Ages 5-11 · Des Moines, IA metro area · Book 1, Accountability

Restorative Practices — Des Moines, IA

The Des Moines–West Des Moines, IA metro area has about 758,539 residents, ranking 82nd in the country. Most classroom systems handle what a child does. Almost none of them handle the two seconds before, which is where the whole thing is decided.

Circles work when children can name what happened before they are asked to repair it. This builds the naming first.

The book behind it

Ellis Abel and the Red Block

“Big feelings. Small choices. Real accountability.”

Name the feeling before reacting.
Take ownership of everyday choices.
Small routines can restore a sense of control.

Ellis Abel is a character series. Volume 1 carries the value accountability, and the story does the teaching. There is no doctrine in it and nothing for a family to opt out of, which is why it runs in Des Moines, IA in public schools, libraries, clubs and living rooms without changing a word.

Read about Ellis Abel and the Red Block · The whole series

Five sessions in Des Moines

Session 1
Read the story and stop at the moment the feeling takes over
Session 2
Name that feeling out loud, in the child's own word for it
Session 3
Find the exact second Ellis Abel chooses instead of reacts
Session 4
Each child names one thing that is theirs to own this week
Session 5
Build the small routine, then use it the next time it is hard

What Des Moines, IA leaders ask first

Is restorative practices in Des Moines, IA a religious program?

No. Ellis Abel is a character series. Each volume carries one named core value — this one is accountability — and the story does the teaching. There is no doctrine in it, nothing to opt out of, and it is used in public schools, libraries and secular programs as readily as anywhere else.

What ages does this work for?

Ages 5-11. The story is read aloud, so a child who cannot read yet is fully in it, and the discussion prompts are written in two bands so one adult can hold a mixed-age room.

How long does a session take in a Des Moines, IA classroom?

Twenty to thirty minutes, structured as read-aloud, small group, and one step each child names out loud before they leave the room.

Does this need a specialist to deliver?

No. It is written for the classroom teacher, the counselor, or whoever has the room that period. The leader script carries the questions and the follow-ups.

How a session actually runs in Des Moines

Step 1
Name it before you fix it
A child who cannot name what is happening to them can only act it out. The first session gives Des Moines, IA children one word for the feeling — their word, not the adult's — and that word alone shortens the storm.
Step 2
The gap between feeling and doing
Ellis Abel feels it and then chooses, and the story slows that second down far enough for a four-year-old to see it. That gap is the entire skill. It is not maturity and it is not temperament — it is a habit, and habits are trained.
Step 3
One thing that is actually theirs
Ownership at this age is not a lecture about responsibility. It is one specific job a child in Des Moines, IA controls completely and can do without help — and the discovery that controlling one thing feels good.
Step 4
The routine that holds on the bad day
Anything that only works on good days is decoration. The last session builds a three-step routine the child can say back, and then runs it unchanged for a week, including the evening everything goes wrong.

The rules that make it work

This is a character story, not a behaviour plan

Ellis Abel is a core-values series. No child is assessed, scored, diagnosed or labelled anywhere in it. It gives a room shared language, and it stops there.

Big feelings are not misbehaviour

A four-year-old at full volume is not defying anyone. Treating the feeling as an offence teaches a child to hide it, which is the opposite of the skill.