Boy Group | Communication Strategies | Wk 1

Friday marked the first session of our Boy Group series, COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES. Throughout this series, we will explore connection and recognition through the Boy Group lens of THINK, WRITE, TALK, DO, BE.

We began our investigation with a reading of Jeff Coomer’s poem, “Some Advice for Clearing Brush.” The poet asks the reader to “take a moment to be certain of what you’re cutting,” and reminds them “never to begin when you’re angry.” We talked about how much of communication is non-verbal and how we might begin to recognize the signs and signals of our friends, parents, siblings and teachers.

Recognizing feelings begins with naming them. The boys worked with a “feeling chart,” first finding words for their emotions and then acting them out in front of the group. We worked toward and understanding of cause and effect: “I feel that way because…”

One boy said, "Sometimes when I ask my sister over and over and over for something and she doesn't respond and she won't look at me, I get upset. And I ask and ask. It's not until she looks up at me and I see she's upset and she's pushing me away that I realize I should have looked at her first before I kept bothering her."

We encouraged the boys to build their emotional intelligence by continuing to try and express themselves in the world, but to also be aware of the complexities of other peoples emotional state. We worked on picking up on social and emotional cues.

We welcomed new members to our first ever 6week Boy Group series and began to make new friends.

Next week, we will begin to talk about how awareness creates connection. We’ll work on ways of starting conversations and building deeper friendships.

Thank you for sending us your boys. For many of us it was our first meeting together and I'm excited and honored to spend the upcoming weeks getting to know them better.

Until next time,

Mike Rindge

#boygroup #communicate #letstalk