We are grateful for God’s trust in the team to bring another group of kids from diverse background to HopeKids the past few weeks.  It has been a great challenge to connect with these new kids so much so that we are frantically doing boundaries training for our volunteers as well as learning about it ourselves. Having just came back from a talk by Dr Lynette Tay, a clinical child psychologist with the team, I think it’s a good time to formulate how I personally think it should be done. This is how I do it….

How to Help a Child with Disruptive Behavior

Step One: Be calm
Sounds easy but it takes great spiritual strength to remain calm especially when confronted with having to help a child who has disruptive behavior.

Step Two: Address the behavior and state it as it is
Decide to be better trainers (and not wimpier) so don’t ignore the behaviour but address it with the child. Say to the child with this standard clear statement “You can’t do this (state whatever) because it’ll harm/disturb/hurt/(state whatever reason) others. You are to care for others”.  As ‘caring for others’ is a rule in our HopeKids service, it should be affirmed as the preferred behavior. At this point, it is very important to know that while they may not respond to you, but they will HEAR YOU so the clarity of your reason and terms is important.

Step Three: Wait for the war to be over
If you are calm, regardless of how crazy the disruption is, the behavior will lose steam. Observe them and wait for the time when the child stop whatever disruption that he is doing or becomes completely calm.

Step Four: Re-state what is stated in Step Two
Go back to the child in that less emotional state and do some reflective listening to find out what has happened. Whatever it is, ensure that you reinstate what was stated in Step Two, using the same reasons and terms. For example, tell the child “Do you know that you cannot (whatever) because (whatever reason or impact to others). You are to care for others. We love you and enjoy having you here but you cannot do what you just did because it xxx others. Do you understand?”.  Let the final impression be a good one, so a hug, a good job for the other times he did not play out or any positive remark will help the child know that its not them but the behaviour that is not acceptable. They will also look forward to come back because you cared to go through this with them

We pay so much attention to children who has disruptive behavior because we know that their strong will, persistence and hard headed-ness may just be the X-factor needed for them to one day become very strong leaders for God. And maybe the turnaround is that the conformists may end up as wimpy ones and this group lead to change the world