How to Reach Children and Engage Them

How to Reach Children and Engage Them : It is all too easy to throw the term “lived experience” around loosely. What I mean by the term lived experience is something you have actual experience with – something you can touch and actually be present at – something you can experience. Something that is tangible.

Something that you can hold and can identify with.

What I am trying to do in this article through this article is use the idea of lived experience as a way to learn about concepts and ideas that we have had and to help people learn about the subject at hand.

In the first example I mentioned, a farmer has his own field, he has made tools, he has sold the farm to make money and he likes doing what he does best, which is farming.

The reason he likes it is because he can feel the field, he can smell the honeysuckle on the ground and the insects buzzing around him. All of this carries over easily to his thoughts on why he gets up in the morning and goes to work. Lived experience works in the same way – you can identify with the characters, you can experience the event or situation, you can identify with the feelings and you can describe and do something with the information.

Identifying with the characters and the events is key to gaining access to the key ideas and concepts of lived experience. Ideas and concepts which are important to a core group of people. Like family or friends.

Simulating a situation or an event, in some way, allows you to identify with the characters and events. Like the friend who accused the party planner of sending her messages on a webcam. Or the initial intrusion of the parent entering the room without permission and screaming. Or any other situation which you as the trainer can identify with and help shape.

The ideas that you create for your scenarios should be based on the key themes you discuss in your scenario. Many people will agree that worst case scenarios are virtually impossible to predict, but this is the way that the scenario is most commonly seen played out. People are unable to do any better than to predict the same events and many times, they are spectacularly wrong.

I will discuss the 4 key steps in using Lived Experience and a lot of other techniques in coming up with a scenario, some of which I use in my consulting clients.

scenario:

You are a student of, or out of college, and you have been invited to a function at the house of a friend. You arrive at the party and find the conversation to have been distracted by the fact that your luggage has been left outside. It happens that the host of the party is in another room taking advantage of the decorative flowers that were left on the windowsills.

You are the only guest that has been invited outside and it is important that you take advantage of the opportunity to say hi to people and try to get to know them. You realise that in a way the holiday abroad you have been anticipating for so long is going to happen…for a short while. How will you manage?

You will get aerved for being invited to a social event at the house of a friend because the invitations were spread very wide and there were many well-dressed people attending.

You will be able to get a drink and say hi to people and it might even happen that someone you have not seen for a long time comes into the room and you can introduce yourself and start to have a conversation.

It might happen that during the conversation someone mentions they are with a literary agency and demands to know who they are. Or someone may start talking to you about your CV. You will not know who it is until later but it is important that you keep proof of your identity for as long as you can. And if someone tries to make money off you, you know now – you are in serious trouble. How to Reach Children and Engage Them

Don’t try to take the world with your head – you will hang yourself. First, check the general area for CCTV cameras. Do not go wandering around on nights and at places where friends and family are known to be drinking. If you are in an area where CCTV is being installed, do not try to film or have a camera on you as you will be easily spotted by the perpetrators. Personally, I would stay in areas where it is being installed but that is not my preferred choice.