Games Students Play: Muffet

"Miss Muffet"

(Be sure you have read the introduction to these "games":Games Students Play)

This is a youth to youth game. As originally described it is probably a little sexist. I'll give a synopsis of the original, and give a male to female equivalent.

• The idea behind the game is to be offended by someone of the opposite gender. The female to male version is commonly seeing a double entendre where one was not intended; deciding a guy is “stalking” them because they are in the near vicinity; viewing (and articulating among friends) that a teacher, coach or youth leader is “inappropriate” because of some innocent verbal or physical expression; so on and so forth.
• The male to female version can cover some of the same issues (inappropriate), but is more likely to be seeing hostility on the part of the female that is not there, “she's so mean,” or interpreting something said as a “come on.”
• To break this game, start by under-reacting in order to cut some of the drama. If you were not there when the original offending comment was made, you are not in a position to comment one way or the other.
• If you heard the comment and viewed it different from Miss/Mr Muffet explain how you heard it. Don't say “you're wrong” just “here's what I heard.”
• If the offending party did say or do something questionable, even if innocently, out of everyone's earshot take them aside and explain how their words/actions “could” be interpreted.

Games Students Play -- Only you and I are cool...

(Be sure you have read the introduction to these "games":Games Students Play)

"Only you and I are cool, and sometimes I wonder about you."

We've all noticed the two people in a group that hang back, sit in the back or to the side and are obviously putting themselves outside of whatever is going on. Yes, it is a defense mechanism, but it has a built in judgment of what is going on – they are too cool and the activity is too dumb.

• Breaking up the game is best done before it begins, in order to avoid direct confrontation.
• Have the room arranged in an inclusive fashion, and don't let it be changed as people come in. If the group is sitting on the floor, don't let someone pull up a chair, etc.
• Recruit one of the two to do something
• Have an adult sit with them
• Use mix and match groups

Games Students Play -- The Kick Me Kid

(Be sure you have read the introduction to these "games":Games Students Play)

"Why does everything always happen to me"

Youth game. This is the youth that seems to wear a "kick me" sign. They expect everyone to pick on them and many oblige them. Their reward for playing this game is the freedom to whine, complain, get attention, even retribution. This is not a matter of blaming the victim and does not justify the bullying. However, it doesn't help the situation if the victim works at being victimized. (It might be surmised that the victim is abused at home, but I've not seen any correlation. This might be an interesting study...)

Breaking this game is almost impossible because it is usually ingrained in the person and probably in the family as a whole. Some hints when encountering a “kick me kid:”

• React in as low key fashion as possible.
• If the whine can be ignored do so.
• If it has to be acted on (“John just hit me!”) do so with little drama and outside the view of the victim or anyone else. Bullying can't be tolerated, but inverse bullying by the victim is not good either. You can't always know what led up to the attack.
• Find ways of giving positive attention to the person playing this game.
• Resist the temptation to just tell the person to “toughen up,” “life is hard and then you die” or other natural reactions. But you can, through your gentle lack of sympathy, show that you expect them to endure.
• This is an issue that might benefit from ideas and suggestions from others.

Games Students Play: "Blemish"

This is game for a group of youth. They have a target which can be a youth that is not present, an adult leader, minister, teacher, any easy target. The game is simply an escalating series of attacks on the person being critiqued. If it goes too long and without intervention it can get quite vicious, even violent. The criticisms can go from legitimate concerns to out and out lies.

Breaking this game up is a little easier than Sweetheart because the victim is not present. If you hear this going on, simply insert yourself into the conversation and explain what you hear happening. Good kids will be embarrassed about having been caught participating and will quickly disown the conversation and defend the person that had been under attack. You may be able to take one of the comments made and explain how it is untrue and unfair to the victim.

If the instigator has a grudge against the victim or some other incentive, they may try to keep it going or be unhappy with you (and perhaps try to start a game of “I win you lose.”).

Games Students Play: I win/you lose

(Be sure you have read the introduction to these "games":Games Students Play)
A youth/adult game. The goal for the youth is to turn a nice, calm adult into the “bad guy” by goading them, “pushing their buttons.” forcing issues. There are a thousand variations on what they will do, but the end result is that the adult over-reacts (“one more animal noise during prayer time and I'm calling your parents”). All the kids will know that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, so the adult looks mean to everyone present.

Since the youths that do this are good at finding our weaknesses and exploiting them, this is a hard game to break up.:

• We can be superhuman in not over-reacting no matter how badly we want to
• We can watch and when we see another of the adults being goaded into this game, intervene, taking over interacting with the youth while the adult can go cool off.
• Establish in advance rules with consequences for things that are unacceptable to you. For example, before it becomes a problem ask the group what the consequence should be for being disruptive and rude during prayer time. This then allows you to be the good guy (“The rule is that you must **** for being disruptive but, since this is the first offense, I'll soften it a bit – is that ok group?”)
• Have a discussion about what you see happening (“Is it fair that I'm being pushed into over-reacting? What do you all think about this?”) Of course disruptors usually don't want a discussion. They may be trying to get out of a discussion with their disruptive behavior.

Games Studenets Play -- Uproar

A youth/leader game. (Be sure you have read the introduction to these "games":Games Students Play)

The purpose is to cause an uproar and by so doing destroy whatever is going on – a youth group meeting, a discussion, lesson, a game, whatever. The goal may be to get attention, or to create a distraction to avoid something such as a student who is not able to read in a situation where they might have to.

This can also be a form of “Cops and Robbers” (See a later post on this game)

The game is initiated by the youth causing a commotion in any fashion: falling over backwards in their chair, letting out an expletive, or a loud fart, hitting/tripping/insulting someone, saying something funny and off topic, generally being rude and uncooperative...

This is a difficult game to break because it is hard not to react to the uproar. If the first attempt by the youth is ignored, which it should be if at all possible, they may escalate to something more dramatic. It is important to remain calm and not get heavy handed or overreact. These only makes things worse.

Try to decide why they have started this:

• attention? Try to give them positive attention, “Jane, could you help us out by showing us how to...”
• To avoid something? Then change what is being planned to take the pressure off. By changing directions it also pushes the reset button on the game.
• They are bored? Think about not being boring.

If you can't seem to break it, ask the offending party to go with you to get something the group needs. When out of the room, ask them why they are being so disruptive today. Can you do something to help them be ok?

Games Students Play -- "You are so wonderful/Yes, I am aren't I"

Games Students Play -- "You are so wonderful/Yes, I am aren't I" (Be sure you have read the introduction to these "games":Games Students Play)

A youth leader/youth game.

This is such an obvious one I don't know why we ever fall for it, but we do. A youth praises us or "sucks up to us" and we like it. It feeds our ego. We agree. All of a sudden that youth becomes a favorite youth, they get some kind of special attention or favor or reward and responds with more praise and attention. And off it goes.

This can become seriously destructive with the possibilities being:

• We think more highly of ourselves than we ought. Our egotism may drive others away or we do something poorly because we believe we can do it when we can't.
• The favored youth takes advantage of their position at the expense of other youth
• Non-favored youth may join in, in order to be favored too, or, not being hypocritical, resist that temptation, get disgusted and leave
• Non-favored youth get ignored and drop out
• The relationship between leader and youth can become unhealthy as one or the other "fall in love" with the other

To break this game:

• Be alert to the possibility and not get sucked in
• Have someone you rely on and trust, like a spouse, who's job it is to keep your feet on the ground
• Consciously make sure that all your youth are treated equally, no matterwhat. Playing up to you gets a youth no favors and being rude/frank/honest to you doesn't get the youth unreasonable retribution.

Games Students Play -- Sweetheart

"Sweetheart" (Be sure you have read the introduction to these "games":Games Students Play)

A Youth to youth game. This is the classic double sided complement put down: “What a lovely dress … I had one just like it, last year” “Good try on that fly ball... if only you had caught it” “they really should have invited you to the party... but I understand why they didn't” so on and so forth.

This game is really hard to break up because if you interfere or try to counter the negative part of the comment it just draws attention to the put down youth. The down-puter can also respond “I didn't say anything mean..” or “they know I'm just teasing.”

Any counter response (such as “yes, that is a lovely dress I've seen a movie star wearing one”) will just sound lame. The best response is to ignore the interchange, but soon thereafter give the victim a real and valid complement.

You can also have a program on put downs and their destructiveness. For younger your this means a surface level discussion identifying specific kinds of put downs and setting some kind of group system for reminding each other that put downs are not acceptable at church. This can be a hand signal or an “insiders” phrase. We used “no plutoing” (in honor of the one time planet that was put down by scientists). This would then be a signal that an unidentified put down just happened. This is how Middle Schoolers learn.

Games Students Play: "Let's Him and You Fight"

"Let's Him and You Fight" (Be sure you have read the introduction to these "games":Games Students Play)

Normally a youth vs youth game, it can be youth vs adult. Church staff can play it also!

This is a classic that gets played a lot! Someone, usually someone bored and needing some excitement, but also for more devious reasons, will pit one person against another but sidling up to one and reporting something the other person said about them. The report may or may not be accurate or truthful. Truth is beside the point for this interaction. When person number two reacts badly and says something hasty or inappropriate the troublemaker can then run to person number three and report what person number two said about them. And we're off to the races. These escalating interchanges can get violent or seriously destructive.

To break this up:

• First, if you are person number one, don't do it. It is beneath your dignity and faithfulness. Find some other form of fun.
• If you are person number two or three don't get sucked in. If you haven't heard the comment first hand, you haven't heard it. You may say to the troublemaker, “Oh? Well, I think I'll go check that with ….” The troublemaker needs to keep the two parties apart until things are thoroughly out of control.
• If you are seeing this develop from afar – invite person number one to go do something (send them on an errand, perhaps). Call persons number two and three together and explain what you saw developing. You can directly say that you think person number one is trying to pick a fight. (but don't turn this into a You and Him Fight” with you acting as person number one.) and convince them that they don't need to believe whatever person one has said.

Games Students Play -- "Why don't you/Yes but"

(Be sure you have read the introduction to these "games":Games Students Play)

This is an adult/youth game, usually between parent and child but also between youth leader and youth. The "game" (ritualized interaction) is established when the youth approaches the adult with a problem. (e.g. "Mr. Kent, I can't organize the car wash tomorrow like I said I would. My parents are taking me out of town.") The adult then gives helpful suggestions for solving the problem ("why don't you ask them if you can stay with your friend Billy"). They then give a reason why this won't work ("Yes, but Billy is going out of town also"). This suggestion/excuse combination goes on for awhile until the adult runs out of ideas, get frustrated and stomps off to go solve the problem. The adult's payoff is the feeling that they tried, the youth's pay off is that they get out of the problem or have pre-established an excuse and don't have to think about it or feel guilty

To break up this game, don't start with a "why don't you" but, "Oh, OK, how are you going to solve this problem." Beware of starting the reverse game of "I can try/that won't work" where the youth gives unworkable ideas that the adult has to reject. To break this game, say: "OK, you can give that a try,,," This allows the youth to reject their own suggestion and go for something more practical.

Games Students Play -- Introduction

In the 70s a series of books by Ken Ernst came out that was highly influential for my ministry. The First was Games People Play, a subsequent one and the one I'll focus on in a series of posts was Games Students Play. I have put an amazon link on my links page.

First of all, these books are not about fun games to play. Sorry. These are serious, if playful books. The thesis is that there are, in our society, a number of ritualized interaction, which he calls "games." The standard illustration is how we greet each other "hi, how are you?"/ "Fine, how are you?" A ritual, without any thought put into it unless the person being greeted has something particular in mind, in which case the interaction becomes an opening into a further conversation. Most "games" are structured so that there is a "winner" where one or more parties gains some sort of reward or self-satisfaction.

In this theory, there are healthy games, with a positive outcome, neutral games that are strictly formalities and negative games that can be destructive. Most of my posts will be about destructive games because these are the ones we most need to be alert to. When a game is in progress and we recognize it we can break the game and keep it from reaching its destructive outcome.

As youth workers, we need to recognize that sometimes we are the one initiating or enjoying the game, which is all the more reason to identify the game and makes sure it isn't destructive.

I will not provide a complete write up of the games from the book. These are the ones that were particularly significant for me. Some of these I made up or modified to fit.