One Solution to the High Price of Big Kid Activities

Posted on January 29, 2015 by Suzita

Teen Interview - Sign HereA little over a year ago, Todd and I were having one of our monthly check-ins about family finances, and we came to the unfortunate realization that our family had more money going out than coming in. Ouch.

The previous month we’d targeted a number of areas in which to reduce spending (cable, some organic foods, some weekly driving), but evidently these cuts were not extensive enough. Because our financial squeeze coincided with our kids taking on and/or pleading to begin various new activities, we decided to look more closely at kid activities for potential cuts.

As we weighed these expenses, 2 activities rose to the surface, showing themselves like a child’s shaggy, summer head begging for a haircut. These were To-Shin Do and Children’s Theater. You know how, as a parent, you often have a love-hate relationship with certain kid activities? It usually has to do with how much driving you do for them, or perhaps how you feel about the coach or other participants, or maybe that particular event has always annoyed you. And although you’ve tried to hide this from your kid, it doesn’t necessarily protect it from rising to the top of family budget cuts. I personally, didn’t feel this way about To-Shin Do or Children’s Theater, but my dear partner may have. Therefore, to the financial spotlight they rose to be scrutinized.

First we decided to have a family meeting to find out how our kids currently felt about these activities. Since we’d already given this issue much thought, we sort of figured that upon offering our kids the option of taking time off, they’d concur. First we laid out the situation for our sons, Stephen, 15, and Daniel, 13, inquiring whether, after 2 and ½ years, it was time to take a break from To-Shin Do, a self-defense-oriented martial art. Emphatically they responded, “Absolutely not.”

We then told them that with the rather high price tag for 2 student memberships, we needed to make some kind of a change in our To-Shin Do regimen. For maybe 10 minutes, we began to work more like those higher-functioning families you read about in books. We put our 5 heads together and brainstormed ideas to bring the To-shin Do price down without taking time off.

A Possible Solution

Since our kids had run a “neighborhood services” business for the past 8 years, they considered offering to clean the dojo (the gym where To-Shin Do occurs) weekly in exchange for a partial scholarship. They also were doing a lot of babysitting, so they thought they could perhaps help teach the younger children’s classes. Additionally, they offered to work at the front desk of the dojo as a barter for a partial scholarship. After making sure that the boys felt comfortable with each of these options, we helped them compose an email to the To-Shin Do director.

It was hard for our sons to wait for the director’s response, but that also confirmed to us how much continuing to train in To-Shin Do meant to them. They each strongly wanted to reach the black belt level, and they were halfway there.

Not long after, we heard from the director. She generously suggested that both Stephen and Daniel could be trained to work at the front desk in exchange for partial scholarships.

Our Daughter’s Situation

Meanwhile our 10 year-old daughter, Annie, confronted a similar situation with her Children’s Theater group. Rather than take a break from theater, she dramatically (as any theater kid worth her salt) insisted that she desperately wanted to be a part of the upcoming musical. So, Annie emailed the theater director mentioning that she’d had experience working with young children since she’d begun her mother’s helper business the previous summer. Annie offered to be a teacher’s helper in the young children’s class in exchange for a partial scholarship.

In Annie’s case, the theater director was also willing to take a risk and agreed to Annie’s offer.

Relief!

Todd and I were so relieved that these somewhat unorthodox solutions to our financial concerns had been arranged! Additionally, it felt right that our kids were putting in extra time and energy toward something about which they were passionate.

Not Quite as Simple as We’d Expected

My relief lasted for about a week, until my kids began the “work” part of their deals. Don’t get me wrong, it was still very positive, just not as easy and parent-free as I’d initially envisioned.

Daniel, at age 13, was a bit more challenged by working at the front desk than his older brother. He wanted to do it, but there was much to learn – from the computer system, to how to greet people on the phone, to the process for collecting payments. It took longer than I expected to help Daniel learn the ropes of his new position. I was also reminded that teenage boys don’t necessarily come out and tell you what may have gone wrong at work. (At least mine don’t. Please don’t tell me if yours do.) You have to ask the right questions to glean this information.

“Why didn’t you mention that you’d had a hard time collecting a payment last week at work?”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Okay…”

The boys and I did quite a bit of role-playing of potential work scenarios (phone and in-person) over the first 4 months of this new work experience. If I had guessed how long I would have needed to work with my sons to help make this work-as-barter venture successful, I probably would have said 2 weeks. On the other hand, it kind of fits with my overall experience of parenting – envision how long you think something will take to teach, and multiply it by at least 5.

Children’s Theater Assistant

Annie’s work with the young kids at the Children’s Theater was only a 4 month commitment. As it turned out, her experience of bartering work for a scholarship was smoothest, likely because she wasn’t required to learn as many new skills.

Soon after Annie began her work, the director told me this was a true win-win situation since Annie, who was to be a lead role in the musical, could regularly practice the scenes she had with the young children in her class. Additionally, Annie already knew a number of the young girls in her group. And as you may be aware, little girls often semi-worship big girls. Annie was able to harness the big-girl effect to her advantage during this work experience.

A Year Later

It’s actually been over a year since we began these work-as-barter arrangements. Annie’s situation continued as smoothly as it began, with a little bit of do-I-have-to-go-in-again crabbiness on some work days. Her teacher’s assistant position ended once the performance was over. Overall, Annie was proud that she’d been able to help out in this way for herself and for our family.

Stephen and Daniel continue to work the front desk for three shifts a week, plus attend a weekly staff meeting. They are each more comfortable now with the work, though Todd and I continue to periodically check in about how it’s is going. When it’s dark or icy out, the boys can’t bike to work and it requires even more driving on our parts. On the other hand, this work has required the boys to learn a new level of responsibility, as well as some of the ins and outs of a small business.

“So we need to tell them ahead of time when we are going to be out of town?”

Additionally, Stephen and Daniel’s front desk work is definitely “work.” You’re not allowed to do your homework, or check your phone while at the desk (well, Daniel doesn’t have a phone yet, but that’s another blog post.) Basically, it’s not one of those “fun” jobs. Because of this, this experience has helped our sons better understand what work feels like, as well as make a deeper commitment to why they are doing this work in the first place – moving slowly but continually toward those To-Shin Do black belts.

Has anyone made a similar arrangement for their kids?  Leave a comment!

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How Family Meetings Look at our House

Posted on October 2, 2014 by Suzita

Summer is definitely over.  Sometimes it feels like we have four seasons in our family – winter, spring, summer, and chaos – or back to school season.  Don’t get me wrong, I love it when my kids return to school, and for the most part they do as well.  But for the last 2 years we’ve had kids in 3 separate schools – elementary, middle, and high, and it’s been a lot to manage.

Back to school time is like a wave crashing down. It knocks you over, then swirls you around under water for long enough that you’re beginning to worry, until at last the water recedes.  You plant your feet on the sandy bottom and take a deep breath, thankful that you survived, smiling at the folks at the water’s edge – when the next wave crashes down on you.

These last couple of school-year beginnings have felt this way to me.  So I did what I often do.  Rather than reinvent the wheel (or the life jacket), I sought out ways others are coping.

My sister heard about a book she thought I might like (need), The Secrets of Happy Families: Improve Your Mornings, Tell Your Family History, Fight Smarter, Go Out and Play, and Much More, by Bruce Feiler.  With that title, how could I not read it?

Feiler searches for new ideas in various fields, and applies these to families – something I enjoy doing myself.  As I read through his book, the sentence that caught my eye most was:

“Weekly family meetings quickly became the single most impactful idea we introduced into our lives since the birth of our children.”

I’ve been meaning to put some kind of family meeting in place at our house for maybe a decade now.  This was a sign the time had come!

How To Do It

Feiler models his weekly family meetings on the business world’s movement called “agile development,” a way of running an organization from the bottom up as well as top down.  This strategy uses regular check-ins with many small teams about what is working and not working in an organization.  Feiler’s agile-style family meetings are based on 3 simple questions.

1. What things went well in our family this week?

2.  What went wrong in our family this week?

3.  What will we work on this coming week?

It sounded so straight-forward, I had to give it a try.

How It’s Worked So Far

Family meetings have been slightly less life-altering for us than Feiler, but I’m still glad we started them.  My kids are currently 11, 14 and 16 (girl, boy, boy).  While these are clearly important ages to stress communication, these are also ages when communication, especially with teenage males, begins to decelerate.

Our family meets on Sunday evenings and uses Feiler’s 3 questions as our foundation.  We often start by recapping the previous week, because honestly there are times when things are so hectic that it’s hard to remember what we’ve just come through.  Lately we pat ourselves on the backs for simply making it through the last week.

After this, we’ve had some worthwhile conversations about what’s worked well in the prior week.  Other families profiled in The Secrets of Happy Families seem to regularly have deep and meaningful conversations in their family meetings.  At this point, I wouldn’t call our conversations deep.  I hope that doesn’t mean our family is more shallow than others.  Maybe that’s why our family isn’t profiled in Feiler’s book?   Anyway, our meetings remain a work in progress.  Hopefully they’ll gain depth with time.

Feiler emphasizes the importance of focusing on your family as a unit, not how well each individual has done in the previous week.  Along these lines, our conversations have been beneficial, helping us feel we are on the same team.

My kids have been less communicative about what has gone wrong in the previous week.  It’s tricky because if the kids don’t bring the “problem” issues up, it’s just Todd and me presenting the negatives.  Our family meeting could morph into a place where kids might get in trouble from the top down.  We have emphasized to our kids that these meetings are a time when anyone can say what they feel is working or not, and that perhaps they’ll find a way to fix what’s not working.  Perhaps we need to say or do more in this area, though.

As I write this, I realize we have additionally begun to drop the ball a bit with question 3 – What will we work on this coming week?  We seem to be skipping this subject.  Hmm.  This may be because we haven’t focused as much on what’s gone wrong.

What’s Worked Well

On the other hand, many things have been going well in our weekly meetings.  We never meet for much longer than 20 minutes.  Feiler suggests this, and I second it.  It’s a way of respecting people’s time, and if you have adolescents, it’s a way of acknowledging that they will often begin to shut down (even more than usual) if you talk too long with them.

I just read another great book that suggested if you are telling an adolescent something important, you have 60 seconds of their attention.  Get in and get out.  Interesting.  In the same vein, one of my parental ulterior motives for these meetings is to teach my kids what an efficient meeting looks like – useful information when they enter the labor force some day.

At the end of our meeting each Sunday we open the calendar to clarify what’s in store for the upcoming week.  We ask the kids to let us know if there is anything significant (perhaps an audition or exam) not listed, and mention that it’s important for each of us to know when someone is facing something challenging so that we can support each other.

Our most recent family meeting followed a week when 4 out of 5 of us had been sick.  Todd made the valuable point that when someone is sick, we expect the others to step up and offer extra help either to them directly or around the house.  (When our kids were younger, they wouldn’t have needed this reminder, but it seems that older kids often forget this message.)

Unexpected Experiences

Going through the calendar together each week has somewhat surprisingly become an easy method for considering each person’s priorities.  Todd and I attempt to embrace simple living in our family and these meetings have unexpectedly become a place to highlight some important aspects of simple living.

-How to politely decline an invitation or request.

-What our top priorities are currently at a given moment.

-Whether or not each of us feels over-scheduled and what to do about this.

I think what I’ve most appreciated about our family meetings is that they are a regular time to think together about some of these crucial life issues.  I see this as a process.  As we repeatedly discuss these essential topics, our kids will slowly improve at:  saying no to some of the myriad of opportunities flooding their in-boxes, knowing their priorities, and regularly scheduling down-time in their full lives. And hopefully their parents will too.

 

What elements have led to successful family meetings at your house? What hasn’t worked?  Leave a comment!

 

 

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Sharing Vulnerability with Kids

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Suzita

To-Shin Do White BeltVulnerability.  That feeling of being completely exposed, clueless, clumsy in front of others.  Our kids may be better at vulnerability than we adults are.  Growing up requires them (forces them) to learn new skills and experience novel situations all the time.  Heck, every school year is like learning the ropes of a new job with a new boss.

Sometimes I forget that feeling vulnerable and unsure is such a regular part of my kids’ lives.  Recently I was reminded of this uncomfortable experience in my own life.

An Unexpected Gift

It started positively.  An unexpected gift.  My sons, Stephen and Daniel, train in To-Shin Do – a defense-oriented martial art that teaches awareness of one’s surroundings and ways to defend oneself if attacked.  When my boys venture out some day to travel the world, their To-Shin Do practice is going to help keep my anxiety in check.

I was watching my sons in a To-Shin Do class from the comfortable distance of an extremely poofy couch in the lobby.  After the class, the director of the dojo informed me that a student who had begun training had not been able to continue.  She had turned her prepayment into a scholarship.  The director then told me that this anonymous person had asked that the scholarship be donated to me.  Me?!

I’d been watching my kids learn this cool martial art for almost 2 years and had often been curious about training myself.  But with 3 children in our family, my own training hadn’t been in the cards financially.  My boys had periodically suggested, “You should train here too!”  Here was my chance.  I was being offered the opportunity to try something amazing, and I had an anonymous benefactor!  I didn’t know which was more remarkable.

A Sign

I was a bit hesitant about the time commitment.  And I’m reluctant to say that I was going to miss that soft couch, and the enjoyable conversations I tended to have with other parents watching the To-Shin Do classes.  Still, it was a sign of some sort.  How could I pass up a sign?

Beginner Status

Everyone begins To-Shin Do as a “white belt.”  Picture those karate uniforms.  Well, mine was all white.  Marshmallow came to mind when I looked in the mirror.  In To-Shin Do, all ages train together at each level.  The first classes were fun and pretty challenging.  My initial thought was, this is harder than it looks from the couches.  I regretted the comments I’d previously made to my kids on our rides home, “Slow your body down so you won’t hurt the other person.”  During my first week of training, I realized just how hard it is to “slow your body down.”  I apologized to my kids for coaching them on a sport I’d never done.

A Hard Class

About a month into my training, still wearing my marshmallow attire, I attended a class which included 15 other students (mostly adults), 7 assistants (students further along in the process) and 2 instructors – a large class.  As is often the case when I begin something new, the skills I need to practice are not those I initially expect.  I had realized over the first month that one of the main lessons I needed work on at To-Shin Do was acknowledging when I didn’t understand something and asking for help.  My eternal lesson.  But I was attempting to embrace it as much as I could.

On that day, I looked around me.  I’d never been in a class this large before.  Everyone else had been training longer than me.  I quickly made a deal with myself to lower the bar regarding admitting what I didn’t know, just for that day.  Additionally there were a number of adults I happened to know observing from the comfy couches.  The marshmallow was a bit nervous.

The Dreaded Rolls

Midway through the class, I was feeling pretty good about not calling too much attention to myself when one instructor requested we form 2 lines and do rolls (like partial somersaults) one at a time down the mat.  This was not good at all.  I’d never been taught to roll.  Rolling is awkward in and of itself, but I’d noticed previously that a roll gone bad was likely to end in any number of unfortunate positions.

My first strategy was to move to the end of one line in an attempt to learn by watching.  As I observed, I became more concerned.  In To-Shin Do you roll over one shoulder, not both like a typical forward roll.  My boys had warned me that rolling was hard at first.  Great.

Vulnerability in Action

For about a minute I had a mini-battle with myself between just faking it and asking for help.  I must add that I found this predicament particularly frustrating because as I’ve mentioned before, I spent my childhood doing gymnastics.  This kind of thing usually comes easily to me – or at least that was my view of myself.  Because of this I was seriously considering the faking-it route, when I recalled a message from the book I’d been reading, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, by Brené Brown.  Brown writes that allowing ourselves to be vulnerable is the route to living fully.  It’s something I’ve always wanted my kids to feel comfortable doing, so it was something I needed to practice myself.

I raised my hand and said, “Will you show me how to roll?  I haven’t been taught this roll before.”  Everyone’s head turned.  Surprisingly, a usually patient instructor responded, “Yes you have.  I’m sure you have.”  It was one of those slow motion moments when you are in the experience but are simultaneously watching yourself from a distance.  The watcher-me noticed that everyone was quiet, staring at the interaction between the instructor and me.

Once more I practiced standing up for myself.  So much fun.

“No, I’m sure I haven’t learned this roll.  I don’t even know how to start it.”

After this, a coach showed the roll (in front of everyone) and I did it, sort of.  My roll ended completely sideways, with my feet almost kicking the mirrors at the edge of the mat.  Lovely.  Then I did another which was only ever-so-slightly better, then another, etc.

You might think that when I reached the end of the mat, I’d nearly mastered the roll and was much relieved.  No.  Actually by the end of the mat I had decided that, benefactor or no benefactor, I didn’t want to do To-Shin Do anymore.  And to make matters worse, I was dizzy from all that rolling.

After Thoughts

At the end of the class, I quickly slunk out of the dojo to the privacy of my car thinking I’m glad my boys didn’t see that.  But in my car, I again contemplated Brené Brown’s words.  She actually would have been proud of me for gracelessly rolling in front of numerous strangers.  She would have reminded me that:

 Vulnerability is not a weakness, and the uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure we face every day are not optional.  Our only choice is a question of engagement.  Our willingness to own and engage with our vulnerability determines the depth of our courage and the clarity of our purpose; the level to which we protect ourselves from being vulnerable is a measure of our fear and disconnection.  When we spend our lives waiting until we’re perfect or bulletproof before we walk into the arena, we ultimately sacrifice relationships and opportunities that may not be recoverable, we squander our precious time, and we turn our backs on our gifts, those unique contributions that only we can make.

Sharing Vulnerability with Others

Brené Brown also would have encouraged me to share this experience with my family.  So at the dinner table that evening, I did.

I must say that my kids and Todd were all very sweet about my embarrassing situation.  Each one gave me an example of a time they’d felt similarly, and we laughed quite a bit.  One son told me that white belt rolls are the hardest ones.  The other said that everyone goes sideways when they first try them.

After dinner, we moved to the living room rug and Stephen and Daniel (and Annie who used to take To-Shin Do and hopefully will again someday) helped me practice the over-one-shoulder rolls and even showed me a trick that allows you to roll straight.

On the Other Side

I felt much better after talking to my family.  I decided to return to classes the next week, but mostly I was reminded of the parenting message in Daring Greatly.  Like Brené Brown states, “I want our home to be a place where we can be our bravest selves and most fearful selves.  Where we practice difficult conversations and share our shaming moments from school or work.”

So thanks to an anonymous benefactor, I am not only learning To-Shin Do, but practicing speaking up, getting better at being vulnerable regularly, and connecting with my kids around a sport that we share and in which they have become some of my most helpful teachers.  And finally, by showing my kids my struggles, I hope I am reminding them that our home is a place to share theirs.

 

How do your kids respond when you share your vulnerabilities with them?  Leave a comment below!

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How a Child Gets from Boredom to Creativity

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Suzita

Cat careI love the concept that a bored child, if left alone, eventually finds his or her way to creativity.  Whenever I read about this, as a mom I am filled with renewed hope and energy.

“I’m going to let the kids be bored!  I can do this.  By the end of today, great things will have taken place!”

The Reality

But at our house, this is what usually happens, even on those hopeful days:

After entering the land of Boredom, my child walks through the valley of Moping and Fussing.  Then as she continues on her way, she happens upon the village of Annoying Behaviors where bickering and sibling rivalry are commonplace.  This is usually the point where I can’t stand it any longer and step in.  My child can’t even come close to finding that lovely, shaded path leading to Creativity, no matter how many times I’ve told her it exists.  It must be well camouflaged.

The Long Summer

This past summer, however, things turned out differently.  We’d planned a fairly pricey vacation for August, and thus didn’t put any money toward summer camps.  Our oldest ended up getting his first job, doing trail maintenance which was perfect for a 14 year-old boy.  Our 13-year-old was accepted into a 5-week (free) science camp, and our youngest, 10 year-old Annie, continued with her new love of gymnastics.  Unfortunately, Annie’s gym time didn’t begin until 5 pm so her daytime hours were wide open.

Very quickly Annie got bored.  Most of her friends were on vacations or at day camps.  Because we weren’t going to throw money at this problem, we toughed it out.

The first week was hard – full of crankiness, whininess, and annoying behaviors.  I remember feeling pretty desperate and panicky, and wondering if we’d made a big mistake.

I’d recently begun my summertime yard sale visits, though, and randomly found an American Girl series book which Annie didn’t have: A Smart Girl’s Guide to Money: How to Make It, Give It, and Spend It.  I put it on Annie’s beanbag chair when she was out.  I often place books in plain sight in my kids’ rooms for them to discover.  Sometimes they take and sometimes they don’t.

A Light Bulb Goes On

During the second week of summer, I saw Annie reading this book.  Later that day she excitedly informed me she was starting a mother’s helper business, an idea the book had helped generate.  She’d heard that two of our neighbors had created a “Mom camp” for the summer, caring for each other’s kids every other day.  Annie planned to offer her services to them.  First, however, she spent time creating a name and logo for her business at the book’s suggestion.

Next Annie brainstormed what kinds of things she knew the neighbor kids enjoyed.  When she “pitched” her mother’s helper idea to one of the moms, she offered to bring along specific toys and games for her kids.  Our neighbor agreed to try out Annie’s mother’s helper business and soon she was up and running, working 2 hour stints 2-3 times a week.

The part of this experience that stood out most for me was how passionate and confident Annie was about her new venture.  Whereas in her state of boredom she’d been more passive and helpless, a week later in this creative space she was active, energetic, and more mature.  She’d entered that “flow” state we all love.

One Experience Leads to Another

About three weeks into her mother’s helper work, Annie informed me she had another goal for the summer.  As you may remember, the idea of summer goals has not always been successful at my house, so I was pretty excited merely hearing her use this phrase.

Annie sat me down and told me she really and truly wanted to volunteer with the cats at our local Humane Society.  She knew I’d heard from other parents that this was quite a commitment as training had to be undertaken with a parent, then a regular volunteer schedule put in place (again with a parent).

Last year Annie’s 3rd grade teacher taught the class persuasive writing techniques, and I sensed that Annie was using these in our discussion about volunteering with cats.  She’d thought through the various concerns she knew I’d have, and offered solutions.  In addition to the time commitments, Annie knew our family was trying to drive as little as possible during the summer, so on her own she’d looked up the local bus schedules and found a way to get to the Humane Society without driving.  I think this may have been the part that convinced me, actually.

Developing Her Identity

That same American Girl book suggested readers think about their passions in order to decide what they might turn into a money-making venture.  Annie had done this and realized she wanted to be someone who reached out to animals in need, in this case on a volunteer basis.  It was the first time I’d seen my daughter begin to develop her identity in this way. (Observing this, I just couldn’t say no, even though I kind of dreaded the trainings.)

So Annie and I logged 2 hours of training. Then another 2 hours of training.  Finally we paid $50 for the privilege of giving 2 hours of our time weekly for the next 6 months.  Is volunteering this hard in other towns?

All through the process, Annie’s commitment never wavered.  She took notes during the trainings, and later reminded me of various rules to uphold at the Humane Society.  Luckily our first real volunteering stints occurred during kitten month, with kittens aplenty.  That helped with my, at times, flagging motivation.

Summer’s End

Toward the end of the summer, word of mouth about Annie’s mother’s helper business traveled through our neighborhood and her client base grew.  During this school year she has added “homework helper” to her list of services at the request of one parent.

Annie and I still faithfully volunteer at the Humane Society every Friday from 4-6.  Most of the cats get adopted rather quickly, thankfully.  Recently we’ve been spending our time socializing feral kittens, and brushing the cats who remain there for longer periods.

Annie truly enjoys the work she does with the cats.  What I enjoy is watching my daughter.  During her volunteering and mother’s helper work, I get a view of the person she may be as she grows older.

I also get one more reminder that it’s okay to let my kids be bored – as long as I subtly help them discover paths out of the land of Boredom.

 

How do you handle your child’s boredom?  Leave a comment below.  And if you like this post, please pass it on to others!

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Alaska Impressions

Posted on September 5, 2013 by Suzita

 

glacier ice

Glacier ice

 

“Mama, I’m going to walk in front with the ranger!  I want to hear her tell which berries I can eat.  Oh, and did you see how big the bald eagle’s nest was?!  I spotted the baby birds inside,” Daniel, my 13 year-old, rapidly informed me as he ran ahead along the beach path.

 Our family was taking a ranger-led beach walk in Glacier Bay National Park (near Juneau, Alaska).  As I watched my excited middle-schooler question the naturalist about a bright orange berry, I thought about the times I’d walked this rocky beach at low tide during the summer I worked at Glacier Bay during college.

This park was the final stop of our 2-week Alaskan tour.  As I strolled along the water, I thought back on the traveling challenges we’d faced in this immense state, and the unforeseen gems we’d encountered.  It had been a full trip – the kind you’re glad you did, but then need a vacation to recover from.

Living in land-locked Colorado, my husband Todd and I often take our kids to maritime places for vacations.  For this summer’s trip, during our 20th wedding anniversary, we decided to return with the kids to some of the spots we’d visited on our somewhat atypical Alaskan honeymoon.

Gustavus, Alaska outside Glacier Bay National Park

Gustavus, Alaska

 

A Vast and Varied State

Travel within Alaska was as challenging this time as it had been 20 years ago.  -Well, minus the sea plane which landed on a lake the size of a small ice rink when delivering us to our Arctic Circle kayak trip.  You only need to do that once.

Our family packed for temperatures anywhere from 80°F and sunny, to rainy 40s.  We were going sea kayaking so we also needed thick rain coats and pants, although one person chose not to bring his rain pants and received a natural consequence Alaska-style.

IMG_5119

This was not one of those trips for which we packed clothing we never wore.  More often there were chilly times when we donned more than one set of clothes – like the time a wake from a huge cruise ship that passed us 5 miles away was still big enough to wash over my kayak 10 minutes later and soak me.

Learning to Be Flexible

Midway into our trip, a big storm came through the small fishing village of Cordova on Prince William Sound bringing high winds that cancelled the daily ferry we were scheduled to take.  This meant cancelling a kayak trip we’d planned the next day.

“It’s part and parcel of traveling in Alaska,” we reframed this challenge to our kids.

The train, ferry, bus and plane trips we took in Alaska were also a piece of the overall experience, helping our kids comprehend how massive the state is.

The Alaska Railroad

The Alaska Railroad

 

We saw nearly as much wildlife from trains, buses and ferries as we did from sea kayaks.

Mt. McKinley from the train window

Mt. McKinley from the train

 

Science in the Great Outdoors

As luck would have it, our son Daniel was accepted into a 5-week summer camp on climate which took place before we left for Alaska.  He was therefore introduced beforehand to some of the glaciers and climate change indicator species we’d see in Alaska.

One of our cool sea kayak guides giving Annie a science lesson

Science lesson from our guide

 

For each of our kids, this Alaska trip brought textbook lessons to life.  They’d learned about the life cycle of salmon in school, for example.  Up there we sea kayaked to a river at the edge of the ocean where pink salmon furiously swam upstream in 8 inches of water to spawn.  They reminded me of middle-schoolers cramming and jostling into narrow hallways between classes.

Pink salmon are grey on the outside

Pink salmon

 

“They really do die after they lay their eggs,” Annie said looking at the dead salmon touching her rubber boot.

“Sure smells like it,” her 15 year-old brother Stephen chimed in as he kept an eye out for the brown bears we were warned about.

In Glacier Bay, Todd and I showed the kids glaciers we’d seen 20 years ago that no longer met the ocean, though we saw others which were still calving huge chunks of sky blue ice into the sea.

Cruise ship in front of glacier for size comparison

Cruise ship beside glacier for size comparison

 

Unexpected Takeaways from Alaska

I figured the wildlife and wildness of Alaska would make an impression on my children, as it had for me as a 19 year-old.  But there was an unanticipated occurrence for my kids as well.  They met people doing jobs that they could envision themselves doing some day.  This experience was vastly different from having their parents tell them about an interesting work opportunity somewhere they’d never been.  On our trip, the kids met fascinating people doing exciting things they’d never heard of.

When we were at Ballard Locks in Seattle (prior to leaving for Alaska), Stephen told his dad, “I might want to work here someday.”

We spent quite a bit of time with rangers at Denali and Glacier Bay national parks.  Daniel, our nature boy who says all he needs to be happy in life is a well-placed hammock, realized he had a skill for spotting wildlife.  Then talking to naturalists with varied specializations excited him about the possibility of doing this work someday.

Ranger with sled dog

Ranger with sled dog

 

“I think I could spend a winter in Denali patrolling by dog sled,” Daniel told us after attending the rangers’ dogsled demonstrations there.

Daniel imagining his future work

Imagining his future work

 

“I’d like to take pictures of Humpbacks’ flukes in Glacier Bay,” Annie, now 10, pronounced.

Annie watching a Humpback whale from a sea kayak

Watching a Humpback whale

 

Since each Humpback’s tail has unique markings, a group of marine biologists has photographed them to track the different whales for over 30 years now.

Humpback whale from the beach near our camp

Humpback from the shore

 

“But if I couldn’t do that, I’d work as a waitress in the Lodge like Mama did.  That would be fun too,” Annie mused.

 

Brushing teeth below tide line in Alaska

Brushing teeth below tide line

 

Overheard in a conversation between 2 of our kids in the fishing town of Whittier while we did our laundry next door to a salmon cannery:  “I’m never working in a cannery.  I don’t care how much money they say you can make in one.  I couldn’t deal with the smell.”

“If I don’t work at the locks, I might guide sea kayaking trips,” Stephen declared as we trekked the rainy mile to Mendenhall glacier within Juneau’s city limits.

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It was so gratifying to watch my kids imagine different work experiences they might pursue when they got older.

My Lesson Learned

Walking back from exploring tidal pools at the end of our beach hike, Daniel asked our affable ranger how one gets a job like hers.  She was full of helpful suggestions.  As they spoke, I was reminded that when you travel, it’s not simply the scenery and wildlife, but interacting with the people who know it and love it, that makes a lasting impression of a place.

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What were your unexpected takeaways from this summer’s travel near or far? Leave a comment below!

 

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“You need to talk more in class.” Introverted Kids in Today’s Schools

Posted on April 18, 2013 by Suzita

girl with book smilingAshley is an 11 year-old who lives in our neighborhood.  She’s soft-spoken and curious.  Her big brown eyes constantly take in the world around her.  A while back I bumped into Ashley’s mother and we got to talking.  I asked how Ashley’s transition to middle school had gone this year, since our son Daniel had been through a harder transition than I’d expected.

Middle School

Ashley’s mom said in elementary school her daughter had always had difficulty speaking up and never liked group projects, but had managed to show her other strengths.  Ashley soon discovered, however, that middle school had even more group work and seven teachers to get to know rather than one.  She’d been a good student in the past, but at conferences in middle school a number of teachers said they’d like Ashley to be more active in group work and talk more in class.

Ashley said she would try to improve on these areas.  Yet her mom had noticed that as the year progressed, Ashley seemed to be enjoying school less even though she had good friends.

Introverts in an Extroverted World

Soon after this conversation with Ashley’s mom, I began reading Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, by Susan Cain, and met many others like Ashley within its pages.  Cain points out that we live in a country that reveres extroverts.  This stance has become more extreme in recent generations.  As Ashley has found, and my kids will attest, group work is widespread in today’s public schools.

Cooperative learning favors extroverts who like to think through problems aloud rather than gathering their thoughts prior to offering them, as introverts do.  Yet today’s teachers are told they must prepare students for the working world where teamwork is the norm.

Cain lists additional research showing that working in groups is not always the best context for creativity.  Introverts do their best work alone, at least for a good portion of their working day.  Studies have also shown that organizations that don’t allow employees to close the door to distractions are less productive than those which do – for both introverted and extroverted types.

Skills of Introverts

Cain also highlights the strengths of introverts.  They tend to have fewer interests, but pursue them more deeply over longer periods of time.  This goes for friendships as well.  Introverts notice their environment more accurately and are sensitive to changes around them, often catching problems in a project more quickly than others. Their sensitivity to people and environments, and lack of focus on wealth and fame, often makes them more effective leaders than extroverts.  Introverts enjoy taking in large and varied amounts of information, and excel at synthesizing and strategizing.

When I spoke to Ashley’s mom, she told me that Creative Writing was Ashley’s favorite class and mentioned that her daughter brought a fairly mature understanding of the happenings around her into her writing.  Her writing teacher noticed too.

Extroverted Schools

Like many introverted children, however, Ashley was feeling that school wasn’t a place where she could regularly draw on her strengths.  Instead she often got the message that she needed to learn to be an extrovert.  Granted, the skills of extroverts are important in life, but so are those of introverts.  If we are teaching introverted kids to be more extroverted, why are we not helping extroverted kids learn the strengths of introverts in school?

Introverts and Modern Technology

Upon finishing Quiet, I picked up Sherry Turkle’s book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other.  Turkle, an anthropologist and psychologist, has studied the effects of technology on today’s young people and our culture in general.  She worries that teens who are constantly online or texting, are not “cultivating the ability to be alone and reflect on one’s emotions in private.” Young people who consistently look outward to their social networks, aren’t learning the skill that comes naturally to many introverts like Ashley, self-reflection.

Having interviewed numerous teens and adults throughout America about the role of technology in their lives, Turkle concludes:

A stream of messages makes it impossible to find moments of solitude, time when other people are showing us neither dependency nor affection.  In solitude we don’t reject the world but have the space to think our own thoughts.  But if your phone is always with you, seeking solitude can look suspiciously like hiding [to those contacting you].

I haven’t quite finished reading Alone Together, but after reading 3/4ths through, it occurred to me that perhaps Susan Cain’s introverts have an extra layer of protection against the allures of modern technology – their natural comfort with solitude.  And they have another leg up due to their tendency toward introspection.

New Perspectives

I’ve always thought of myself as more of an extrovert, and two out of three of my kids are definitely extroverts.  Yet reading Quiet reminded me that each of us has a unique mix of introverted and extroverted traits.  Quiet helped me appreciate my introverted qualities, those of my neighbor Ashley, and my older son Stephen.  The book even encouraged me to further develop some introversion characteristics that I don’t have in excess.

I think I’ll make a cup of tea, sit down in a quiet spot, and finish reading Alone Together.

 

How do your introverted kids handle school?  Leave a comment!

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How to Beat Cabin Fever: The Art of Roughhousing

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Suzita

mother and child roughhousingWhen our middle child, Daniel, was 3 one of the phrases we’d regularly hear was, “Will you roughhouse me please?”  He was so desperate for this kind of play that it was the only time he consistently used the word “please.”  It worked.  Saying please usually does.  I regularly got down on the carpet with him.

Around this time Daniel and his siblings’ favorite roughhousing game was Airplane (when the parent is on her back with bent legs and the child climbs onto her legs to fly like a plane). The names we gave our Airplane variations hint at their natures:  Crash Landing, Washing Machine, Volcano.  Another favorite game of Daniel’s was sitting on my knees as I sat on a chair and bounced him like a bucking bronco while singing a cowboy song.  He, meanwhile, attempted to stay on my knees as long as possible while giggling uncontrollably.

Both Daniel and I were happy and exhausted when these roughhousing sessions ended (which was usually because some part of Mama’s body could not tolerate even one more Airplane session at that moment).

Using Roughhousing to Teach Kids Life Skills

I’d read in various places how to use rough and tumble play to teach kids self-control and even social skills.  When Todd or I wrestled with our kids we talked beforehand about saying “Stop!” if things went too far.  Each time our kids said to stop, we always did so immediately (even when there didn’t seem to be an obvious reason) since we wanted to teach them that you stop when someone tells you to. We also watched the other person’s face and body language while playing as a way of listening to our partner.

When my kids were young, I sensed the importance of roughhousing and the potential it had to teach them vital life lessons, but I didn’t realize the extent of possibility in this play until my friend Kim mentioned the book, The Art of Roughhousing: Good Old-Fashioned Horseplay and Why Every Kid Needs It, by Anthony DeBenedet, MD and Lawrence Cohen, PhD.

I love this sentiment from the book:

Roughhousing is great fun.  It’s also a little dangerous.  In fact roughhousing is great fun because it’s a little dangerous. 

The Art of Roughhousing lays out numerous ways that horseplay can help kids and why it’s a need, not simply a want.  Those of us who are parents of boys have most likely seen how driven they are to make contact with each other and their love of rough play.  But the book reminds us of how valuable it is to roughhouse with our daughters as well.

Rough and Tumble Play Helps Girls

Although girls are more likely to use their voices than their bodies when communicating with peers, DeBenedet and Cohen claim that if girls roughhouse at home, they can more easily speak up for themselves in a direct manner in all aspects of their lives.  Roughhousing gives girls a way to test their strength and power and to become more confident.

What Good Old-Fashioned Horseplay Can Teach

For both boys and girls, horseplay with a parent has the potential to teach emotional intelligence including social awareness, cooperation, fairness, and altruism. This is because rough play with another person activates many parts of the body and brain – from the amygdala (emotional regulation) to the cerebellum (balance, coordination, and complex motor skills) to the prefrontal cortex (planning and decision-making).

During roughhousing, we parents can model for kids how a bigger person can let a smaller person win – demonstrating cooperation and impulse control, and teaching that winning isn’t everything.  When parents stop the horseplay because the child’s demeanor has changed from excited to upset, they are showing their child how to be aware of another person. This is also a time when parents model empathy by spending time comforting the unhappy child.

During rough and tumble play, most of these valuable emotional and social lessons are being taught nonverbally to kids, a compliment to the more verbal and passive academic learning they receive at school.  It’s as if these roughhousing lessons are integrated straight into our children’s growing bodies.  Then when the child has a similar experience later, she has a body-memory already there from which to draw.

Many parents and teachers are hesitant about roughhousing these days.  I think most mothers understand where this ambivalence may come from.  However, reading this book reminded me that horseplay has so much to offer our kids (and us) that it is worth getting past one’s reservations.  The Art of Roughhousing also describes various tried and true roughhousing games geared to a child’s age.

Five Roughhousing Tips for Parents

1.  Tune in to your child.  Don’t simply begin roughhousing because you are in the mood, or it’s a good time.  Notice when your child is ready for this type of play.  (Dads, this may not be right before bedtime.)

2.  Leave time for settling down after a roughhousing session.  Don’t roughhouse just before walking out the door to school, for example.

3.  Make eye contact with your child when you roughhouse.  Eye contact is an important aspect of social and emotional intelligence and rough and tumble play is a good time to practice this skill.

4.  Stop immediately when your child says to stop.  Ask why he or she wanted to stop afterward if you are unsure.

5.  Beware of tickling.  If you choose to tickle your child, watch them carefully when doing so.  Laughing during tickling doesn’t always communicate, “Keep tickling me.”  The authors suggest “almost tickling” when you just barely tickle the child.  This potential tickle can bring on peals of giggles, as well.

Little Roughhousers Grow Up

Sadly, my two older kids have grown too big for many of the roughhousing games listed in this book.  But I have roughhousing suggestions for parents of big kids (and let’s face it, we’ll all be those people eventually).

Here’s a variation of one game in the book which works at our house with kids and adults of all sizes.

Straight-armed push:

Two people stand facing each other with arms out straight, and hands clasped with the other person.  On the count of 3, begin trying to push the other person backwards (still on their feet), keeping arms straight.  This is surprisingly good exercise and fun!  My kids beg for more.

A More Structured Rough and Tumble Activity

Another way to handle the need for roughhousing as kids get older and bigger, is to begin a martial art or similar activity involving two people.  We chose To-Shin Do for our kids, a defense-oriented martial art which involves strength, strategy, and physical contact.  While practicing a martial art isn’t as free-form as roughhousing, To-Shin Do seems to meet a good many of my kids roughhousing drives.

Now I better go rest up because Daniel’s about to get home from middle school and he and I have a straight-armed push roughhousing date soon after he arrives.

 

I’m sure readers have additional ideas about roughhousing, and I’d love to hear them.  Leave a comment below!

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By the way, The Art of Roughhousing might be a fun gift for Mother’s or Father’s Day when the time comes.

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To Err is Human: 5 Ways Your Mistakes Can Make You a Better Parent

Posted on February 20, 2013 by Suzita

This image shows a guy with a pan of smoking cookies.Please tell me something like this has happened at your house too.  Two weeks ago my husband Todd was sick with a flu that snuck by the flu shot mix this year.  He felt terrible for over a week, poor thing.  One weekend day I’d taken our oldest to an activity while Todd stayed home with the other two kids and directions to watch a DVD with them or rest.

I returned home to discover that Todd had done a few other things besides resting.  First he began cooking lentils in preparation for Snobby Joes – we’ve been trying to do more Meatless Mondays.  Then the kids started acting up and driving him crazy so Todd decided to take them to the library. This would have been fine as long as he turned off the stove first.  Being sick, he didn’t.

Thus a while later, Todd and the kids returned home to a can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face, smoke-filled house.  Stephen and I arrived soon after.

Once our initial clean-up and air-out phase was complete, I took a walk to get some fresh air and ponder our next steps in dealing with our sweet little home which now smelled like a saloon.  As I walked, it also occurred to me that what we currently had was a teachable moment.  We could use this mistake to support various life lessons we’d been attempting to impart to our children.  A screw-up like this might as well be good for something.

Five Ways to Turn a Parental Mistake into a Useful Lesson

1.   Admit it.  Show your kids that you too make mistakes.  Be honest about your mistakes in the same way you always tell them to be honest about theirs.  Acknowledge your frustration and anger.  This sets the stage for your home to be a place where people share the bad as well as the good, and help each other fix mistakes.  We could never have hidden such an odorific debacle as this one from our kids – maybe this was a good thing.

2.  Make amends.  Teach the lesson that we can’t stop mistakes from happening because we’re all human, but we can always try to make things better after we’ve made a mistake.  Show your kids how you are making amends for your goof and ask them for additional suggestions.  Let them help you fix things if they wish, in order to support the message that family members help each other when something goes wrong.  The next day our kids helped wash down the walls of our smoky home.

3.  Teach children how to learn from mistakes.  Common parenting advice is that we should let kids make mistakes so they’ll learn important life lessons and won’t repeat the same actions.  While I generally agree with this sentiment, I have rarely seen it play out so smoothly with my 3 kids.  If left to their own devices, my kids would need to make the same mistake 4 or 5 times before truly learning “the lesson.”  Therefore, I try to support their learning when I can with questions such as, “If you had it to do over, what would you do differently?”

When we parents make a mistake, we can let our kids in on our thinking process.  In our recent screw-up, for example, we were reminded we’d been meaning to buy a pressure cooker.  This incident was a sign that we should do this now.  We explained to the kids that with a pressure cooker, beans and lentils don’t need to cook for as long and people are less likely to forget the stove is on.  We also talked to our kids about other changes we could make as a family to prevent this from happening again.  They suggested helping us double check that everything was turned off before we leave the house.  Hopefully we’re not flipping on an OCD switch in anyone, but clearly Todd and I could use the help.

4.  File the mistake away to be used again when needed.  Last week our 3rd grader Annie decided to wait until Thursday afternoon to do all her weekly spelling homework.  It was due on Friday.  (I know what you’re thinking.)  When Annie got home after school on Thursday, she realized she’d left her spelling workbook at school.  A steep and dark downward spiral ensued, swallowing all hope and brightness in its path.

I made an initial wrong move by saying to Annie, “Let’s just email your teacher and ask her if you can do your spelling homework over the weekend.”  I’m still not completely sure why this suggestion led to even deeper despair, but I think it had something to do with problem-solving before Annie was ready.  So I quickly back-tracked and simply described what I assumed Annie was feeling – hopelessness.  After this I told her about times I’d felt the same way after making a mistake.  Now I seemed to have her attention.  I pulled out an example of one of my bigger screw-ups from my mind’s “mistakes folder.”

“Annie, remember when I took you to Kaya’s birthday party at 2:00 when it actually had started at 10:00?”  (I’d already made that one up to her in other ways, so she wasn’t still angry about it.)  “That was a big mistake, and I felt really frustrated when it happened.”

Something about sharing my own mistakes with my kids always moves them through the upset phase a little faster.

5.  If  the mistake you made was a parenting mistake, apologize to your child.  So many challenging parenting moments come when you feel pushed into a corner needing to make a quick decision, or something unexpected occurs and you simply react to it.  These hasty responses are often the ones we regret.  But there’s a way past this.

Acknowledge you made a mistake and apologize to your child.  “Daniel, when I banned you from the Wii for a month after you came home late from school, I reacted too strongly.  I’m sorry.  I was still scared about not knowing where you were when I said that, and now I think it was extreme.  I’ve changed my mind.  You’re grounded from the Wii for a week instead of a month.”

When we apologize to our kids, we model this vital life skill for them, an ability which helps us move from a stuck, angry place to a more hopeful position.  Knowing that we parents can always apologize to our kids if we screw up, and in doing so we are teaching them a useful lesson, has helped me become a more relaxed parent.

My more relaxed stance makes everyone in our family happy because as the saying goes, “When Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”  Whether from our massive house-cleaning effort, or just the passage of time, our home finally no longer smells like the corner bar.   And Mama’s happier.

 

More ideas along these lines?  Leave a comment below!

 

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Promoting Your Child’s Passions

Posted on November 8, 2012 by Suzita

On our vacation to the East Coast last summer, I spent time with my childhood friend, Virginia, and her 4 kids.  Her oldest child, Micah, had just turned 15 when I saw him.  I don’t usually expect 15 year-old boys to be great conversationalists.  And for the most part Micah was succinct, though polite when talking about his life.  Until I asked about the animals he’s raising, 40 chickens and 4 goats.  When talking about his farm animals Micah’s eyes lit up and his speech became animated.  He seemingly could have gone on forever about buying his goats “at auction” and his quickly expanding chicken business.

When Micah was 10, his family had moved to the country from the suburbs.  Although Micah doesn’t live on a farm, many small farms surround his neighborhood.  Soon after moving, Micah met a neighbor who owned a brood of hens and was hooked.

Virginia reminded me that she and her husband had little experience with or interest in farm animals.  She admitted that they’d put off Micah’s request to raise chickens for a year or so.  But like many of life’s real passions, Micah’s didn’t ebb over time.  Eventually his parents relented and soon they were sharing their bathroom with 12 fluffy chicks for the winter.

Over time Micah built his flock up to 40 chickens.  He also amassed a group of regular egg customers, learning about finance along the way. Once he’d saved some money he began floating the idea of adding goats to his farm operation.  Soon after Micah bought the goats, his grandparents asked what he wanted for his birthday.  Micah informed them that he needed a shed.  How great is that?  Not an iPad or an iPhone, but a shed for his animal supplies.

Encouraging Innovation

Although Virginia said it hasn’t always been easy for her, she and her husband have done for Micah what Tony Wagner advises in his book, Creating Innovators: The Making of Young People Who Will Change the World.  As parents they have supported Micah’s passion.  After interviewing over 200 experts on innovation, Wagner concludes that it is not important what college major or serious interest a young person chooses, only that they follow something about which they are passionate and then delve deeply into their field.

For parents like Virginia who may find themselves explaining their child’s unusual pursuit to surprised extended family members more than they wish, Wagner explains that the Internet has changed the working world in their favor.  Greater communication and less rigidity in the world of work now mean there are many paths through which to enter a career.

Wagner writes, for example, about a girl who majored in art and went on to become a computer simulation programmer.  When she was subsumed in her art studies during high school, her parents supported her but worried she would have trouble making a living from her passion.  While pursuing an art major in college, she became involved in a computer simulation project and fell in love with this work.  In this new realm she drew on an artistic background in ways other programmers could not.

“Study what you have a passion for and change the world on your terms,” one of Wagner’s interviewees urged.

The Magic of Mentors

Wagner observes that we parents are in a unique position to notice what our children are passionate about and help them expand their knowledge base. When I last spoke with Virginia, she said Micah had begun spending time with a retired veterinarian named Bob who now raises sheep on a nearby farm.  After meeting Bob herself, Virginia introduced him to Micah and encouraged a potential mentoring relationship.  Now Bob regularly takes Micah to local talks on goat and sheep farming, and has taught him how to test his animals for parasites using sophisticated lab equipment.  This may not be for most kids, but Micah is on cloud nine.

As Virginia intuitively did, Wagner reminds us to support our kids’ passions with mentors whenever possible.  When a child takes a class somewhere, even on a subject he or she is fervent about, she is one of many in the room.  But when a child talks to a local bee keeper, fabric dyer, bike racer, geographer, or novelist, he gets one-on-one encouragement.  This unique support is often what moves young people to the next level of an interest.

Sparking Innovators at Home

Creating Innovators was quite inspiring, so of course while reading it my mind immediately focused on how I could better promote the passions of my 3 children.  But here’s the rather unfortunate reality.  My kids seem to be, how should I say this, between passions at the moment.  Such a disappointing realization after gathering so many strategies to encourage their passions!

I can say that 2 out of my 3 kids have demonstrated strong passions in the past, which now seem to be on temporary hiatus.  I would have said all my kids have, except when I really look at our 3rd grade daughter, Annie, I think I was mistaking her passionate personality with having a passion.  Just because you are an intense and excitable human, does not translate directly into having a passion.  Not yet at least.

When I admitted this to Virginia she helped me feel better by telling me that her other 3 children have not yet happened onto their passions either, although she thinks one might be close to finding it in foreign languages.

Clearly not all children follow a linear progression into their life passions or purpose as Micah has.  Parents of kids who take a more circuitous route to discovering their passions need more patience and perhaps endurance. But Tony Wagner would tell us that it’s important to keep using our intuition to expose our kids to things we think they could be interested in.  And we need to let them quit an activity that has not taken hold after a good amount of time, or from which they are ready to move on.

My Personal Commitment

So I vow to keep introducing my kids to the exciting neighbors I meet at the annual block party; taking them to talks around town such as the free Peace Corps presentation at our local REI store or the demonstrations by science professors in town called the C.U. Wizards; and accompanying my kids to community events like sustainable building fairs or artist open houses.

During these activities I’ll be ready to notice whether my children’s eyes light up at certain parts of the presentation, or if they are enthused all the way home as we discuss what we learned.  And finally, on the home front I will try to discern the activities my children tend to lose themselves within and come away from feeling refreshed.

Come to think of it, I believe I will put extra attention into noticing these areas in my life as well.

 

What passions have you supported in your child?  How did you go about this? Leave a comment!

 

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During Life’s Tough Times – 6 Ways to Help Your Child Handle Uncertainty

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Suzita

Our middle son, Daniel, just began middle school.  A middle child in middle school.  It’s gone about as you would expect from that combination – not too well.  Daniel now attends our neighborhood middle school, but comes to it from an elementary school across town with few friends in tow.

The challenge is that most of the 6th graders at this middle school came from neighborhood elementary schools and therefore knew each other already.  School’s been in session for 6 weeks now.  Daniel is slowly getting to know other kids, but no fast friendships have emerged.

Instead he’s been learning the lesson that sometimes this process takes a while.  If only he weren’t such a social kid, like so many middle children.  Then he wouldn’t care and it would all be a bit easier.  But he does and it hasn’t been.

So I find myself musing about teaching my children to handle uncertainty.  We don’t know how this will turn out for Daniel in the end.  Will he make good friends, or even a best friend?  Or will it end up being one of those school years when he learns to manage on his own?

But this is life, right?  We’ve all been through these tough situations.  Perhaps this is why it’s so hard to watch our kids face them.

However, I did feel better after reading Jonathan Fields’ book, Uncertainty: Turning Fear and Doubt into Fuel for Brilliance.  To be honest I don’t know about the turning it all into brilliance part.  This is middle school after all.  But fear, doubt, and uncertainty – those we have.

Fields writes about developing a tolerance for ambiguity because ambiguity and uncertainty go hand in hand with any creative process.  I immediately latched on to this concept!  I was supporting Daniel to strengthen his tolerance for uncertainty.  Because, as Fields says, without this there would be no creation and innovation, crucial life skills.

Yet, even though I now have a goal, Daniel still has to handle daily uncertainty.  If only he knew that it would all turn out okay in the end.  That would help him hang in there!  Of course that scenario would pretty much remove the un- from uncertainty.  Instead Daniel must remain in the uncomfortable position of not knowing how middle school will unfold.

Uncertainty is like wearing an itchy wool sweater that’s a size too small – and because this is about middle school we’ll say it’s also a bad color on you.  The sweater’s not going to kill you, and in good moments you manage to forget about it.   Yet it’s just not going to be a pleasant time when you’re wearing the thing.

How Do We Help a Child Handle Life’s Ambiguities?

I had one initial idea.  As it happened our family adopted a Humane Society kitten before the school year began.  Way back before we had kids I’d come up with the idea to name our next cat, Ambiguity.  Then each time it plopped its fuzzy, warm body onto my lap, I’d be “sitting with Ambiguity.”  I would practice accepting the many things undone and endings unknown around me, while calmly stroking a soft kitty.

Of course when I floated the name Ambiguity by my kids, it went over like a pregnant high jumper, as my mom used to say in the 70s.  In the end we named her Shenandoah (daughter of the stars) for the river in my home-state of Virginia.

6 More-Vetted Ways to Help Children Learn to Sit With Ambiguity

1.  Predict.  Help your child by predicting some of the challenges that may lie ahead.  “Expect it to take a while to get to know all the rules in your new school.  I bet it will feel a little awkward for a bit.”  “What will you do if you don’t have someone to walk home with?”

2.  Exercise.  Uncertainty is stressful.  Exercise relieves tension and anxiety, in addition to helping children eat and sleep well during ambiguous times.

3.  Give kids small rewards and acknowledgments for tolerating uncertainty.  During this challenging transition to middle school, Todd and I have given Daniel small treats now and again – a movie or special dessert.  We tell him we’re proud of him for simply hanging in there.  This falls in the same camp as my stepfather paying me for failing when I was a child.  It’s worth acknowledging the tough things our kids are handling.

4.  Travel.  In new places you and your children will quickly be reminded that things never go quite as planned on a trip.  Will the boat come on time?  Will we like the apartment we rented?  Will the kids eat the food?

Travel reminds us that even when events don’t play out as expected, some sort of adventure takes place.  The unpredictability and uncertainty of travel can teach kids (and parents) to become comfortable with these experiences.  Like the time we took our kids to Costa Rica to learn some Spanish and one of their favorite experiences turned out to be the adventures we had riding local buses.

5. Get a pet.  Unconditional love from an animal can be exceedingly beneficial to a child facing one of life’s struggles.

6.  Share your own experiences of ambiguity.  Like all children, mine adore stories Todd and I tell from our childhoods.  The ones they love best are those about our past challenges and failures.

My Uncertainty Story

I told Daniel this story last week.

One day while studying abroad in Cambridge, England, I saw a notice about upcoming try-outs for the rowing team of the college I was attending.  I was on my university’s rowing team at home and jumped at the idea of rowing in England.  I assumed I’d show up to the try-outs with numerous hopeful rowers new to the college.  Instead, on the morning of the try-outs, I stood there as the only outsider in a group of college girls who clearly all knew each other.

It soon became apparent that they’d rowed together the previous year.  And it was raining.  Of course.  My first thought was to sneak off, jump back on my bike, and ride (on the left side of the street) back to my apartment.  And honestly I was beginning to do just that when the rowing coach saw me.  I had to stay and face this uncertain situation.

At that point a little saying popped into my head.  I’d come up with this mantra during another awkward experience recently.  “The best things in life sometimes start out the worst.”  I began silently repeating it to myself.

I slipped my shoes off and slid onto the wooden seat the coach pointed me to in the 8-person boat.  At least I was about to do something familiar.  Soon everyone would be focused on rowing, not on the new American girl in seat 3.

As we pushed out onto the water, however, something immediately felt unusual about this rowing shell.  Turns out the British have a different style of rowing than Americans.  Now I was the new American girl in seat 3 who looked like she didn’t know how to row.  “Brilliant!” as they say in England.

As luck would have it, on that fateful day of try-outs one girl had not returned from the year before.  And I was there.  After a brief explanation that I actually had rowed before, and felt I could learn the British method of rowing, the coach agreed to give me a try.

It took a while to get to know my rowing-mates – the British aren’t known for their extroversion.  However, I slowly became more at ease with the 7 other college girls in my boat.  Our coxswain, Simon, was quite welcoming from the start.

As I look back now on my time abroad, some of my fondest memories are of traveling to various sites in England for rowing regattas.  And I’ll never forget the extremely formal end-of-season rowing banquet.  A five-course meal topped off with a serving of port in a beautiful banquet hall.  It was a scene right out of Chariots of Fire.

What I Told Daniel Next

Wherever we end up sitting with ambiguity – on a rather hard middle school desk chair, or in an 8-person British shell rowing the wrong way – it’s rarely comfortable.  But if we can learn to tolerate the discomfort of uncertainty, we may end up finding some of life’s true gems just down the path.

 

Additional ways to help kids handle uncertainty?  Other thoughts?  Leave a comment below!

 

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