The latest workshop from our Soul Shoppe is Clean It Up: The Sorry Show where the kids practiced using the restorative tool, the Clean Up, to resolve problems for good and continue developing emotional self-awareness and self-management, social awareness and relationship skills.
Here are the tools your kids are learning – use these at home instead of “Sorry” whenever your kids make mistakes or hurt others and need to Clean It Up!
The Clean Up: Our five-step restorative justice process for resolving problems and changing our behaviors so the problems don’t keep happening. When we make a mistake, we approach the person we hurt and say –
- I know that I . . . (admit what we’ve done)
- I apologize. (apologize sincerely)
- What can I do to make it right? (Listen to what they need to make it better now, and what they need next time to avoid it happening again)
- Next time I will . . . (make a commitment for a positive behavior we will do next time.
- Will you forgive me? (shake hands, shake it off!)
We Are Powerful: When our actions affect others, it doesn’t mean were “bad” – it actually means we’re powerful! If we recognize our power, it’s easier take responsibility for our actions and take steps to make things right for all of the people we impact. When we can re-frame kids’ mistakes positively as part of how they’re powerful, it also helps them build social & emotional skills and grow from their challenges.
Asking for Help: Cleaning our problems up means doing more than saying, “Sorry!” They may need help moving past embarrassment or denial and figuring out how to deliver a Clean Up in the first place. Your students often need help to keep themselves from repeating the same mistakes: this is a normal part of their development. If they practice thinking about what help they need to stop problem behavior and how to ask for it, they are both growing their social emotional skills and working through their challenges.
Please ask your kids what they learned at Soul Shoppe. Have them teach you The Clean Up. Discuss how you might use The Clean Up as a family, and recall times when you have made a mistake (kids love when their parents admit to mistakes!) and model the Clean Up. When parents model cleaning it up, our kids learn it’s OK to make mistakes. Help your child think about what they can do next time they’re angry or hurt to take care of their feelings instead of making the mistake again. Can they stop and breathe instead of yelling at their sibling? Can they ask for help instead of excluding? Cleaning it up is so much better than “Sorry!” Feel free to let us know what your kids think and send us any questions you have! – The Soul Shoppe Team