Verbal Judo

This week I attended a library conference down south where I presented two programs. One of them I co-presented with a colleague and friend of mine on the topic "Managing Teen Behavior." This is a subject that comes more and more into play nowadays with librarians dealing with teens adopting the library as a hang out place, and a place where they are left for hours until their parents come home. These teens are restless and bored and often cause problems for staff.

In our presentation we covered verbal judo, a tactical communication style used to generate compliance. Among the topics covered in verbal judo was "things never to say to a teen." Among them are "Calm Down", "You Never... or You Always...," "What's your problem?" and in my opinion one of the most used and awful of them all: "Because I said so." I am guilty of the "Because I said so" statement probably because it has been used on me. Whenever this statement is uttered the first response from a teen will be "why?" When you say "because I said so" you are not supporting your rules with logic and reason and thus will not gain any respect. After I studied these verbal judo techniques I made a promise to keep out "because I said so" from my vocabulary no matter how easy it is to say to an unruly teen.

Dance like a Teapot

I went to a conference the past couple of days where I gave a few presentations. I try to make my presentations as interesting as possible but let's face it, if you've been to one work presentation you've been to them all. There's always the brief introduction with a poor attempt at humor. Perhaps you'll make fun of yourself at your technological incapability's or jokingly comment on the locale. Then you'll begin your presentation. There's the requisite power point with its bulleted, simplistic slogans with things like "The Five R's" or a quote by some authority in the field. Then you'll sum it up with an inspiring message that "yes you too can do this!"

I think we need to have library presentations like we do storytime. We first stand all the adults up and let them shake their wiggles out. This will get everyone's attention. Then we'll get to the meat of the program but instead of power point we'll do it in rhyme with colorful images like a picture book. After that we'll sing a song. For my topic on teen programs we could sing (to the tune of I'm a Little Teapot) "Make your teen programs short and fun/ Videogames for everyone/ If they are rowdy don't you shout/ "Pack your bags and get on out!" In conclusion to the storytime/presentation we could all do a craft. I would love to see all the middle aged women fingerpaint with shaving foam. Yes, everyone would love to come to my presentations if I threw out the power point and had them dancing like teapots.