Fostering safe havens at school
“Mary volunteered regularly in the classroom all through grade school where she was able to be helpful and connected to the teachers, classmates and school climate. Now that both her kids are in middle school, the teachers don’t have activities for her to be helpful in classroom so she feels disconnected and can’t assess how her kids are doing as well.”
It was so fun to hang out in the school when my kids were there. For me there is no group of people living more fully than children. They live in the present moment and are so alive it is infectious. Plus of course, I got to see my kids in their school environment and get to know the other kids in the classroom and the school staff to boot. So figuring out ways to expand kids learning and have fun too was always a priority. I was always on the look-out for ideas to bring in. Here are some after-school activities I did in my kids school, even when my kids weren’t in them.
- Baseball club in grade school: I was so discouraged by the amount of time a family gives up to baseball and I wanted to bring back the ease and love of the game I had growing up playing pick-up football every fall and pick-up baseball every spring and summer. Parents bought hats and snacks. We meet weekly and played a round robin game with 8-9 kids.
- Girls Science Club: In middle school, I felt so useless in the classroom. When I found the AWSEM curriculum at the Saturday Academy in Portland, it was a way to share my love of science with girls. We met weekly doing science experiments, like collecting germs in the boy’s bathroom and drinking fountain and growing them on a culture, making GAK and Oobleck, and building and firing rocket ships. We also visited businesses where women mentored the girls and shared a hands-on-activity with them. This was so fun I did it over the four years my two kids were in middle school.
- Girls Sports Club: I was discouraged by the drop out in physical activity by many kids, especially girls, by age 10. Why? Parental involvement in sports has brought in seriousness, fierceness, and winning at all cost. Kids just want to have fun. So I wanted to bring in fun, life-long, physical activity back. We choose: self-defense, yoga, kick-boxing, and Tai Chi. The girls had a blast.
- Pottery Club: I wanted to involve the boys, so I came up with the idea of a pottery club. It worked. A few boys came to the first session and created some fantastic little sculptures. But they didn’t come back. I realize now I needed to make it more boy friendly by calling it Mud Club and having each session end by throwing a wad of clay at a target on the wall. That would have kept the boys there.
There are an infinite variety of things you could do with kids. Just think about what you and your kids like to do. Think of what would provide a safe, inclusive feeling for kids and talk to the school about it. Other “safe havens” ideas for school
- Lunch fun room: help create a safe space for kids who don’t feel comfortable on the playground or in the library. It could have a foosball table, board games, puzzles …
- Girls and Boys Night Out: great for breaking down cliques and building new friendships, like all the girls in 6th grade spend the night at the school, with teen mentors, friendship discussions, and FUN. Dads run the boys’ event.
- Girls/ Boys Support Groups: kids who are marginalized or frequently in conflict with others can benefit tremendously with facilitated discussions with their peers. An excellent source is www.girlscircle.com and www.boyscouncil.com for resource guides and for training. School counselors are excellent at running these and selecting the kids. PTA can pay for it. It can markedly reduce bullying, as well as empowering each kid.
- Running Club: a PE teacher offered this during recess at school. The kids had a big graph hung conspicuously that they posted their progress on. It ended by running together in the Starlight Parade Run in June.
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If I knew then what I know now,
I would have encouraged the formation of clubs during lunch recess, a tough time for excluded kids.
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Hi! I’m Dr. Kathy. Welcome to my website! Although Family Empowerment Network is formally closed, we want to keep these resources available to you. Our belief is that parents are the most wise and intuitive about what is best for their children. However, parents sometimes need the support of effective, timeless, compassionate parenting information and strategies. On this website you will find our three parenting books on boys, girls, and kids’ social lives and ten years of monthly newsletter articles. In addition, a powerful, under-recognized resource is the support of other parents. Here you will find how to use our books as discussion guides for monthly self-led parenting groups. One last resource: I am still available to give talks and workshops.
