Welcome to Running with Kids! This is a blog about the running program which the sisters at St. Charles Children’s Home began a few years ago to help kids manage their behaviors. As it turns out, the running helps the sisters too! There will be more contributors joining this blog, but in the meantime I thought I would get started by telling you our story.
In the summer of 1996, Sister Maximilian began running every day with Rose (pictured here). Rose was the most volatile and aggressive child then living at St. Charles Children’s Home in Rochester, New Hampshire. One day we had a family meeting with all the kids to talk about violent behavior and what we could do to decrease it in our home. The kids listed many ideas of how they could release negative energy without hurting each other.
A daily walk seemed to be the best intervention for Rose at the time. By the end of the summer, those walks turned into daily runs. Through the daily run, Sister Maximilian found a way to channel Rose’s incredible anger in a positive way. Soon, the boys became jealous of Rose’s running achievements and the fact that she was getting into less trouble, and they wanted to run every day too. With the whole St. Charles family involved, aggressive behaviors by the children were reduced in the Home by over 97%. It was not long before the Sisters and the children began appearing in road races throughout New Hampshire.
Over 13 years later, the Sisters continue running daily with the kids. More about how we do it in another post.
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