Behavioral Activation for Danny Zuko

This is what it looks like

Navigator (Coach) asks Danny what he likes. He’s uncomfortable, tries to look tough and cool, makes some jokes. Coach persists.

Gymnastics (nope)

Basketball (punches opponent)

Wrestling (Andy pins Danny, who cheapshots him)

Baseball (snaps umpire mask)

Long distance running…

It clicks! Danny letters in track. Sandy is impressed.

Note what has to happen.

It’s not enough to offer the sports, even to someone Danny who has ASKED to change himself.

You often need someone to walk that teen around, to help them try the first time, to dust them off when they feel embarrassed and want to stop trying.

That’s navigation and it’s not built into the Out Of School Time policy model, which is mostly about offering more capacity, not demand side friction.

Often 8 year olds who are willing to TRY things just because Mom said so….turn into 17 year olds who will NOT try things, even if part of them is crying out to “change.”

The ROI here was:

Coach invested an afternoon, let’s say 2 hours, as navigator.

Zuko found a varsity sport, so let’s say 10 weeks at 10 hours a week. 100 hours for an activity with latent capacity.

Let’s model Coach as $100 per hour. So for $200, we got 100 hours of Danny doing something productive….high leverage navigation.