Many of us have fears.
For some it’s a fear of water. For others it’s flying. It might be a fear of failure or a fear of success. This session plan idea is about helping youth identify their fears.
Spend time with your youth identifying some of the things they might fear and explore the reasons behind those fears. Sometimes just understanding a fear can go a long way in helping someone work to push through it. Just remember, if you’re not trained in therapeutic counselling – go slowly. Recognize when a fear identified by a youth is beyond your ability to help and refer them to a professional who can.
This activity will also give you a better understanding of their fears and experiences that will help you when planning and carrying out activities. Another benefit of this activity is that it doesn’t need any resources and so can be done anywhere, anytime.
Identifying Fears
Resources
None required. You can use a bag you have with you, a shoe or a chair. If you’re outside you can use trees, poles or rocks.
Instructions
Choose something. It can be anything in the room or outside. Ideally, it should be placed in the middle of the room or space where you are with your youth.
Have the group create a circle around the item.
Tell the youth that this item is going to represent different things.
Then tell them that you’re going to call out something and when you do, that is what the item now represents.
Explain that the closer they are to the item, the more they like it, aren’t afraid of it or feel comfortable around it.
Then explain that the further away they are from the item, the more they dislike it, fear it or feel uncomfortable around it.
Give an example like ‘chocolate cake’ and instruct the youth to move closer to the item or further away based on their feelings about chocolate cake.
Provide boundaries because some youth will be silly and will try to literally get as far away as possible and may delay the activity.
Remind youth that everyone has different things they like or don’t like, fear or don’t fear and that it’s okay to be honest. If you’ve set up your group agreement appropriately, they should all know how to make the group a safe space.
Potential Fears
Begin the activity and call out any of the following items – or make up your own:
- Water
- Chocolate
- Dogs
- Swimming
- Climbing
- Cats
- Boats
- Writing
- Flying
- Math
- Reading
- School
- Reading out loud
- Small spaces
- The dark
- Staying away from home
- Music
- Pasta
- T-shirts
- Dressing up
- Running
- Helping others
- Gardening
- Cleaning
- Heights
- Cooking
Keep the activity light by mixing in the less threatening items like ‘music’ and ‘t-shirts’. Customize your list to what you will be doing throughout the project. When I did this activity, I knew we’d be climbing rock walls or filling out worksheets at some point in the future. So I included heights and writing in the list to see which youth did or didn’t like heights or writing. This way, when the activities came up I was more prepared for behavior that reflected the fear or discomfort youth might be feeling.
During each round take a few minutes (not too long so the youth don’t get bored) to ask why someone is closer or further from the item and why.
Do as many rounds of the activity as you can in order to get the information you need, help your youth explore some of their fears and keep them interested.
This can be a particularly great activity before or during a residential, retreat or youth camp where there might be water and height activities.
Question: How do you help youth identify their fears? Please share your experiences in the comments below.
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