Annoying Children?!?

[collissimon]

What do you do when one camper is annoying his bunkmates, often to distraction, yet s/he is not intending to do so? There is something about her/his behaviour that stops those around them from getting along as a group... however it is all unintentional. They do, however realise that they aren't friendly with the rest of their cabin, and this upsets them.

What would you do?

[camper]

hmmm this is a tough one. i think that what you have to do is suggest things to the camper without making it seem like he or she is being annoying, for example if he or she interrupts others constantly, say, "i think it's important for us to all remember to respect someone else when they're talking and wait until they're finished before saying something!" or if he or she is sitting on others' beds without asking and it annoys them, say "don't forget to ask someone before you sit on her bed!"

[collissimon]

That's a good point camper, and if it is that kind of behaviour can be dealt with quite easily.

However (cue dun dun dunnnn music(!)), what if it is something that is not so easy to describe? For example, I had a kid last summer, who if got anxious would ask lots of questions that he already knew the answer to, which really irritated the other kids.

Or, if it's something to do with different maturity levels, i.e. some of the kids think themselves as older or cooler than one of the others, how do you deal with that?

:D

[Melk]

Something I do with my campers (cause I always get the ones that ask a lot of questions) is make signs with the dayley schedual and a calander of what games are going to be played that week. I read it to them the first day and if they ask questions about stuff I say to them "You know where the answer is"

One time I had a camper that asked way tomany questions so I had her ask another counsleor all her questions.... she ended up asking him why he was mexican.

[collissimon]

I like that! I do that too, but usually the kid I have in mind used to ask really random questions, about the activity we were doing. I used to tell him he was only allowed three questions a day, so he had to choose them very wisely!

[c3divers]

Sometimes when I get a child that likes to ask question after question after question, I like to throw it back at them. I try to make them figure out the answer. Usually when a person keeps asking questions over and over, they are not thinking themselves they are just firing off questions. It teaches them to really start thinking for themselves. I also sometimes tell them to write down their questions and that we will look at them at the end of the day. where we will have a question and answer period with the whole group.

[collissimon]

That's a really good idea!

How do you stop the other kids from getting annoyed at that camper?

[Sparkes]

You know, I find peer pressure factors in after so long. Kids get ticked off with ones who ask questions all the time, to the point where the kid won't ask questions any more.

[collissimon]

[Just to be more awkward :D]

What if the kid doesn't have let level of social awareness? (which the one of my campers didn't last summer...)

[runrachrunn]

[Just to be more awkward :D]

What if the kid doesn't have let level of social awareness? (which the one of my campers didn't last summer...)

That might be a good opportunity to sit down with the whole cabin and do a general lesson on social skills, manners, etc... Never hurts to have the reminder.

That's sort of tricky situation... Collis, does your camp not make a concerted effort to help the kids with this type of thing? It would seem to me that there are many kids at your camp that may have such an issue.

[collissimon]

We do have a range of different schemes to try and help social difficulties, we have a Support Intervention Team (SIT) which can help with crises, but also runs a weekly Tribes session, which helps (hopefully!) air grievances and helps with 'things we need to work on'.

We also have Bunk Expectations/Pledge etc., which the kids usually create on the first day, and sign, giving a clear commitment to certain values from the beginning. The younger ones also have group points, which are rewarded for positive group behaviour.

I have to admit this is the hardest behaviour to address in a lot of ways, in some ways it's easier if they just flip out on you! But, if you have an irritating camper who has no awareness of how he is irritating others, just that he is, which lowers his self esteem etc. How exactly do you address this behaviour: by trying to adjust his behaviour, or the rest of the bunk?

Last summer, we did a bit of both, asking for tolerance and politeness from everyone in the bunk, but also restricting some of his behaviour as well; such as the number of questions and redirecting him to more positive behaviour. It was a strange situation, because most of the time I'm convinced he was confused by the non-verbal signals flurrying around him, but at the same time he knew how to manipulate some of the other campers to react, which would irritate them/get them into trouble, at which point he would laugh at them for doing so. I wonder if he was laughing to hide discomfort, or he was realising that he had a level of control over other people: he wasn't happy he got them into trouble specifically, but that he was getting some kind of reaction.

[CAMPFRIEND]

I think that all of your ideas are great. But I am sure that we all know that we will still have those kids:)

[amnickel]

We had one camper this summer who was very loud and obnoxious and if you gave her any attention at all she'd just get more and more obnoxious. Not usually what you think would happen.

We figured out that if when she asked something you let her ask it but didn't answer it she'd quiet down. I know it sounds like we were ignoring her. But if her question was an actual question that needed to be answered we'd answer it. Most of her questions were ones like "why is the sky blue"

I was talking with one of the chaperones one night about her, and he said he thinks there might be some family issues behind it. A couple weeks later I ended up seeing how her family is through my other job. There are family issues there. There's 2 other ones besides her(one older and one younger) and the 2 siblings and both her parents are on her case about everything and anything. AFter seeing that, it kinda helps understand why things are the way they are.