Malcolm Gorrill
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 07/00) - Workshops on a new approach to disciplining children will be held next week at the Development Centre next to the District No. 1 School Board office.

The workshops will be put on by J.H. Sissons school, where staff adopted the Restitution Program this year.

Librarian Lynn Taylor explained the school began casting about for new ways to deal with discipline about two years ago.

"What we discovered were the works of Diane Gossen and William Glasser," Taylor said.

"They used a process based on choice theory or control theory. It's really a process which helps a person understand why people behave in the first place."

Taylor said all humans have five basic needs. They are safety or survival, love and belonging, achievement, fun, and freedom (choices).

"Our behaviour, the way we act, is always purposeful in order to fulfil one of those needs," Taylor explained. "Even wrong behaviour usually has some reason why it's happening."

Taylor said that instead of being punished, children who break the rules are given the chance to rethink their actions and to make amends.

"It helps them to understand themselves in a much, much better way," Taylor said.

"The goal is you want to effectively be able to fulfil your own needs without interfering with someone else's," she said. "It takes time, it takes learning, it takes a lot of patience."

Taylor gave an example of a situation which she dealt with. One student had knocked down another's snow castle, after which the builder hit the transgressor.

Taylor said right away she told them she wasn't interested in assigning blame, she only wanted to know the truth.

She said it's important "they don't feel blame or guilt, because once a person feels that they get defensive, and they don't look for solutions."

Taylor asked the first boy why he knocked the castle down, and when he said he wanted to play with the other child, she asked him if he thought that was a good way to accomplish that.

Taylor then asked the castle builder if he had told the other kid to stop, instead of hitting him.

Taylor said her intention was to get the kids to think how they could have acted differently. She said in the end, the one who wrecked the castle offered to help rebuild it. His offer was accepted.

A Restitution 1 workshop takes place Tuesday and Wednesday, and is open to teachers and parents. On April 14 and 15 a Train the Trainer workshop takes place.

Each workshop costs $150.

As well, on April 13 at 7:30 p.m. a free information meeting on Restitution will take place at the Development Centre office.

Those seeking more information can call Taylor at 873-3477.

"We've offered other public workshops in the past. Community organizations that deal with young people are very interested in this process," she said. J.H. Sissons has received tentative approval for a project from a program within the Department of Justice called the National Strategy on Crime Prevention. If it goes ahead, a model of Restitution called the Peace Table will take place next school year.

"We want to train a local corps of people, so we can offer this training ongoing to community groups," Taylor said.