by Mike Peercy, Executive Director of Fostering Grace

If you’ve worked with kids much at all, then you’ve almost certainly asked the question: how can I correct this behavior?

It’s easy to focus on the most visible part of the whole situation—the outward behavior. After all, how can you do any growing, and real teaching or helping or coaching without some basic discipline? But hold up a second. Is it possible we have misunderstood what that whole “discipline” concept really is?

Maybe we need to ask a better question:

How can I connect with this kid?

If that seems backward to you, then I need you to pause for a moment and consider the very term we who work with kids often throw out—discipline. What does it mean?

It is a form of the word disciple. That word often goes straight to our religion category, but it really just means to teach. When we speak of discipline we are really talking about teaching someone to come along on a journey of learning. If we come at this purely from an authoritative posture and demand compliance, then we are placing the value on behavior. That will work with some kids and in some circumstances, but does it produce the kind of results we are really seeking?

When we approach a kid with a deep sense of their inherent value as a unique and precious being (and, of course, created in the very image of God), we begin to elevate relationship over behavior. Then, from the gravity of relationship, we have so much more capacity to impact behavior from the inside rather than purely from an external, positional place.

So the better question is simple.

How can I connect with this kid?

What kind of questions can I ask to learn what they are interested in? How can I see what makes them smile? What kind of attention hits the mark with their wounded heart?

Maybe you ask what kind of music they like or what their favorite video game is. Then ask them what they like about it. LISTEN to them. It is a simple human reality that we are far more likely to be heard if we will take the time to listen. And it may take a lot more time than you would like. Some kids with trauma backgrounds can sit in silence like a stone wall for hours before they can loosen up enough to talk. But what they desperately need is someone willing to invest the energy in them to do that work.

Maybe you go for a walk. Kids with trauma history are often very averse to face to face conversation with new people so walking side by side is much more comfortable. Maybe you take turns shooting the basketball or tossing the football. You might try some sort of craft or exercise together. It requires only that you are willing to keep trying and you keep your eyes and ears open.

If you want to influence their behavior for a lifetime, you have to begin by connecting. Our friends at the Karyn Purvis Institute of Child Development have put together some fantastic resources and strategies under the umbrella of Trust Based Relational Intervention. The heart of this approach (called TBRI) is connection. It comes from the recognition that relationship is the most powerful means of healing broken hearts and rewiring the neurological damage caused by traumatic experiences. It begins by asking better questions.

How can I connect with this kid?