Friends & Purpose

If I were to make a shortlist of things we all need for a fulfilling life, friends and purpose would be at the top. While we all value those two things and cherish the ideals they represent, navigating them in practice can be quite difficult and disheartening at times:

• We don't always realize want we need from our friends.
• We don't always know how to show up for our friends.
• Our friends don't always know how to show up for us.

Likewise, we may know we want to do things that we are passionate about and to make a positive impact on our communities but we don't always know what those actions are or how to go about them.

That is why we have both an upcoming KRUST workshop for kids on friendship and an upcoming Community of Communities workshop for adults on finding your role in transformational change. I'll be talking more about the Community of Communities workshop in my next email. For more about KRUST, keep reading below.

What makes a good friend?

Being a good friend requires a degree of self-awareness and social skills. As adults, these are skills we have hopefully acquired over time but as parents they can be difficult to pass on.

Asking an eight-year-old what it means to be a good friend might get you a blank stare but working with them to make an interactive image of friendship becomes a game where they create and express meaning through a familiar modality: play.

Growing the approach

This being the forth KRUST session, we are continuing to grow the process. First off, my son Alejandro will also be my facilitation assistant for this session. He has attend the previous sessions so far and so he has a good understanding of how they go. His feed back on the session plan that Gab (of Bmore Transform) and I have developed is also useful to ensure it will be fun and engaging for the kids.

We are also now extending our approach to a cohort model so we can build on these friendship skills. This will be two sessions for kids currently in grades 2 - 4. The first is on April 26th looking at what it means to be a good friend and how this school year has gone. The second one will be on September 27th to remind the kids of what they learned in the April session and focus on how they can be the friend they want to be in the new school year.

Finally, we are moving it to the wonderful community bookstore, Dreamers & Make-Believers, and adding a registration fee to help support the costs of the work. The registration fee is sliding scale so please don't let the cost prevent you from signing your kids up.

As always, we are continuing our collaboration with Bmore Transform to develop these sessions. Their knowledge of early childhood development and liberatory education is always challenging and insightful. I recommend checking out their other workshops as well.

Please share with other parts who may be interested. I look forward to seeing you there!