Children imitating you...

Question

Okay so I'm a CIT at this one camp. It's a theatre camp, and I'm with the youngest group (4,5, and 6 year olds) SOO... yesterday i got placed with a group of about seven of the little boys to go over their lines. It went well, but they got kind of bored and fidgety. Eventually, one of them started imitating me, and then they all did. I had no idea what to do! I decided to go over the ALL lines, where they all talk (They did very good on those) by reading them out loud and they would all imitate me. Unfortunately, there were only 3 all lines, and that wasn't very productive. I'm great with kids, just not with punishing them. Whenever I tried to say: Stop. or :Be serious you guys. (etc) they just imitated me. GACHAIDGHFSIUGHF what should I do if this happens again? (I eventually brought it to threatening them that if they didn't concentrate they wouldn't be able to play tag afterwords. This kind of worked...)

Answer 1

GACHAIDGHFSIUGHF? Be more stern in your voice. Threating kinda works?

Answer 2

I'm not sure what to tell you about the question you asked! BUT...I just wanted to remark on STORMY S.....again! She is soo freaking rude and contrdicting! WHAT A *****!!!!!!!!!

Answer 3

Next time you do it - before you even start just lay out the ground rules.  " if there is any unacceptable behaviour and you will not be playing tag etc" and then also try to motivate them with ' hey you guys did so well at the ALL lines lets hear you do your own lines just as good'

Reward the good behaviour and ignore the bad behaviour as far as possible.

Stcik in there boys can be so hard at that age!

Added: I just read stormy's response and want to tell you just to ignore her!  Has she ever looked after children of this age and 7 of them???  You are doing a great job!  There will always be parents who think their children are just angels and slag off people who work with them (whilst parents are elsewhere, leaving their kids in camp)  I am sure you will learn from this experience and use it in your training t further improve.  Good luck

Answer 4

Eyeroll to Stormy S. 8(

But to the OP- this isn't that unusual... they obviously don't really respect you or believe that you are in charge.  So here's a few ideas:

- Keep them going ALL the time from one activity to the next so they don't have the energy to do that.

- Let them know ahead of time that ____ will happen when everyone is a good listener and ____ will happen if there is misbehavior

- Discipline the kid acting up- not ALL of them, so for example, the child acting up gets ONE warning. After that- he is not allowed to play tag with the others.

- Make sure you don't give them too much attention for doing these things. If they see you get flustered or if you give attention to bad behavior- they ALL start doing it b/c it seems like a game.  Quickly address it and then move on to the next acitivity!

You sound like you will be an excellent Counselor one day- this is a hard job, which is why they have you start as a CIT so you can learn.  Be sure to ask your head counselors for advice/support so they can help!

Answer 5

Goodness are you sure you're mature enough to be a CIT?  You sure don't act it.  These are small kids and they were bored.  You made their boredum worse by forcing them to go over their lines.  So they were making you feel as uncomfortable as they were feeling.  They were teasing you and you let them get to you.  That's not very mature.  And you may as well forget about "Punishing" them because you are not there to punish anyone, that is not your job.  Your job is to make sure they don't get into something that is unsafe and to keep them entertained.  If I ever got wind of a CIT (counselor in training) punishing any of my kids that would be the last time he/she was a CIT.  I suggest you grow up a bit before you try to take on small children because you're not ready to even be a CIT right now it's doubtful you'll ever make it to being a full counselor...

Give me the name of your camp so I can make sure I don't send my kids there.  The counselors are obviously not doing THEIR jobs and the CITs are too immature to do their's.  I wouldn't want my kids subjected to such problems.

By the way any camp that allowes untrained minors to "punish" children are looking for lawsuits because only counselors are allowed to "punish" children not CITs.  You are not qualified to punish a child period.  You obviously have the terms DISCIPLINE and PUNISHMENT mixed up...again you are too young to be doing the job you are doing.  I feel sorry for the children in your care.

Answer 6

You need to stress to them that you are in charge, not them. Maybe take a break when they start acting bored, a cool drink, a water break, or just outside running around a bit. I have two seven year old grandsons and they can be a "treat" at times believe me. Distracting them or even doing time outs seems to help as long as my voice let's them know I'm in charge.

Answer 7

if they copy you say words they can't possibly say, like 'antidisestablishmentarianism' HAHAHAHA.

or 'how much wood would a wood chuck chuck if a wood chuck can't chuck wood?'