I’ve been thinking about you and about play, and have appreciated your posts when I have time to explore them. You may be interested to know that yesterday I started another Social Confidence Games group at South High School here in Bakersfield with 9 students. 7 of them are socially anxious–a couple to an extreme degree. Two of them are very understanding, fun-loving, but not overwhelming mentors who like learning and playing the games and are very patient with our socially anxious students. They participated with the group last semester, and were a great help in modeling for the others. Unfortunately the two mentors could not attend yesterday, and we really missed them.
One of the students was almost completely unable to play the Name Game where we take turns saying our name and then calling on another group member (I say, “Mike to Todd,” then Todd says, “Todd to Jesse,” and so forth). Another group member was completely overwhelmed by Freddy Tag ((Freddie Tag is on your list a Zombie Tag. Yesterday one film savvy group member had the brilliance to ask if it was named for Freddie Krueger, of the teen psycho slasher movies, Nightmare On Elm Street. It was. However game play more resembles Invasion of the body snatchers.) After the group she waited for the others to leave and then told me, “I didn’t have any fun today. It was too much for me.” Yeah. It probably was. I hope she’ll stick with it.
After name game we played Pass the Bump (slightly less physical contact than Pass the Pulse wherein players stand in a tight circle with fists outstretched and knuckles pointing toward the ceiling and rather than pass the squeeze of a hand around, they just bump the fist of the person next to them. My colleague and I developed this with our first “Social Confidence Class” we did with adults down at the Marriage and Family Center where we have our private practices. Yesterday we could pass a bump all the way around, backward and forwards, but we couldn’t pass one both directions at once, and we could only pass two bumps around when it was said out loud to the group ahead of time that there would be two bumps going around. That was an interesting gauge of the group member’s self/other awareness at this point in the group’s comfort level together. 
Then we had a blind relay race with the person running down to the end having to shut his/her eyes and being guided by a teammate. I demonstrated this with a more outgoing member of the group and modeled giving lots of verbal feedback so the person would feel more confident in his/her blindness. I think it was a great trust exercise for this early stage in the group’s development, and they actually really liked that one.
I’ll probably lead it again Wednesday with the new group I’ll be starting. Then we played Freddy Tag which was wildly enjoyed by some, and, as reported above, overwhelming to others. One group member chose to stand by the wall during that game. I joined her for a long portion of a game letting her know how much I appreciated her strategy of disguising herself as the wall. She wanted to clarify that she was not playing by telling me, “I’m not ready,” which I thought was great communication, and I let her know that whatever she was ready for or not ready for was perfectly fine. (I declared the “I’m not ready” disguised-as-a-wall player the winner since her strategy was so successful. I joined her in the strategy beside her at the wall the next game, and while I did it it worked!)
The last game was what we’ve come to call Fruit Basket (others call it Fruit Salad. I can’t remember what it’s named on your list, but it’s the one where there is one fewer chair than people and the person in the center says, “I like everyone who has ever [for example] been to the beach,” and everyone who’s been to the beach has to get up and find a different chair with the one in the middle trying to sit in an empty one before they’re all gone) which always seems to be a favorite of every group.
As I mentioned, Wednesday I’ll start another Social Games Group at Ridgeview High School as well. This one won’t be for socially anxious students, but will simply be part of a self-esteem curriculum that a group of students are taking. The top 10 to 13 students will be invited to play games once per week as part of their class under the auspices of improving their social interaction skills (which I’m sure it will, but they’re just in it for the games). So, one group with a clear and stated purpose and goal; and one group with a more open, let’s see what we can learn about ourselves and one another (and no, we won’t stop to talk about it unless people want to–which I don’t anticipate).
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Wow, lots of good work going on Michael. I like your “I like” game (Fruit Salad), it’s like Duck Duck Goose without the (sometimes) monotonous wait.
In the education world there is a concept “The Principle of Partial Participation”. It’s used with students with severe disabilities, but I think it should be used with everyone. It basically says that each person can participate in each activity to the level they are capable. For your wall imposter, that’s as close as she could come to participating, and good for you for honoring it, but also for giving her a way to “pretend” she was involved.
Love and laughter,
Lily
Despite my jitters, the first meeting of this new group went fine. There were six participants who had earned, mainly through extra good class behavior, the right to be excused from class to play. I really don’t know if those participating will be well incentivized to “fly right” over this next week to earn the right to play again, but those who did not get to participate might be as the report was that they were highly disappointed they were not chosen. I worry that the ability to lose the privilege could make it much less desirable (you never feel like you’ve fully earned something that you can lose just as easily), but I’ll have to explore whether there is a way students can be vested (attend x number of times and you’re no longer a probationary group member). That may be worth exploring.
We learned and played six different games. There was laughter each game (overall I’d say about a 6 out of 10 on the funometer with spikes up to about 8), and each new game I let them know that they would have to get good at that game to advance to a more difficult one: naming the more difficult game as a reason to stay tuned in (I suppose I borrowed that technique from TV. [“Here are some exciting scenes from next week’s show”]). This seemed to keep the students focused and interested, and I thought it might have the added benefit that if anyone felt the game was too easy, they would know more challenging games were coming up.
They fairly squealed when I told them that they would have to get very good at Name Game in order to be able to play Big Booty. They loved the name Big Booty and couldn’t wait to learn it. But alas; wait they must. I know—I’m such a tease.
There was a bit of aberrant behavior, but maybe not quite as much as I would have liked, and it was disappointingly easy to manage with such a small group (ok, I’m mostly kidding). It felt like a bit of jealousy mixed with some boundary-testing. I just redirected the students back to the game, and plan to talk with the apparent lead pot-stirrer right before the next group and challenge her to manage herself better. I’m hopeful she’ll rise to the challenge.
That’s my report.
Oh, by the way—people following this post may appreciate this brief article on Fun Therapy http://www.marriagefamilycenter.com/happiness/true-play-and-fun-therapy if they haven’t already read it.
Have some stellar moments,
~Michael