under the radar of the counselors. They just don’t know it is happening. When we work really hard at identifying and encouraging positive behavior (i.e. self-confidence, strong sense of family, improved social skills, etc.) campers will be better able to handle bullying situations when adults are not around. The will also be able to relate to and trust counselors more and hopefully let them know when something is happening behind their backs.
  • Most bullying behavior happens in conjunction with more pro-social behaviors (remember it is just one tool). Identifying, encouraging and supporting those behaviors will go a long way to helping. However, combining that idea with the concepts in the first section, those pro-social behaviors need to be seen by the camper/bully as effective strategies for creating connections. So, when counselors see someone being nice or inclusive they need to do more than praise the behavior. They need to point out and reinforce how that behavior helped achieve their goals of connection.
  • Getting the rest of the group or the bystanders to walk away when someone is being mean or picking on someone else does this effectively.

Kids are not listening

  • What are you saying and how are you saying it? There could be any number of reasons why kids aren’t listening. What can you control?
  • Make listening part of the game: attention getting tricks, make up nonsense rules, have them decide what the rules/expectations are for an activity, etc.

Campers are being disrespectful

  • Most of the time when kids are being disrespectful to adults or to other kids it is a misguided attempt to create a connection with others, show how confident they are, push limits and boundaries, etc.
  • Work to recognize these same skills in more positive moments to validate the HOW of the skill instead of criticizing the WHAT every time they are being disrespectful
  • Practicing “present” or replacement is key here. You have to talk to kids about what they should be doing instead of just telling them to stop what they are doing.

Staff Communication & Teamwork – clarity & consistency

Ultimately, none of this will work if the staff aren’t working together as a team and delivering clear and consistent messages about kids’ behavior and the consequences to bad choices. The staff need to be trained and managed based on three areas:

1)Attitude

2)Knowledge

3)Behavior

If they don’t believe in what you are doing (attitude) then no matter how much they know they won’t do the right things (behavior). You have to convey the message to them that this is vitally important to the mission of the camp AND it will make their jobs easier as counselors and frontline staff. You have to get the emotional buy in or the belief in these principles for them to be effective. It is hard work to take this approach, it will be easy for them to slip back into their old habits if they don’t have the right attitude.

Knowledge is what you teach or train them on during orientation.

Behavior is what you see them do, how you respond to it, and how you support and encourage their efforts.

All of it has to be consistent from the beginning for this to really be effective. It starts with the leadership team. You have to actively train these skills and this new way of thinking, you have to role model these skills both with the staff you supervise and whenever you are interacting with kids, and you have to be there to support and encourage the counselors every step of the way. When they get frustrated you have to be there to talk them through it and send them back with more resources or a willingness to keep trying.

Training suggestions:

  1. Do several team building exercises and other training activities that emphasize team building and communication. Use those moments during training to reflect on the importance of presenting a united front to campers. Debrief miscommunication and what if feels like, sounds like, and looks like. Discuss how the best teams function, how people treat and support each other, and what it means to role model behavior (and of course how their role modeling helps others with camper behavior).
  2. Develop a consistent communication system between the counselors and each other, their supervisors, and other leadership team members about camper behavior, unit/group/cabin issues, and anything else. STICK TO IT! Remember you are helping to role model being clear and consistent.
  3. Develop and practice ways of creating very clear expectations for the procedures of camp. The HOW of camp. Role model how to make sure people are listening and effectively expressing expectations.
  4. Based on this document and/or other ideas, develop both a basic philosophical approach and practical strategies for dealing with challenging behavior. Role model these things by talking about it and practicing it all the time. Tell them WHY we are doing it this way, help them believe in what we are doing. Give the counselors specific ideas about what they can and can’t do. Give them the power to act within these guidelines and then reinforce and support their decisions. Name it.
  5. Discuss favorites and how this is so damaging. Relate that to how people give different consequences to different kids and how it is the same thing. Role model this all the time.
  6. Develop a system where every bad choice is talked about. In order to be consistent with the rules and consequences they must be respected.
  7. As a leadership team, break down your training sessions and identify how you are affecting: attitude, knowledge, and behavior. If you can’t make a clear connection between the content and one of these categories, rework it, add to it, or otherwise change things up so you do.

Examples: