Interpersonal conflicts sometimes arise at full day camp programs. At Mindful Sports, we take a non-punitive approach to helping kids learn to manage these challenging situations. We check in with kids first to ask how their feeling, honoring their current state and validating their narratives. Then, we’ll offer our feedback on their behavior and our guidelines if needed. We want all children to feel safe at Mindful Sports, and understand that they can feel anything they want. However, we do need to also help them learn to work within a set of agreed behavior terms, such as not putting their hands on others. Our mindfulness skills can help in moments like this, but only after continued practice and reinforcement. When we’re feeling activated, it’s often too difficult to call on new skills. With repeated practice and training, kids can begin to slowly trust to try out mindful practices and see how they may be able to help when they are in conflict.
This is a repost from August 2022