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Two Surefire Tips for Handling Groups of Kids-Love themUnconditionally and Plan Extensively
When my first born turned five I invited about twenty kindergarteners toour home for a party. Because of inclement weather we held the party indoors.Thinking a peanut-in-the-shell hunt would be a great way to keep the kids busy andhave fun I carefully hid the peanuts before they arrived. Naively I explained therules of the hunt to those cute little faces turned up to listen to me and then Ipronounced the fatal word, go! Wow did those kids have fun! As for me I ranaround catching lamps, saving pictures from being knocked off the wall and keepingchildren from swinging on my drapes! What a fiasco! Fast forward to 2009 I nowhave forty years of experience working with kids. I’ve accumulated some tried andtrue tips I use every time I am in charge of a group of kids. The following two tipswork with almost every group every time.Tip one is to love kids unconditionally. Mr. Rogers from PBS’ Mr. RogersNeighborhood said, “Love isn’t a state of perfect caring. It is an active noun likestruggle”. Boy was he right! Every once in awhile, while working with kids, you willfind a child in your group who is hard to handle and even more difficult to love. Iremember one little boy who was terribly annoying. He disagreed with everything Isaid, interrupted much of the time and would not follow instructions. I felt terriblyguilty that I couldn’t love a four year old! I determined I would love that kid andbring him back from the dark side before the end of the year. I struggled forseveral weeks to praise him no matter how small his effort. A couple of monthslater this little guy actually became one of my favorites.Tip two is to extensively plan. If you don’t the children will make up theirown plan which will probably include things like chasing each other, knocking overchairs, whining, tattling and a headache-yours of course! Last winter thirty peoplecame to my home for appetizers. Eleven of my guests were children from age’s fourto ten. A week or so before they arrived I sat down with a piece of paper to outlinethe events of the afternoon much the same as a football coach planning for the biggame. I tried to visualize what the guests would be doing and how they would bemoving around my house. I made a detailed list of events from arrival to departure.I knew the adults would be OK but what would the kids be doing? I researched thenet finding many helpful web sites for age appropriate activities. The suggestionswere easy, fun and affordable. I chose a few ideas. Because of the large group, Ialso thought through how best to use the rooms in my house. The big day arrived. Iset up a table filled with a variety of craft items I bought at the dollar store.Downstairs there was a soccer table, bean bag chairs, a WII, an egg chair andanother small table for crafts. When the kids arrived they quickly made friends.The boys gathered around the WII to play virtual games and the girls worked onsimple crafts that didn’t need adult supervision.
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