Yesterday, I was able to go to my first BLT training, which is BBBS code for “Big-Little Training”. If you are not familiar with the work of BBBS, they focus on one-to-one mentoring pairing caring adults with children in our community facing a variety of challenging life experiences. The “Bigs” and “Littles” are required to attend one of our monthly BLTs to focus on relationship building, but also to have the opportunity to talk to our staff one-on-one about any concerns or areas of growth present in the relationship. The hands-on experience and SEEING the relationships I’ve been helping recruit for throughout the past seven (or eight?) weeks was exactly what I needed this week.

When the matches were separated into the respective Big and Little rooms, the kids were a little bit on the shy side. They were uninterested in the planned activities, they were giggling while our staff was speaking, and they refused to participate. One child in particular had several outbursts and said several rude remarks to a member of our staff. My initial reaction was shock, and I was very taken aback by the comments from this young child. Overthinking the situation led me to wonder if a youth non-profit would be for me, is this something I would be able to handle?

Coming into work today, there was a debrief about the BLT. The behavior of this child was mentioned, as the staff all felt similarly shocked by his behavior. One of my colleagues explained that after talking to his Big one-on-one, she learned his parents are going through a divorce, with the only working parent losing their job, and their housing situation is extremely unstable and volatile.

Hearing this confirmed this was where I want to be, and this experience was much-needed for my personal mindset-check. The reason I want to be in this space is to defend the children that other people put down. To understand an outburst may be because that is the only way that child is seen at home, or he/she is experiencing a trauma with which they have no coping mechanisms to handle. Many teachers, friends, and community members in their life point to and pick out their poor manners, behavioral issues, and sudden outbursts, but no one tells or SHOWS them a better way. It is easy to look at a child acting out in a quiet room and label him/her as a “bad kid”. But in the words of Dumbledore himself, “Soon we must all face the choice between what is right, and what is easy.” We have to start viewing our kids holistically and asking ourselves not “How can we punish this behavior?” but “What is the source of this outburst and how can we help the child overcome this?”

BBBS works with kids like this every day to defend their potential. I truly believe that it only takes one caring adult to show a child their value and for them to believe it.