Junior Romance Academy
Back by popular demand, JIMS and Kingdom gathered with 7 boys for 3 weeks to discussion life’s various issues. The boys engaged in discussion, games, and challenges.
Overall, the programme was a great success. Patrick Cole and myself were very pleased with the input from the boys each week – they were certainly willing to talk about love, life, liberty. In the end, we challenged the boys that there are many options and choices that they will be faced with in the future, if not sooner.
The first week we looked at dating: what the media teaches us and what our friends say about it. In the end, the boys were challenged to find the benefits of basic friendship and group activities…and that dating is more than just liking someone for one night.
Our second topic was love: the boys discovered what their top two love languages are and how to fill up each others’ “love tanks“. To practice the act of encouragement – we sent each other kind words on a postcard.
Finally, we spent our third night discussing pressures (primarily from peers). Although we all know there are good and bad pressures upon us each day, we took at look at how to discern which are good and bad. Something that the boys seemed to desire were ways to so ‘No’ to their friends when asked to do something that they shouldn’t.
At the end of the programme the boys had a chance to write their honest opinions of what they thought, learned, and disagreed with. In summary, the boys thought that the programme was great, loads of fun, challenging, and at times not long enough. In addition, some of the boys were encouraged to continue saying ‘No’ until they are older and in steady relationships.
We are very thankful to International Fund for Ireland in their support of our programme.