Friendship

July 17, 2012

Friendship

One of the main attractions to our programs, is our dynamic staff. They are incredible. The children love them, the parents rave about them, and they truly love working with our kids. We are very selective when determining the right people to hire, and over time, we feel we have perfected the art of finding just the right team! The reason this seemingly small detail, is one of the unique things that sets us apart from other programs in Atlanta; is that the play our campers experience with our staff, is their first step towards developing healthy peer relationships. The children that come to our camps, typically stand back when in a crowd, they fade into the background, they may try to engage but the interactions tend to fail miserably, they make jokes that may be inappropriate, or they may push someone too hard in a game because they realize the difference between gentle and too rough. All of these factors, cause many of our campers to be labeled in other groups as, "too rough", "inappropriate", "too quiet", "too loud", "too aggressive", "too sensitive", etc. But, in our groups, we see those attempts at engaging as good sign, the child wants to play they just need some extra support to reach the same level of appropriate interaction as others. Our staff DO NOT sit back a facilitate, instead they play just as hard as the campers, and because of this, our staff become the campers first playmates at camp. They receive those inappropriate interactions and respond with verbal and non-verbal cues that help the child to understand why their behavior might be inappropriate. Once we have spent some time with a camper, they begin to trust the staff, and they start to understand the more appropriate ways to interact, we then start adding other campers into the interactions and support the play. This way, the children are able to "try their new skills out", with support when things go badly and praise when they go well. They start picking up on the cues the other child is responding with, and then organically, a new friendship is born. After this step is mastered, the children are then able to take these new skills out into less supported environments and find success when playing with new children.