Risky situations

I taught the 7th lesson of my 22-session cognitive skills class tonight. So far, the group has done very well - for the most part they pay attention and participate in discussions and do their assignments. It appears that things have been clicking up to this point.

But tonight, they just didn't get it. Last week we talked about identifying thoughts and feelings (mind you this is a group of youthful criminal offenders, not PhD candidates). Anyway, tonight's lesson was to follow up by identifying the RISK in those thoughts and feelings that have the potential to lead them into trouble.

The group had the hardest time grasping the idea of risk. They could pick out the most prominent thought or emotion, but they couldn't comprehend that some of those ideas, if followed through, would create additional problems in their already complicated lives!

I was really bothered by that. Have been worrying about it for the past couple hours -- what did I say wrong? what didn't I explain adequately? were my examples not clear? were they just not listening? ((how do you teachers do it?!!)) -- but I finally got it. If they were able to identify risk as well as the rest of us in the free world, they wouldn't have gone to jail in the first place! Okay. So we'll talk some more about risk next week, then start working on new thinking to replace the risky thinking. I have faith, I think they'll get it soon enough.