6. The Aspect Compass and Setting Limits

Becoming Centered

This episode uses The Aspect Compass to frame the role of a Residential Counselor as serving as The Chief function with the clients to set limits, to help regulate, the kids’ emotions, cognitions, and behaviors.

When residential staff don’t set enough limits, you’ll see a phenomenon called contagion. This comes from firefighting and describes how a fire will spread from one tree to another. It’s also used to describe how a disease will spread from one organism to another.

The Artist responds to emotional appeals, highly dependent on your relationship with each kid. This can work quickly to regulate kids, but has the downside of “do it for me” and so doesn’t necessarily lead to inner growth in self-control.

The Scout responds to questions. This can lead to more thoughtful behaviors but is dependent on the kid being cognitively organized enough to think before acting (or speaking).

The Warrior responds to commands. This can work quickly, and may be crucial in a behavior crisis. However, cooperation is preferable to compliance. The goal is always for the clients to become more independent and to learn more self-control, rather than just obeying.

Check-In’s help each kid’s inner Artist learn how to use words, or a rating scale, to express emotions, rather than acting out.

Likewise, being a skilled listener, asking for clarification, getting kids to use different ways to express themselves, develops their inner Artist’s abilities to communicate.

The Low & Slow approach and Organized Activity help each kid’s inner Scout become organized enough to think before acting. Every time they “practice” becoming more cognitively organized, it becomes easier to do (on a neurological level).

Implementing program structures in a consistent and predictable fashion allows kids to make the connection between their own choices, their own behaviors, and positive and negative consequences that are enforced by staff. This trains their inner Scout in understanding a key way in which the world works, rather than believing that things just happen to them.

Playing with the kids allows them to co-regulate their neurology with your own. This helps emotionally soothe them and cognitively organizes them.

When you do have to blatantly be directive, two excellent related strategies are the Forced-Choice and Weighted-Choice techniques.

The Forced-Choice Technique is when a counselor presents the client with two choices, and won’t engage in any unrelated discussion.

The Weighted-Choice Technique is when the counselor presents one of the choices as being more attractive. Nevertheless, the client still gets to choose and may decide on the larger consequence. That’s unfortunate, so don’t make the weighted choice too disproportionate to the situation, but either way you’re still developing the client’s executive skills, forcing them to exercise their inner Chief.