Relationship Advice Blog Relationship Bliss

Have you ever been part of a therapeutic group? Group process is a good forum to teach behavioral expectations and problem solving in the middle and high schools. This is where relationship skills can be generalized. With a trained facilitator that works to develop a cohesive group, students will be drawn to openly discuss their trials and tribulations with one another. The facilitator will create a forum to teach students and have them practice new relationship skills in relevant ways.

The group will keep each of its members accountable to follow through with problem solving activities. Group members will provide peer pressure to those that refuse to resolve conflicts. This will have a greater impact on resistant students than their receiving pressure from a group facilitator. As a teenager, did your peers influence you more than an adult? Each group will contain those students that will initially test the patience of the remaining members. Facilitators will need to allow for some distractions and for peer pressure to address negative behavior.

Groups should consist of a gender and racial mix if all possible to allow students to test one another’s beliefs and attitudes to promote healthy conflict. This will promote realistic situations for students and prepare them for the adult world.

Since many of the behavioral expectations may not be demonstrated or evaluated in the classrooms, the group process will serve as a forum for students to practice and evaluate these behavior expectations. The group process will also serve as the forum for students to practice problem solving through role-plays. Have you ever play acted? Try it some time. You will see how much fun this can be. The goal of the group would be to help students recognize their actions, both positive and negative, and resolve issues. This will be a system that is grounded in a rational approach to relationships.

The group process will teach students how to be assertive by communicating to students that hurt them. The facilitator’s ability to prompt frustrated students to use “I statements” during escalating moments in the group is extremely important. The student’s irrational instincts will be to verbally attack the other student or to withdraw. The facilitator will need to intervene and prompt students to take ownership for their thoughts and feelings. Have you ever been asked to make an “I statement”? This type of statement takes on the following structure: I (felt, thought, behaved) in such a manner, because you acted in such a manner (in which I saw, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched).