Recently CALO students and staff returned from a three day camping trip here on the beautiful Lake of the Ozarks.  The focus of our trip was communication.  As the students paddled from campsite to campsite on the lake they participated in different activities that required them to dig deep and utilize the communication skills they have been working on over the last few months. 

One particular challenge that went surprisingly well was the CALO cook- off.  Groups of four or five students were assigned to prepare, cook and serve different meals to their community.  It was entertaining to watch as students worked together to serve one another.  One meal that was particularly delicious was the fried catfish.  Armed with little chunks of hot dogs students fished late into the night when the big catfish come out.  Our students were able to catch enough fish to fry up and serve with Top Ramen. 

There were several hiccups along the way as students were forced to work through their communication issues while paddling their canoes.  Day two of the trip was spent paddling eight miles.  There were several frustrations that really challenged our students to work together.  Students became visibly frustrated with the heat, with the lake and with their own canoe partners at times.  Almost without exception our students were able to calmly, appropriately and respectfully address these frustrations and come up with solutions.  This allowed us to cover a lot of ground quickly leaving plenty of time for waterskiing, tubing and wakeboarding.

For our next sequence we will be exploring the relationship between trust and deception as we learn to fly fish.  We are confident that there will be many great lessons ahead.

With summer in full swing CALO students are spending quite a bit of time on the water.  It has been a refreshing and fun change up in the recreational therapy curriculum to focus on communication while having fun behind the boats. 

By now most students have passed off their entire swim test and are working very hard to pass off each step of their water skiing test. This is not an easy test.  Each student has to complete the following tasks:

Having completed each one of these difficult tasks our students will then have the opportunity to choose their next area of expertise which may include wakeboarding, knee boarding or wake skating. 

There is a phrase that we use quite regularly here at CALO, “Every moment is a therapeutic opportunity.”  There have certainly been many therapeutic opportunities while teaching the students to ski.  Recently one of our female students who had never successfully skied before went out on the boat and refused to try skiing.  As she put it, “I am afraid of failing, and I don’t want to fail in front of all my peers.”  With some gentle encouragement and a lot of support from her friends she finally took the risk of getting out of her comfort zone.  She got up and passed off her one minute ride on her third pull. 

It is not uncommon for this type of success to become contagious and enter other areas in our student’s lives including academics, canine therapy and family relationships.  The arena is different, although the principles are the same.  Calculated risks taken under the supervision of trusted adults create opportunities for increased self concept and confidence.

As you know, we get emails and letters from former students from time to time. I got a short one from a former student just a week or so ago. She wanted me to pass it on to our front line staff. With her permission I am also putting it in this blog post. Here is what she wrote--unedited:

Hey CALO Today is my prom!!!!!!!!!!! ill send pictures later this week!!!! I have adopted a 10 year old Boxer from a family I know who's moving away. Her name is Samantha but we call her sam or sammy. ill send pictures of her also later this week. I have my license now. I heard the shake it song today and it made me think of the good o'l times on the boat! I am still looking for work and have not been so lucky finding a job although i could be trying harder than i am. My parents and i are getting along much better from when i first got home. My dad and I are closer than we've been in a REALLY long time. I hope all is well there and i miss all of you guys. When you see ranger give him lots of love :)

I know it is not a long email but it is just the right length to give all of us at CALO a picture of how this young lady is doing. It is hard to express how happy it makes me to read her words. You see, I (with one other staff member) was the one who picked her up from another program about two years ago. Officials from that other program had brought her to the airport to meet us and we escorted her to Missouri. She was dressed scantily and had quite an attitude. She came across as angry, entitled, and emotionally dangerous. I was alarmed for her and hopeful she would decide to make some changes. Her stay with us was difficult but ultimately productive and she has blossomed beautifully. She does not resemble the young lady I met at the airport at all. She still has an intense personality but it is channeled in all the right ways. She is intelligent and thoughtful. She should be very proud of what she has accomplished and the wonderful young lady she has become.

What is the collateral damage to children that experience confrontation which is unsafe?  The damage is immeasurable. Emotionally and behaviorally children need to experience healthy confrontation which sustains the characteristics of safe parental relationships; consistency, dependability, reliability, predictability, caring, selfless, and loving.  When children can feel safe within confrontation, they are able to appropriately assimilate the message being given as well as experience sensitivity to the relational meaning of the interaction.  This relational meaning allows the child to experience empathy for what the parent is expressing while sustaining the self worth to be motivated to change the action or behavior.  This type of safe confrontation preserves the personal value of the child and increases their positive self-concept (motivation, self-efficacy, empathy, drive, etc.).        

When the confrontation is unsafe, the emotional and behavioral damage can be immeasurable.  Unsafe confrontation is experienced when there is a leveraging of personal value, spitefulness, resentment, hostility, pride, defensiveness, aggressiveness, sarcasm, and abuse.  This type of confrontation reinforces a child’s insecurities and sense of shame.  Since the child cannot feel emotionally safe, they are apt to internalize this relationship as flawed due to their own inherent lack of worth or value.  Creating this perception of worthlessness is extremely detrimental to the child’s self-concept and their ability to trust in healthy relationships which inevitably face conflict. 

Engaging in safe confrontation is essential to partaking in meaningful relationships.  A child’s ability to feel safe is the foundation from which they build their capacity to emotionally and behaviorally regulate and interact interdependently with others. This ability to regulate becomes the cornerstone for social, relational, and environmental functioning.  A parent must ask themselves if they are providing their child with the essential experience of safe confrontation. The collateral damage is far too great not to.