This is a single activity session plan from The Lifeskills Handbook. There are 61 activity sessions altogether. The handbook is available from our resources section where you’ll also find downloadable storybooks, books and posters to help you in your work.
LifeSkills Handbooks Activity 42
Spiralling into Trouble
Purpose of Activity: To show how a small step into criminal activity can lead to bigger problems.
Life Skills: Problem-solving, Critical Thinking
Important Points
In the life skills activities, it is important to address children’s existing anti-social behaviour where it exists and to try to help them break the cycle of this behaviour.
Materials
- Picture cards showing common crimes
Steps
- Introduce the activity to the children. Use words appropriate to your group. If you are working with children who are involved in crime, you will need to do several sessions to help the children look at all aspects that support this behaviour and to help them to break the cycle. The Important Points to make include the following:
- every crime is a choice to do something wrong
- even if you think you have no choice, you have
- small crimes often lead to bigger crimes
- crimes hurt people
- the person who will be most hurt by your crime is you.
- In groups, ask the children to look at the pictures. Ask the children to tell you what each picture represents.
- Ask children to sort the cards in order of seriousness starting with the least serious and building up to the most serious.
- The first group presents their order and the other groups show if they have put the cards in a different order and explain why. Try to achieve an order with which the whole group can agree. In the whole group and looking at the picture cards, ask who is hurt as a result of each crime.
- Ask the children to select several picture cards and make them into a story where a small crime spiralled out of control into a much bigger and more serious crime.
Final Discussion:
How many of these have been done by people you know? What other crimes are done by people you know? Why do you think children start to commit crimes?
- they need money/drugs
- they are being pressured by other children or adults
- they have to survive and have nothing to eat
- they have no guilt and find it exciting and fun
What can children do to meet these needs and avoid crime? Try to smoke less and spend money on good food, say NO when they are under pressure, find other exciting but safe ways to pass the time.
Follow-up
Children can create roleplays from the stories created in step 6. These can be presented and discussed.