Service Project
So far I am about half-way through my hours for my service project. I am currently spending 2 hours on Friday afternoons at the Malone center, located on 22nd and vine ish. I spend time with a diverse group of children, ranging from 5-13 in an after school program. Many of these children are under privileged and can be very difficult at times. The tough part about working with these kids is understanding their background before you discipline them or try to deal with their problems. I find it very difficult to discipline these children for I fear them not responding to it well because they have never really been disciplined before. For instance, I feel like it would be necessary for me to discipline kids for using foul language, however so many of them use it, I can’t punish them all.
Realistically I would like to work with these kids and help them, but so many of them are stubborn and angry, they do not deal with confrontation or discipline well. I, as a volunteer, understand that is not my responsibility to watch each kids every move, making sure they don’t get away with inappropriate things, but I feel like I don’t have the responsibility to punish the kids. I have noticed that the kids do not respond well to passive instructions, things like, “can we not play like that” tend to go unheard but comments like, “if you play like that you will be in trouble” are often effective. I struggle handing out mandates to these children; I have been programmed to at first work with the kids then if not listening, pursue more a more aggressive style. I honestly am still working things through, trying to figure out the best way to work with the children. They all seem to enjoy my company, but that may be due to me being willing to play with them on the playground rather than stand around. But for a first glance at how things are going, I hope this is what you were looking for.
