Challenging Behaviour

Today and tomorrow we're spending some time thinking about how to deal with situations where kids' (and adults'!) behaviour may be confrontational or otherwise difficult. Stories that would make your hair stand on end from Matt Edge...

So we've had Staff Conference over the last few days, with the Scottish contingent escaping (and returning to, no doubt) the white-out north of the border.

Not sure if such immense conditions descended on Kent or South Wales in the three days everyone had together at Frontier, although the (lack of) heating situation is still probably enough for the Taffs at Summit Centre to contend with. Please pray that they'll get that back - it can't be much fun to come in from the cold only to have to hunker down even when there's a roof overhead.

A huge bunch of new people all together is not, to be frank, my idea of a comfortable three days; 'challenging behaviour' was my choice for this post's title not without an undercover personal dimension. My default behavioural traits of reserve and quietude predictably kicked into gear. Having said that, the emergence of a table tennis table defibrilated my enthusiasm. Apologies to all who got the sharp end of my catharsis!

The pool table also got an extremely decent work-out. There's something about the confined space of the baize that makes practice terrifically moreish. Perhaps that's just my perfectionism asserting itself, and unsurprisingly my unattainable standards weren't slaked during the frames in which I contended with myself.

It's another example of the extent of devotion to exactness that you need if you are going to get really good at anything. I remember listening to Desert Island Discs once, where Digby Jones plumped for 'a video of one hundred examples of excellence' as his luxury - whether that was craftsmanship, oratory, musicality, acrobatics, whatever. Watching someone do something with aplomb is an undeniably enjoyable experience (unless you're Terry Butcher in 1986).

Yes, I know the reference tags me as immutably middle-class (as does the word 'immutably'), but the cliche that if something's worth doing, it's worth doing well, ought to be levitated above cliche level. That's what I've tried to do during the ten weeks we've been here, and although that frequently makes me slower than others, I'm convinced that comparisons are less important than valuations.

Something that I'm just about to commence that also will take a lot of dedication is my latest sponsored challenge. Psalms 120-134 in the Bible are a distinct set of songs that travellers to various festivals used to sing as they journeyed on their way to Jerusalem. I've set myself the task of memorising them all - 99 verses in total: 15 psalms in 14 days.

You can log on to the website, or text 'RKUK99' followed by the amount in pounds you'd like to donate, e.g. £1, £5 etc. Find out more at www.justgiving.com/ascendingthepsalms, which is the page you can donate through if you're so minded.

Nearly Christmas, but still a barrel load of water work to get through before we can pull the plug on 2011. The big news is that I've got a laser eye surgery date of 25th January, and by the end of February I should, God willing, be able to kayak without having to de-mist the specs after a capsize!

Later!