Five Sanity-Saving Books for Parents of Young Children

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Suzita

My neighbor Kim (see Boys Babysitting: Kim was Right) suggested starting a neighborhood babysitting co-op. In the end three families were able to participate. We arranged for one couple to care for all seven kids one evening, every three weeks. So, one Saturday evening of babysitting equals two Saturday evenings free.

We’re still working out the kinks, but it seems to be progressing well so far. Of course on Todd’s and my first free Saturday evening, we were home with a feverish Annie. Ah, parenthood.

Our kids are the oldest in the co-op group. The other children range from ages three to five.  How quickly one forgets what it’s like to live with young children:

Tiny fingers that adore digging in dirt. Little feet that never keep shoes or socks on long. Small attention spans housed within little bodies. About the only items not small are the huge emotions only barely under their tiny master’s control.

Life with young children is like nothing else. Todd and I used to call those days Double Playground Days. One or both of us would take our little ones to a playground in the morning, where we’d last approximately two hours. We’d return home for lunch and nap or quiet time, then head to another park for the late afternoon. I’m tired just remembering this.

Spending time with our neighbors’ kids at the babysitting co-op reminded me of all the parenting books I desperately devoured in between playground trips back then. Now that those years have mostly passed, I can look back on this reading and pick out books and ideas which were most useful to me. I’ll keep it to a minimum so as not to overwhelm.

Love and Logic Magic for Early Childhood: Practical Parenting from Birth to Six Years, by Jim and Charles Fay. The most helpful idea I took away from Love and Logic was offering choices whenever possible. Why just yesterday I asked Annie whether she wanted to do her homework at the kitchen table or at her bedroom desk. Let’s face it, it’s not only kids who love choices, we all do.

Back in the days when Todd and I had toddler Stephen and infant Daniel, I often gave Todd the choice, “Would you rather deal with the screaming infant or the tantruming toddler?”

Love and Logic is more than just choice offering, of course. It’s a parenting system worth learning. Todd and I were part of a small Love and Logic parenting group during those years. We found that many heads were better than two when it came to generating creative Love and Logic consequences and solutions.

SOS! Help for Parents: A Practical Guide for Handling Common Everyday Behaviors, by Lynn Clark. This wise book includes the time-out method we used with each of our three kids. I took the author’s advice and didn’t begin time-outs until the kids reached two years of age. He believes younger children don’t yet have the brain development to understand this consequence. I can’t tell you how helpful this book was to me. Clark goes through all sorts of time-out scenarios, for example how to pull off a time-out away from home.

One suggestion from SOS! that has stayed with me long after we’ve stopped using typical young child time-outs utilizes a simple egg timer. This small kitchen gadget can almost single-handedly save the sanity of parents during the toddler and preschool years, at least it did at our house.

Seven uses for the hand-held battery-free timer:

1.  For time-outs at home.   Set it and put it near the child, but out of reach. Set it to one minute for each year of the child’s life. Then walk away. The timer tells the child how long to remain in time-out, not you.

2.  Use the timer to time-out a toy that kids are fighting over.

3.  At the beginning of potty training, we’d set the trusty timer for every 15 minutes. When it rang, it was time for another potty try.

Memories of our third and final potty training experience one summer not so long ago. We’d regularly take an after-dinner walk in a loop around our neighborhood, often ending at a playground. That summer, in addition to filling our squeaky red-metal wagon with balls and a few toys, we also threw in the colorful plastic toddler potty. I didn’t think much of this at the time. I was still pretty much in survival mode and keeping my eyes solely on the prize of that last kid out of diapers.

Throughout the summer, neighbors we hardly knew would ask me how potty training was progressing. I guess more people than I’d realized would hear our noisy wagon wheels and peek out their kitchen windows at the family hauling the potty.

4.  Bring the timer to the park. When it’s almost departure time, ask the child, “Would you rather stay for two more minutes or three more minutes?” Set the timer according to their response.

5.  Use the timer when a child needs a time-out at a playground.

6.  Use it to help children learn turn-taking. Offer the choice of one minute or two minutes per turn, then let the timer do the work. The timer plays the bad guy telling the child her turn has ended.

7.  Use the Love and Logic choice method plus timer for any number of situations. Today I asked Daniel whether he wanted to wash the car now or in ten minutes. He of course chose ten minutes and I set the timer. When it rang, he traipsed outside to begin. I didn’t need to say a word (this time).

Raising a Happy, Unspoiled Child: How Parents Can Be Both Firm and Loving and Help Their Baby Develop into a Secure, Well-adjusted Child, by Burton White. Although this book contains many tips and ideas, it most importantly gave me an overall mindset for parenting my young children. This is the mantra I’d say to myself and my two, three, or four year-olds repeatedly:

“You are important, but Mama’s important too.”

Our recent neighborhood babysitting reminded me how strongly kids of this age assert their needs. When I had young ones, repeating this mantra allowed me not to be constantly swayed, influenced, or pressured by the intensity and frequency of my kids’ demands.

Additional books helped my parental mental health by answering the question which regularly popped into my mind,

“Can this behavior be normal?!”

The First Three Years of Life, by Burton White.

The Gesell Institute series: Your One-Year-Old, Your Two-Year-Old, Your Three-Year-Old, Your Four-Year-Old…on up.

These books give actual data on what the average child spends his or her time doing at each age and invariably make a parent breathe a sigh of relief.

What are/were your favorite (sanity saving) books aimed at parents of young children?  Leave a comment!

If you don’t have young kids, feel free to forward this post to someone who does!

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Our Narratives

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Suzita

My friend Renee’s son Ben is sixteen and a junior in high school. In his freshman year he joined his school’s crew team and has been rowing with them ever since. If you are from a land-locked or water-scarce place, it’s likely your local high school doesn’t have a crew team. But in the Northeast, Ben’s home, they’re fairly common.

Ben is one of those kids for whome things have always come easily. He’s funny, gets good grades, and has participated in a variety of sports over the years. But Renee told me rowing was different from the start. Rowing and Ben were a perfect fit. He loved the calm, focused feeling he had out on the water. But he also enjoyed working so closely with a team of seven other rowers at such a demanding, competitive sport. It turned out his tall, lanky build was ideal for rowing and he quickly advanced in the sport.

By junior year, Ben was in the varsity boat and pretty much lived for rowing. His coaches noticed his skill and began to discuss college rowing scholarships–my friend Renee was thrilled. While he did quite well in school, Ben saw himself as a rower, first and foremost. All his big life decisions soon revolved around rowing.

Then this past winter, during the crew team’s indoor training season, Ben was skiing with friends one weekend and collided with a snowboarder. He sustained a considerable concussion and was told to take a two-week break from exercise. After two weeks, though, Ben was still experiencing brain injury symptoms, including trouble focusing on schoolwork and difficulty falling asleep. His doctor said to take two more weeks of rest.

At this point, Ben has begun working with a specialized head injury clinic, and he and his parents are hopeful that they will soon understand what treatments he needs for his recovery.

But suddenly everything is different. Ben’s personal narrative completely changed that afternoon on the ski slope. The narrative Ben’s parents had about their son was also altered radically after his injury.

Daniel Pink has a chapter on “Story” in his book,  A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. In it he quotes a cognitive scientist:

“Narrative imagining–story–is the fundamental instrument of thought. It is our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining…Most of our experience, our knowledge and our thinking is organized as stories.”

Pink summarizes the “Story” chapter with:

“We are our stories. We compress years of experience, thought, and emotion into a few compact narratives that we convey to others and tell ourselves…Story represents a pathway to understanding that doesn’t run through the left side of the brain….[We] hunger for what stories provide–context enriched by emotion, a deeper understanding of how we fit in and why that matters.”

These concepts underlie a type of psychotherapy called narrative therapy. This therapeutic approach is based on the fact that we each create stories of our lives which are so interwoven into our view of ourselves and our interactions in the world that we’re hardly aware our personal story is still merely a story.

Knowing the power one’s life story has, narrative therapists seek first to understand an individual’s current life story. Then they work with the person to modify it into a healthier narrative, often integrating positive characteristics and strengths which had been previously omitted.

Ben reminded me of all this. He’s in a tough position. His prior narrative as a strong, competent rower no longer fits. Although the “successful rower” narrative would be hard for anyone to let go, and it may end up being his story again after he recovers, right now it likely brings sadness and frustration to Ben’s life.

Renee told me about their experience. She said it had clearly been rough for Ben, especially being an adolescent when one’s sense of self is so central and often fragile. But in her honest and thoughtful way, she acknowledged how hard it also was for her to move past the rowing narrative for her son.

How to Move Forward

A new story could help Ben and his parents through this challenging time. Knowing Ben and his family, I hope they are able to create another narrative, one that weaves in characteristics of Ben’s such as patience, perseverance, inner-strength, and even sense of humor. At the center of this narrative could be someone who can overcome the obstacles life throws at him, with the help of supportive family and friends.

“Our stories can shape our future…Telling stories of struggle that turn out well may give people the hope they need to live productive lives. And [narratives] that vividly describe turmoil seem to help people grow wiser in the aftermath of major life challenges,” says psychology professor Dan McAdams, summarizing his research area of personal narratives.

I loved the way writer Sadie Dingfelder described one’s life stories. “We don’t just tell stories, stories tell us.”

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Mountain Goats and Spiderman: Using the Tools of the Mind Program

Posted on April 7, 2011 by Suzita

Over Spring Break our family visited two National Parks in Utah, Arches and Canyonlands. We stayed in the small town of Moab, where an interesting mix of ex-uranium miners and twenty-something mountain bike enthusiasts live tucked in between towering red rock mountains. Although the boys and Todd did enjoy some challenging mountain bike trails which Moab is famous for, mostly the kids wanted to explore the National Parks on foot.

As we neared the entrance to Arches, with its wide-open desert spaces housing massive, and just plain weird-looking, sandstone structures sculpted by wind and water, the energy level in our car soared. The kids wanted to jump out and experience it all right then.

However, they knew our first stop would be the visitor’s center where we’d ask the park rangers about our hiking options. Once inside, I was even able to wrangle our group to watch a short film describing Arches. After this we asked a naturalist for trail recommendations. We wanted a hike where the kids could scamper around some of the area’s harder rock, called slickrock, and if possible be at lower risk for tumbling over a cliff.

With the info the ranger supplied us we set out for the trailhead, driving through a strange landscape that can best be described as martian-like. As when you lie on your back, watching the sky and superimposing known images onto passing clouds, the odd sandstone formations at Arches begged for labels. Near the Double Arch trail, for example, stood a Taj Mahal-like rock surrounded by melted icecream cone shapes. Soon after this we spotted a huge alligator rock with the hump of a camel. Rock naming definitely engaged the kids.

But by the end of our first day though, none of the trails the ranger recommended had allowed the kids to climb around. Instead she’d steered us to sand-filled trails which were more like walking at a beach (surrounded by arches).

On our second visit to Arches a few days later, we asked another ranger for advice. We also had a variety of geology questions which hadn’t been addressed in the film or the visitor’s center displays. Having spent a summer during college working at Alaska’s Glacier Bay National Park, I’d developed utmost respect for the knowledge rangers and naturalists possess. The naturalists I met up there were some of the most intelligent folks I’ve ever spent time with.

But this time the naturalist seemed a bit stumped by what I assumed were fairly basic geology questions. This led me to wonder whether I was seeing an effect of our dwindling funding for national parks. Little funding means little training for naturalists. Entrance to Arches costs a mere $10 per vehicle, and this price even covers a week of return trips. We later spent that much on hot chocolate in Moab. Money is tight for us as it is for many these days, but I for one would be willing to pay much more for National Park entrance fees.

On our last day, we decided to do one final hike at Arches. This one was described in our literature as strenuous, but would take us close to the frequently photographed Delicate Arch. Soon after we began walking, bundled in winter coats and hats, the trail led us to an old homesteading cabin built partially underground, most likely for protection from the wind which was indeed blowing strongly in our faces.

I’m always looking for ways to help my kids be grateful for their home and belongings. This one-room cabin quickly did the trick.

Next the trail took us to some old Ute Indian petroglyphs, seemingly describing a successful bighorn sheep hunt. Totally cool.

We continued on, up a hill and around a corner, and there it was — not Delicate Arch (we had an hour’s worth of hiking before we reached that) but the span of slickrock we’d been hoping for! The kids screamed with excitement and began to climb and explore. Our trail passed over a vast expanse of smooth, hard rock, which included deep gullies where storm water ran, and some vertical walls with ample footholds. I have no idea why this hike wasn’t recommended to us when we asked. Perhaps because it was fairly steep at times.

Daniel (10) has been in a Spiderman phase since we recently rented a DVD of 1970’s era Spiderman cartoons. Upon seeing this slickrock portion of the path, he immediately became Spiderman, scaling the five foot walls and striking numerous superhero “alert and ready” poses.

Stephen (12) also enjoyed some Spidermanesque climbing, and when he became weary of this, began pondering the surrounding geology.

Annie (7) was Spiderman for a short while, but slightly less hooked in because “I only sort of like Spiderman since he isn’t a girl.”  (Please take note, Pixar. More female superheroes requested.)

Up, up, up, we followed the trail. Predictably Annie became tired first. After a rest and a snack she was re-energized, and thought back to the petroglyphs of mountain goats and sheep. “I’m a mountain goat!” she declared as she began scampering around once more.

As I watched her, something I’d recently read flashed through my mind. The book Nurture Shock, by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman, has a chapter about a successful preschool program called Tools of the Mind. Two educational psychologists, Deborah Leong and Elena Bodrova, who happen to work at the same college Todd does, created a curriculum for preschool and kindergarten children based on the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky.

Tools of the Mind classrooms evidently don’t look much different from those of other schools, but their curriculum helps kids control their behavior and resist impulses, which research suggests is extremely important for learning.

When Annie was a mountain goat on our hike, it reminded me that in Nurture Shock, I’d read about a Russian study in which young kids were told to stand still for as long as they could, then timed. They lasted an average of two minutes. Next they were told to stand still as long as they could while pretending to be soldiers. This time they lasted an average of eleven minutes.

The Tools program uses a great deal of imaginative play, but it requires kids to make a plan for their play and holds them to it. The children take on a certain character or role for up to an hour in class. This exercise and others, such as noticing when you’ve made a mistake and self-correcting, have been found to significantly improve the executive functioning of children in the Tools program.

Executive function is generated in the all-important prefrontal cortex of the brain and includes skills such as, planning, organizing, strategizing, paying attention, remembering details, and managing time and space. Sounds good for parents too, doesn’t it?

Let’s just say that if my own executive functioning had been in full swing the day of our Delicate Arch hike, I might have followed the suggestions of the Tools curriculum more closely. Before we began hiking, I might have planned with each kid what they could “do” to help them tolerate an arduous hike.

I probably would have encouraged Daniel to be Spiderman when we came upon climbing areas, but then encouraged him to think of other things Spiderman could do along the hike. Knowing Daniel, I assume that in addition to climbing he would have been searching for Spiderman’s foes and discovering hiding spots.

Annie, on the other hand, might still have been a mountain goat, but I’m sure we could have taken this idea further. She likely would have decided to be a Mama mountain goat and then she could have played out some scenario in which she cared for her babies along the hike.

In the end, we did complete our hike with or without the full Tools of the Mind repertoire. It was a challenging and rewarding trek, and there were some drop-offs to be wary of at the trail’s end. But Todd and I were able to see the Delicate Arch up close, along side Spiderman, a mountain goat, and a budding geologist.

____

By the way, Canyonlands was lovely too, but I would recommend going on a day without a snowstorm and 50 mph winds.

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Lessons in Kindness Can Also Help Lessen Bullying

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Suzita

Years ago before I had kids, I worked at a college counseling center as one of my internships on the way to becoming a clinical psychologist. The following year I interned at a mental health center which served many similar twenty-something clients. I so enjoyed working with this group of people and took away many skills and lessons I would use later as a full-fledged psychologist and parent.

Yet something which made a strong impression on me during this time was how often my clients spoke about negative experiences they’d had with their siblings. Not one-time nasty events from brothers or sisters, but on-going behaviors that resembled the bullying some kids experience at school. This long-term hurtful behavior from one sibling to another had such lasting effects that clients were bringing it up in therapy years later.

I knew I wouldn’t have too much control over bullying situations at my future childrens’ schools, but recognized that as a parent some day, I’d have more say over their behavior as siblings. I vowed to remember the stories I’d heard from my clients.

Like so many of my parenting plans, this has been more challenging than I envisioned. But I suppose I’m satisfied knowing that positive sibling relationships are something we continually “work toward” at our house. Sort of like those challenging yoga poses where you’re balanced on both bent arms while your legs fly out gracefully beside you. I’ll also be “working toward” those for the next decade or so.

Just today I had to lay down a new law that Daniel and Annie cannot talk directly to each other in the hour immediately after school. They are both tired at this time of day and the likelihood of mean, crabby, and/or rude behavior toward each other soars. They are permitted to talk to me by the way, just not each other.

According to a study in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, sibling relationships can be a “training ground” for peer relationships in and outside of school. Thus a sibling who is bullied at home, may indeed be more likely to bully others at school. However, the study suggests that a child’s personality strengths and weaknesses are also factors. A child (particularly a boy) who is more unstable emotionally, is also more likely to bully or be bullied at school.

Another point this research made is that older brothers are much more likely to bully younger siblings than older sisters are. I happen to have two older brothers in my house, so I’m going to need to step in more, as with the after-school nastiness between Daniel and Annie.

A while back I came across an online article on teaching kindness to children, by psychologist Michelle Borba.  She offered some resourceful suggestions I plan to try, such as having kids do a “kindness watch” where they write down all the kind acts they witness in a certain time period, then report back. Borba also encouraged parents to highlight with their kids the kind things others have done for them. Calling attention to acts of kindness in front of your children is a way of emphasizing their value to you.

And Borba gave the ever-important reminder to catch your kids being kind (whether to siblings or others) and then make a big deal about it.

A few months back, Stephen came home from this competition that I can best describe as “Jeopardy with Middle School Teams.” Stephen’s group was still in the running near the final round, when one of his teammates who was the designated “answer giver” goofed on a response. It happened to be a geography question to which Stephen knew the right answer. And it needed to be spelled out. Stephen had spelled it to his teammate, who was in turn supposed to spell it for the judges. Well, the boy left out a letter and thus got the answer incorrect. Things were pretty intense at this point in the competition, and Todd confirmed that there had been tears on other teams over similar mistakes.

However, Todd told me that after this mistake happened, Stephen leaned over, patted the boy on the shoulder, and told him it was no big deal. I was so pleased (and relieved) to hear this. Even though their team won the competition in the end, Todd and I spent much more time rewarding that act of kindness than the win. We told Stephen it was this behavior we were most proud of, and it was reason we were taking him for ice cream afterward.

More recently I read another post by Dr. Borba titled, “Mobilizing Student Bystanders to Stop Bullying.” In it she listed a number of books which teach kids ways to intervene in a bullying situation. Only one of these was available at our library so I began there, Say Something, by Peggy Moss. I read it to Daniel while Stephen read his novel nearby. The final pages of Say Something offer additional suggestions for breaking up a bullying event (as does Borba’s post).

Soon Annie came over and requested a second read-through of Say Something. Annie, Daniel and I talked about what they might find easiest to do if they were a bystander in a bullying situation.

Daniel decided that creating a distraction would be easiest. He thought he might be able to say, “I think a teacher is coming.” Or cut in and say to the kid being harassed something like, “Hey do you have the list of spelling words?” Anything to break things up and let people know he wasn’t going along with the mean-spirited joking. Midway through our conversation, Stephen had put down his book and was generating ideas with us, as well as supplying middle school examples of teasing and bullying.

Next I told the kids about a long-term bullying (or at least nasty teasing) situation I observed at my middle school. All three kids were completely engrossed by this story. They wanted details, as many as I could recall. And of course they wanted to know what I did. I wish I’d done more and we discussed this. We then came up with things I could have done. When an unsuspecting Todd wandered into our discussion, he was quickly implored to retell any bullying situations he’d seen in school. He related one similar to mine, and this led to even more discussion among us.

Telling the kids that we’d seen and experienced these issues at school seemed to make them more willing to share situations they’d observed. We then discussed how to attempt to avoid being bullied and what to do if it does happen.

This was a conversation I’ve been meaning to have for a while. I’m sure you know how that goes. I was so grateful to Say Something for helping me begin the discussion. I’m going to track down the other books Michelle Borba mentioned in order to be sure we continue with this topic over time. I’ll let you know how it goes. I fear it’s going to get harder not easier as each kid spends all those hours in middle school.

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Teaching Kids Persistence

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Suzita

All three of our kids play soccer on local teams. Early on Todd and I chose soccer as a sport to start with in our family mostly because it requires you to run hard. With three active kids living in a small home, energy expended in an activity is a vital consideration.

Now that the kids are older, we also appreciate the social skills they practice while playing a team sport. Soccer has additionally been surprisingly helpful for meeting other kids during our travels in Central America. So, for now, soccer continues to be the team sport we put the most time and energy into as a family.

The older the kids get, though, the more complicated (and expensive) soccer has become, even though we’ve always opted for recreational rather than competitive teams. Last season Annie’s soccer team consisted of mostly boys. While she’s used to playing fairly rough-and-tumble soccer with her brothers, the boys on this team didn’t regularly pass to girls. This season we are trying an all-girls team for her.

Daniel’s soccer team also wasn’t ideal for him last season. After much thought, we placed Daniel on his older brother’s soccer team. This change will be more efficient for us. No more driving (or biking) to three separate practices and games. And Daniel is a strong player and should be able to keep up fairly well. But Todd and I will be watching closely to see how having both brothers on one team unfolds.

I observed part of the boys’ first practice, from a distance (so as not to embarrass my pre-adolescents by being too close). Daniel appeared to be keeping up, and Stephen looked like he was serving as the big brother we hoped he would be.

When I checked-in with Daniel about the practice that evening, I expected his response to match what I’d witnessed. Instead I heard, “It was hard Mama. The coach had us do this kind of dribbling that I’d never done before. All the other boys knew how to do it, but I didn’t.” As Daniel talked he seemed to feel more and more defeated. I felt a bit hopeless just listening to him.

But before spiraling down too low, I was able to try some of the methods Martin Seligman (often called the father of Positive Psychology) recommends in his book, The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience.

I told Daniel that he was right, he was learning these dribbling skills for the first time. Many things are hard the first time you attempt them.

Then I reminded him that he often challenges himself to learn new things, like a while back when he decided he wanted to whistle. He experimented with a myriad of mouth positions all day for two days straight, and by the end, he was a whistler. He smiled remembering this.

Next I suggested, “How about Daddy or I spend some time tomorrow afternoon practicing these new skills with you? Then I bet they’ll start to come easier.” Daniel readily agreed.

I’m not sure he would have remembered this practice on his own, but I’d written myself a note so we wouldn’t forget. The next afternoon Todd practiced the new type of dribbling with Daniel on our backyard’s sparse wintertime grass, with our neighbors’ chickens looking on interestedly. The next day we practiced again, this time encased in thick winter coats, as the temperature had dropped significantly.

Due to these special practice times, Daniel is continually improving at this new form of dribbling, and also becoming more self-confident about being the new kid on the team.

In The Optimistic Child, Seligman offers numerous parenting techniques under the general theme of teaching kids optimism. One skill that supports an optimistic world view is persistence. This interchange with Daniel reminded me of what Seligman writes on having persistence in the face of life’s obstacles.

“Any complicated task your child might undertake consists of several steps, each of which is more or less easy to fail at…Every subfailure, as well as every big failure, produces bad feeling – some admixture of anxiety, sadness, and anger…Your child has one of only two tactics available when he feels bad. He can stay in the situation and act, trying to terminate the emotion by changing the situation. Or he can give up and leave the situation. This tactic also terminates the emotion by removing the situation altogether. The first tactic I call mastery, and the second I call learned helplessness.”

Seligman’s words reminded me of what my stepfather used to say to me as a kid, as a part of his Failure Payment Plan (see post). “Failure is an important part of life.” When my stepdad paid me for ambitious failures, he was helping me become more comfortable around failure.

Seligman writes that those who can tolerate failure can make their way to mastery. He would have us teach our kids persistence in order to help them endure the numerous failures they will experience when learning any big task. Both persistence and failure tolerance are key aspects of an optimistic personality.

Seligman notes that Paul Ehrlich concocted 605 drug mixtures in his attempt to cure syphilis, before he reached drug 606 which finally worked. And summarizes,

“Children need to fail.  They need to feel sad, anxious, and angry. When we impulsively protect our children from failure, we deprive them of learning the 606 skills. When we soften the blows [of failure] and distract them with congratulatory ebullience, we make it harder for them to achieve mastery…By blunting warranted sadness and anxiety [we] create children at high risk for unwarranted depression.”

Whew! That paragraph caught my attention. Like most parents I find it incredibly challenging to watch my kids flounder, struggle, fall hard, become intensely frustrated, and/or fail. But when Seligman links inability to handle life’s failures with depression (which the data in his book clearly do), I find myself much more motivated to generate creative ways, like my stepfather’s, to help my kids accept, and even learn from, their failures.

I’d love to hear other people’s ideas or experiences for helping kids become more comfortable with failure.   Leave a comment below!

_____

An Additional Resource:

A workbook for kids ages 6-12 titled, What to Do When You Grumble Too Much: A Kid’s Guide to Overcoming Negativity, by Dawn Huebner, Ph.D.

Daniel and I have used this together because we both have a small tendency to grumble too much. I found it quite useful. It seems most appropriate for ages 8-11.

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Adding Joy

Posted on March 17, 2011 by Suzita

I’ve read in a number of places that if you want to rediscover the things you truly love to do, recall what you loved to do as a 10 or 11 year-old.

At this age I was doing a lot of gymnastics, probably spending as much time upside down as right side up on any given day. When not tumbling, I was roller skating through every nook of our planned community’s neighborhood with my best friend, Kim. We’d devise random challenges such as who could skate the farthest down a muddy hill before falling, only moving to the next endeavor when our skates were too mud-caked to roll any further. Thinking back on those years, my life was lived outside and in motion.

When I got into yoga as an adult, it felt familiar on a deep level from the very first class. Eventually I realized this comfortable familiarity with yoga was related to my years of gymnastics. I’d finally found a way to spend time upside down again, without drawing stares.

For me, one of the unexpected high points of parenting has been the increased level of physical activity the kids have brought to my life. They get me outside when I might not otherwise go. And they so clearly need a regular physical outlet, that in finding this for them, I meet my own activity needs as well.

Now that my kids are within or near the 10 and 11 year-old age range, it’s been entertaining to watch what they are drawn to, and wonder whether it will become one of their enduring activities.

Will Stephen always love poring over maps and creating his own? Is theater going to be a part of Daniel’s life in some way for years to come? Will Annie’s own children hear her sing as frequently as we do now?

Recently I was reading Martha Beck’s book, Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live. This is a book I have read three times already, just in the past eight months, and will no doubt read pieces of for many years to come. It’s one of those wise tomes that offers something novel to consider each time I return to it.

The last time I read it, I began with her section: Maximizing Your Life’s Joy Content. Beck says that like fitness experts encourage us to fit bits of exercise into various parts of our day, we should also add morsels of joy into our daily lives.

Start small. If nature brings you joy, make sure you have photos of the natural world in your office, on your cell phone, and your computer screen. Beck gives the example of a man who loved golf. He decided to rise early twice weekly to hit balls at the driving range. Then he added a virtual golf game to his work computer. I enjoyed even considering ways I might scatter bits and pieces of joy throughout my day.

Beck includes a true/false exercise to help one discern activities which lead to true joy versus just a fleeting happiness. Reading some of the statements such as, “When I remember this experience, my muscles relax” or “I find myself spontaneously smiling when I dwell on this memory” turned my mind to the notion of flow.

Much psychology research has been done on flow and the concept is similar in many ways to Beck’s descriptions of joy. You enter a state of flow when you are engaged in something pleasurable that is hard, but not too hard. You lose all track of time. You are 100% focused on the present moment, and it’s an extremely satisfying experience.

Read more about how to incorporate and support flow in your kids’ lives here.

I remembered that time flies for me when I paint. This includes the process of deciding what to paint, though part two of the process, gathering the supplies, can slow me down a tad. However once I start the actual work, I quickly re-enter that flow state. I hadn’t painted in quite a while.

So I painted again.

When I was painting this time I noticed the kids were drawn to me like bees to fluffy, springtime pollen. They didn’t buzz around me in a distracting way, though. It was as if the feeling of peace and contentment I had while painting was contagious. My kids would amble over and quietly observe. They’d notice aloud particular aspects or colors of the painting that pleased them, then walk away calmer.

Annie decided to undertake her own painting project at the table across from me. Perhaps because neither of us was particularly worried about the end result of our work, but instead focused on the process, our painting experiences progressed more smoothly than in the past.

It helped that we weren’t making the paintings as gifts and weren’t tied to a deadline for completion. When I am attached to a certain outcome, it’s much harder for me to reach that state of flow or experience joy. (I think Martha Beck would agree.)

Checking back in with my 11 year-old self, at that time I didn’t love to draw and paint, and wasn’t particularly skilled at either.

Remember those make-your-own plastic plates? First you’d draw with chunky, rainbow-hued markers on a circular white sheet of paper. Then your work would be mailed off to some company that would turn it into a plate which you’d give to your parent on the next holiday. Well, both my parents kept these works of art and recently returned a fairly substantial dining set of them to me. Now at each family meal, my children have visible proof that I wasn’t very talented at drawing as a child.

Annie: “You were eight when you drew this, Mama?  Really?”

Daniel:  “That’s okay, Mama, I bet no one ever taught you how to draw trees, so you didn’t know.”

Stephen: “Or people, or cats.”

Me: (trying to turn this into some kind of teachable moment) “Well it just goes to show things can change later in life. Plus we all get better at the things we practice again and again.”

In my experience, thinking about one’s childhood is indeed an ideal place to start finding our “true loves in life” but it’s also vital not to stop there. Like our kids do naturally, we should try new things too, because novelty is also highly correlated with joy (but I guess that’s a subject for another post).

What activities are flow experiences for you?  Leave a comment below!

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Starting at a New School

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Suzita

My friend Maria is moving her second grade daughter, Tina, to a new school next year. She thinks this school will be a better fit for Tina in the long run, but she’s worried about how Tina’s transition will go.

Maria recently asked me, “Will you write an article on helping kids make big transitions like this?” Ah, what would parenthood be without the seemingly constant need to help our kids through various life transitions?

Our son Stephen didn’t know anyone when he began kindergarten. I’m not sure who was more stressed by this, him or me. Probably me. I recall completely rearranging our summer schedule so that we could attend each of the four pre-kindergarten full-class play dates at nearby parks. At least after those I had a few names of kids I could use with Stephen when we envisioned kindergarten. Luckily he had already met his teacher during a school tour.

Maria is at more of a disadvantage here since Tina will be moving to a new school at the beginning of third grade, a less common time to begin. Now that I have a school-age daughter I know firsthand what all the books say: the girl social scene is much more challenging at this age than the boy scene. Practically all a boy has to do is bring a new ball to school and he is welcomed at recess. But the girl arena is infinitely more complicated.

Along these lines, if I only had a dollar for every parent of a first grade girl who has told me, “She’s doing fine academically, but it’s been a hard year socially.” Let’s just say I was a little frightened of first grade girls before Annie even began this year. She’s currently halfway through first grade, and true to form, we’ve spent much more energy working on social issues than academic ones. And I remain somewhat frightened of first grade girls.  (I have a similar fear of toddlers, by the way.)

Due to my trepidations, if I were Maria, I would contact the new school and ask to speak with one of the second grade teachers (who currently have Tina’s soon-to-be classmates). I might even ask for the one who tends to work best with girls. After telling him or her that my daughter was transferring, I’d ask for names of girls in Tina’s upcoming third grade class who are most open to new friendships. There are always a few. Then I’d request that Tina be put in class with at least one of these girls.

Of course a good teacher match would also be helpful, so I’d be angling for one of those too by asking other parents at the school about the third grade teachers. But, for a third grade girl, my priority would be getting her into a class with at least a few “welcoming” girls.

I’d also access the ever-strong, ever-knowledgeable parent network, to find other families who attend the new school, and to learn more about the school’s culture. In my experience, it’s only through the parent pipeline that you hear things like, “That teacher is great with active boys” or “Save some energy for the science fair project in third grade, it’s pretty much done completely at home.”

I’d also suggest that Maria think about what might be hardest for her daughter Tina about the transition. Tina will likely have a few worries at the forefront of her mind that Maria can help address and ease. Sometimes I give my kids something small of mine to put in their pocket on that first day. Most recently I’ve used a small, smooth rubbing stone for this purpose.

Thinking back to when I was in this situation, I knew Stephen loved the academic aspects of school. Therefore, when he was going to enter kindergarten knowing virtually no one, I found out what subjects they’d be studying and we talked a lot about these beforehand. This seemed to both excite Stephen, and help him feel more grounded and confident.

I also walked Stephen through his new kindergarten classroom a few times in the weeks before school began. The school was very accommodating about this. I remember Stephen was really enthused to see all the globes and maps in the room. Later, when he was nervous about starting school, I’d remind him about all those globes and maps, and he’d calm right down.

We also spent a lot of time playing on the playground at Stephen’s new school the summer before he began. Because I was anxious about my first kid’s transition to a new school, I put a lot of thought into the various aspects of school for a young child. It was a good reminder to think beyond merely teacher and new friends, to other aspects of school like the classroom, the subjects being taught, or the playground. Heck, we even toured the bathrooms!

Last year my kids’ winter break seemed inordinately long for reasons I still don’t fully comprehend. We’d had various house guests early on. Then we’d done a range of activities around town for the remaining days off. By the time school was finally about to begin again, it felt like we’d been off for months. During those last days of winter break each child told me, in one way or another, that they were worried about starting school again.

So I did for them what always helps me. We went to the school building and did a walk-through. Some of the teachers were there setting up for the new quarter, but the halls were generally quiet. We walked to each kid’s classroom and peeked inside, said hello to various staff members, and then left. It took all of ten minutes, but each child was noticeably more relaxed afterward.

My kids’ responses to this little walk-through exercise made such an impression on me. So much so that the day before middle school began this year, Stephen and I did a similar walk-through at this new school. Again it had the same positive effect.

Hope that helps a little, Maria.

Additional ideas for helping kids transition to a new situation?  Leave a comment.

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Negotiating with Kids

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Suzita

My sister’s favorite class at business school was a negotiation course taught by a guy named Stuart Diamond. She said one of the lessons she gleaned from his class was never to give up on a negotiation. There’s always a creative way to solve a thorny problem.

When my sister learned Diamond had written up his popular class into a book, she sent me a copy. Thanks Heather! The book is called Getting More: How to Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World.  The 12 Invisible Strategies That Change Everything You Thought You Knew About Negotiation.

This book has a chapter devoted to kids and parents, which fits his general model for negotiation into the seemingly constant dealmaking we parents engage in with our progeny. But I recommend perusing the entire book because there are gems throughout that might otherwise be missed.

As the parent of an adolescent, here’s the nugget I found most valuable: include intangibles and items of unequal value into your negotiations. Diamond even recommends that you are honest and transparent with your child about doing this.

He writes, “All parties value things differently and often unequally. Once you find out what they are, you can trade them. In the process you will get what you consider valuable things for yourself. In exchange, you can give up things that have relatively little value to you.”

At about this point in my initial reading, I desperately needed an example. Never fear, Diamond’s book offers an abundance of real-life examples, with actual names of people and places included! We psychotherapists think this is particularly cool because we always have to change names and identifying information when writing up our work.

“Debbie Simoncini-Rosenfeld, vice president of an insurance company, was trying to deal with her eight year-old daughter, Jessica, ‘screaming and yelling’ to stay up later than her 8:30 bedtime. Her daughter wanted to read later at night. So Debbie traded her daughter a 9:30 bedtime in exchange for no bare-belly shirts at school and no riding her bike in the street. Debbie valued her daughter’s decorum and safety more than a later bedtime; her daughter valued a later bedtime more than decorum and safety.” Both parties were quite satisfied with this deal in the end.

Reading this passage was a breath of fresh air for me! I haven’t battled over this particular issue at my house, but it is so similar to many of our ongoing “negotiations.” The Debbie and Jessica scenario reminded me to think imaginatively about solutions, and that both people can win in a negotiation. In fact the goal is for both parties to come away feeling they got something.

Diamond encourages parents to teach their older children about these negotiation strategies because, when two people think innovatively about intangibles that might be traded, a solution is generated more quickly.

He also reminds readers to stand in the shoes of the other person at the beginning of each negotiation. Try to suss out the “picture in the other person’s head” in order to better understand what they truly want (which may not be exactly what they are requesting).

This suggestion is, of course, completely obvious when read here in black and white. But do you do it regularly?

I like to think I do, but truthfully I’ve got maybe a 50% rate of other person’s shoe wearing.  Maybe that’s why they call it standing in someone else’s shoes. The image captures the full sense of this act, which for adults at least, isn’t something wholly appealing. “I’ll wear my own shoes thanks.” Kids, on the other hand, literally do this all the time from about ages 1 to 5.

Diamond also recommends that we parents regularly play “role reversal” with our kids. When parents and children play out a problem scenario with reversed roles, it allows each to better understand the other’s position. Plus kids love playing the parent!

I wish I had a tidy little scenario of how we’ve used these negotiation techniques at my house, but at the moment I don’t. I only finished the book yesterday.

The closest I can come is our family chore-assigning meetings. At these times, I remind the kids that we each have a chore which for whatever (usually somewhat irrational) reason, we can’t stand. Then I tell them that they don’t have to pick that one as their job, because chances are someone else isn’t as annoyed by it. This technique has been a useful way to add some choice into chore selection, and seems to help the kids feel less put-upon. Otherwise, in our family, doing chores is a “non-negotiable item.”

Here’s one final highlight. Diamond discusses the importance of brainstorming ideas during negotiating, saying that “even an ill-formed idea can spark a great idea in someone else.” He writes that a British study in 2006 titled “Why Bad Ideas Are a Good Idea” found empirical evidence that bad ideas prompt creative processes which then produce good ideas. From here the authors went on to suggest, “Bad is the new good.”

I love that quote. I think I will use it in my family next time I come out with a really bad idea, one I should have kept inside my head to stew a bit longer. But it’s all okay because, bad is the new good. Such a freeing concept!

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Homemade Gifts and The Green Triangle

Posted on February 24, 2011 by Suzita

As I write this I am just a few days past the valentine making-phase I go through each year with our kids. This year, since our oldest is in middle school, only Annie and Daniel made valentines for their classmates.

I do kind of dread the end of January when the valentine project begins. I get this immediate mental exhaustion response even before cutting the first heart. As the kids get older they do much more of it solo, but I find I still need to build in some structure to allow it to happen. My reminders, support around what to write on each valentine, creative suggestions (when requested), and help with clean-up are still required. Each year I invariably think, is it worth it?

I guess it must be worth it because we continue to embark on this endeavor year after year.  However, this time I looked at the homemade valentines from yet another angle, the Green Triangle.

In 1990 Ernest Callenbach wrote an article describing his idea of the Green Triangle. It boils down to this:  when you make a positive change in one area of your life, it also affects other areas positively.

The three points of the Green Triangle stand for MONEY, ENVIRONMENT, and HEALTH. The classic example Callenbach uses is someone commuting to work by bicycle. Perhaps she made this change in order to save money on gasoline and car wear and tear. In this case the behavior was initially begun in order to save money. However, riding one’s bike to work also helps the environment by reducing pollution and carbon emissions. And thirdly, riding a bicycle to and from work daily improves a person’s health.

This year as I sat with my gluey-fingered valentine creators I pondered how our homemade valentine effort fell on the Green Triangle. We began making our own valentines when Todd was still in graduate school and we needed to save money any way we could. Thus we began at the MONEY point of the triangle.

When it comes to ENVIRONMENT, we are reusing items we already own for much of the valentine making (cutting up old Christmas cards, or reusing other art projects in some way). So we are not generating more stuff that will eventually end up in a landfill. We also don’t travel anywhere to buy the valentines. This seems small, but I suppose if we fashioned many more of our own things, we’d create less pollution from our reduced car time.

Next we come to the point of the triangle labeled HEALTH. You may skeptically wonder, how does making your own valentines increase your health? When I think back to the all of the inky, glue spattered fingers which are invariably licked in the process of creating valentines, I have to agree we’ve got a few points against health there. However, being a psychologist, I’m never far away from the topic of mental health.

In fact, I believe MENTAL HEALTH is the main reason I continue to do this project with my kids each year. A little background:  early on a teacher required each valentine to include a compliment for the recipient. I loved this idea and we have continued it annually.

Therefore during valentine making, my kids have to spend time thinking of an appropriate compliment for each child in their class. This part is actually what takes a while.

We spend time thinking and talking about each child in their class as we make valentines. Sometimes this conversation leads to a discussion of a struggle my child is having with a classmate and we take time out to problem-solve. However, usually this exercise gives my kids an overall feeling of gratitude. It makes sense:  they’ve just thought of positive things about the people with whom they spend their school day. How could they not come away feeling appreciative?

As you may have guessed, my kids have to write more than “You are nice” on their valentines. But I also don’t require them to shoot for the moon. They tend to write compliments such as,  “I really liked the poem you read in class. You are a good poet.” Or, “You dribble the ball really well on our basketball team.”

Helping my kids spend time thinking about the children at their school is also valuable because it helps them better understand their social world. These days it seems too easy for kids, especially boys, to go through childhood without thinking much about the experiences of others. Reading social cues in the classroom is a skill that makes school smoother for kids. I didn’t realize it when we began our valentine-making routine, but this is a rather painless way for my kids to work on this skill. And they can practice gratitude simultaneously!

Since the valentine creation process takes place over many days at our house, I had ample time to consider the Green Triangle concept. It was fun to think of different changes we are working on as a family and fit them into Callenbach’s idea. It’s also such a hopeful way to view making a change. In our busy lives, it can feel overwhelming to take on something new. It helps me to remember that a new behavior may be affecting more than one area of my life positively. It nicely addresses my parental need for efficiency!

In reading about the Green Triangle, I came across another writer who suggested the triangle be changed to a Green Square with the final point labeled COMMUNITY.  I like this idea because it supports psychology research findings that people who are more socially connected are healthier and less depressed than isolated folks.

After school on Valentine’s Day, Annie received a phone call from a girl in her class. In first grade you don’t receive many phone calls, so this was exciting in and of itself. It turned out the little girl was so happy to have received Annie’s heartfelt compliment on the uniquely designed valentine that she wanted to phone Annie to thank her. The girls chatted for a while and Annie was beaming when she hung up.

_____

Update:

Our son Stephen loves geography. He’s our kid who puts atlas, globe, and geography book on his Christmas wish list.

These days many schools offer a Geography Bee (similar to a Spelling Bee but with geography questions). Stephen had some success in these during elementary school and set his sights on winning his middle school Geography Bee which would allow him to move on to the big one at the state level.

Stephen’s middle school’s Geography Bee took place last month. He truly studied hard for it, practicing nearly daily for two months. But he didn’t win. He won’t be going on to the state Geo Bee this year. He was pretty disappointed, understandably.

If you read about my stepfather’s Failure Payment system, you may be thinking what I was thinking.  It was the perfect situation in which to give Stephen the first “Dan’s Good Failure” payment, and we did.

( In case you are wondering, I did get Stephen’s okay before writing this.)

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Starfish One By One: An Amazing Guatemalan Non-Profit

Posted on February 17, 2011 by Suzita

Half the Sky, by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, has been very inspirational reading for me. It demonstrates the creativity people use to make ends meet when given a leg up via a small business loan or scholarship.

Prior to our trip to Guatemala, I learned of an organization called Starfish One By One–now called Maia Impact–located in that country which would make Kristof and his wife smile. As they mention in Half the Sky, much research indicates that putting money toward educating and supporting women is the most efficient way to raise communities out of poverty. This is just what Maia Impact is doing in Guatemala.

After hearing about Maia Impact, Annie, Daniel, and Stephen decided to collect school supplies for this program before we left for Guatemala. We would be there for almost a month learning Spanish and could deliver the supplies in person!

The non-profit told us they were in need of computer flash drives, calculators, digital cameras, and large world maps, among other things. These wouldn’t have been at the top of our list. Glad we contacted them!

Next, our kids informed their classmates about our collection plans. Many families were wonderfully generous, and soon we’d filled an extra suitcase with school supplies. Did you know that if you bring a suitcase of donated supplies, the airlines don’t require a luggage fee? I just learned this recently (about 7 months too late), but maybe this information will help one of you!

That summer, after our Spanish school had ended, our family traveled by van, along many mudslide-induced detours, to the Lake Atitlan area of Guatemala to visit the Maia Impact program.

Maia Impact pays poor Mayan girls to stay in school through 12th grade. The majority of these girls in Guatemala drop out of school after 6th grade because they need to earn money for their families. Maia Impact also gives students a local mentor to support them throughout their schooling since few young women take this educational route. The Maia Impact students meet as a group each Sunday morning for a life skills lesson, and also as a means of support.

When we visited the Maia Impact program one Sunday morning in July, we were somewhat exhausted by many aspects of our Guatemalan experience (see previous post). It didn’t help that our taxi driver had gotten lost and dropped us off far from our destination.

When we eventually found the correct address, we were facing a nondescript, gray, cement block building which houses Maia Impact. Our family was welcomed in and led up a central staircase with photos of smiling Mayan girls and their artwork hanging on the walls.  

At the top of the stairs was a covered balcony room with a panoramic view of the city and surrounding mountains. There, a group of seventeen Mayan girls was being taught by one very energetic Mayan teacher, Candelaria.

Candalaria knew beforehand we were coming. We gave the girls the school supplies we’d collected and they thanked us in excited voices. The girls were dressed in beautiful woven tops and skirts, the patterns and colors of which indicated the Guatemalan region in which they lived. They were fifteen and sixteen year-olds who had been with Maya Impact for a few years already.

Candelaria had a small, red and yellow hacky sack ball which the girls tossed from person to person. The catcher had to introduce herself. Each student told us her name, the pueblo she was from, and how far she traveled to get to the city of Panajachel where the Maia Impact meeting was held at 8am each Sunday.

At the end of her introduction each girl said, (in Spanish) “After graduating, my dream is to be a…” Many said they wanted to be teachers, two wanted to be doctors, one wanted to be an accountant, others wanted to own a business. The girls were so sweet and hopeful when revealing their dreams to us.

Next, we introduced ourselves. Stephen and Daniel told the girls in Spanish what their goals were after graduation. Annie told them too, with our help. I shared that I was a psychologist, but I’d finished my schooling before I’d had the kids. I told them that for me it was so much easier to have completed my education in this way. Candelaria’s face lit up when I said this, as waiting to have children is part of what Maia Impact aims for with their students.

The day we visited Maia Impact, Candelaria was teaching the girls how to start a small business. She didn’t assume that they’d all choose this as a career, but she wanted them to have this skill along the way to their long-term goal. She instructed the students about the importance of saving a little money every time they were paid. She mentioned to Todd and me that the girls are from very poor families which are always facing one hardship or another. Therefore, the skill of saving is never taught to them.

During this lesson Daniel and Stephen told the girls that they had a small business at home where they shovel snow, rake leaves, and take care of pets when neighbors travel. The girls were quite surprised that American kids would work for money. Then we talked about what percentage of money Stephen and Daniel save each time they are paid. Candelaria highlighted this comment because she was about to teach the girls percentages as part of this class.

Later Candelaria proudly told us what some of her students had accomplished. One girl, Marina, was the first in her pueblo to become a teacher, ever. Marina was about to graduate. She pointed out Marina’s town high atop a misty, forested mountain and said that to get home, Marina took the bus for an hour then walked a steep trail though the thick woods for thirty minutes.

We also heard about two girls who usually take the bus to Maia Impact meetings, but recently their road had been washed out. For the past month they’d hiked up and over a mountain path to get to the Sunday meetings.

The girls then broke into small groups, drew maps of their towns, and noted the small businesses already in existence. After this lesson we said goodbye to the girls and headed downstairs. On the bottom floor we were briefly introduced to a group of 15 twelve and thirteen year-old girls. These students were in their first year of Maia Impact. They looked so young, it was hard to believe this was the age that most Mayan girls dropped out of school.

On our way out, we met a table full of boys of varied ages, one of the only boy groups in Maia Impact. Candelaria also told the boys about Stephen and Daniel’s neighborhood services business. These boys had been learning about the importance of saving money regularly too from their teacher, Candelaria’s husband Gregorio, another mentor in the Maia Impact program.

I’m trying to put my finger on why I found Maia Impact so inspiring. I think it was because it confirmed the research I’d read in books like Half the Sky. Focus on educating girls, and they will then pass along their increased resources to their communities. Additionally when Maia Impact takes on a student, it supports her to the end of 12th grade, through all the crises she encounters along the way. Sitting with the girls that morning, I saw how much having Candelaria as a mentor, a woman from their own community, was a key to the success of this program. Candelaria was clearly like a second mother to the girls. She took them seriously, and they in turn took themselves and their schooling seriously.

I thought of our time at Maia Impact again one early morning as our family canoed on Lake Atitlan, which was peaceful and placid that day. I shared a canoe with twelve year-old Stephen, and as we paddled we came across groups of young Mayan women doing laundry along the shore. They stood in the water, with their long, bright-colored skirts knotted above their knees, and scrubbed items of clothing.

As we canoed along the shore for probably two miles, we must have seen ten groups of women and girls washing. Most of them looked quite young, perhaps between twelve and eighteen. Stephen and I talked about the fact that if his female classmates in Colorado had been born here in Guatemala, we’d be seeing them washing clothes with their older sisters and mothers on this day.

I think this real-life comparison made an impression on Stephen. It definitely made one on me.

I’d love to hear about additional non-profits doing needed work like this.  Leave a comment!

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