Contagious Bicycling: Our Behavior Can Affect Others We Don’t Even Know

Posted on October 12, 2010 by Suzita

Remember those superlative awards given out senior year of high school – Most Individual, Most Spirited?  The other day while engaged in a rather mind-numbing task, I designated some of these to my family members – Most Likely to Break Out In Song, for example, my 7 year-old daughter, Annie.  My sons’ took a bit longer to generate, but my husband’s descriptor was the clearest in my mind – Most Likely To Ride His Bike Somewhere Every Day.

Todd has biking in his blood.  I’m not talking bike racing, don’t think of tight, bright clothing.  It’s simply that whenever he has to travel somewhere during his day, he always considers riding his bike and, more often than not, does so.  Because this is merely the way he does things, whenever I have an appointment or errand to run, Todd will ask, “Do you want me to help you set up your bike?”  This, of course, is a nice way of asking, “Are you going to ride your bike there?”  Living with gentle, regular reminders actually does lead me to ride my bike more often.

Last year the New York Times Magazine (Sept. 13, 2009) described research by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler which suggests that the behavior of the people around you does indeed have this type of effect on you, be it positive or negative.  Their research suggests that it is not only the people in your immediate family and friend network who affect your behavior by what they are doing (losing weight, quitting smoking), but in fact your friends’ friends can also impact you, through the person you have in common.  We are social beings, have been for eons, and these researchers suggest there are various pulls on us of which we are hardly aware.  Their book, Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives, further describes their this fascinating research.

I found this to be a simultaneously overwhelming and empowering idea.  On the one hand, what will I do if my whole social network begins to smoke?  Then again, what about the beneficial effects we might have on people we don’t even know with the positive changes we are attempting to make?

Because I live with a bike-riding husband and three active kids, we tend to ride our bikes around town a great deal to do errands.   Twelve years ago my sister gave me what I consider to be the best baby shower gift ever – a bike trailer for a child.  All three of our kids rode in it from around age one to age four, and when the last one hit five, we almost Craig’s Listed it.   Luckily Todd realized it could still have some use, and soon after, the trailer became our grocery hauling device.

When my older son Stephen turned 10, we started attaching the trailer to his black dirt bike on grocery errands.  Our ulterior motive was to give him more of a workout and slow him down some on our rides.  But once we saw how proud he was to be helping out in this way, we no longer needed the other excuses.

Although Stephen was completely psyched to be pulling the bright orange and yellow bike trailer, I noticed some funny looks from other people as our family of five rode by.   Finally, after someone actually made a comment, I realized some people thought Stephen was pulling a baby in there!  I shouldn’t care what they think, right?  And yet, if I may be influencing all these strangers who are but one or two people removed from my social network, I don’t want to put them off.  I’m now thinking of attaching a sign to the trailer stating, “Only Groceries”.

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Imaginary Enemies: The Importance of Losing All Track of Time

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Suzita

I looked out into the backyard a while back and saw Stephen, my 10 year-old, flying across the grass on a yellow Hippity Hop, scowling fiercely.

He wore his bike helmet and a knight’s breast plate made of plastic. He held the Hippity Hop’s handle with one hand, and in the other, he grasped a six-foot wooden stilt, which he seemed to be using as a lance.

I followed his trajectory to a large plastic patio chair he’d placed at one end of the yard, an enemy of some sort, about to be conquered. The lance found its mark, knocking the chair to the ground. He quickly righted it and hopped back to his starting point under the cherry tree for another go. He was completely absorbed in what he was doing. I don’t think he would have heard me if I’d called out to him.

I have to be honest. My first thought upon seeing my son lunging at lawn furniture was, “I hope the neighbors aren’t watching.” A gangly fourth-grader, he was riding a Hippity Hop we bought him at age four. It made for a very tiny, very yellow, very goofy steed. But what I saw obviously wasn’t what Stephen was seeing.

Imaginary friends are considered a good thing these days, a sign of creativity, among other helpful things. But do imaginary enemies fall into this same category?  “Creativity is a good thing,” I chanted, in one of those Mama mantras we repeat for reassurance. “Even if it looks really weird.”

When I thought back on Stephen’s “knight-in-plastic-armor versus chair” episode that evening, what stood out was his sheer joy and complete focus. My knight-errant, I realized, had been in a state of “flow.”

This is one of the “highest states of positive emotion,” writes Martin Seligman, University of Pennsylvania psychologist and founder of positive psychology. When we are in a state of flow, we feel truly at home and want to be nowhere else. “It is a state that makes life worth living.”

Children, like adults, enter a state of flow when they use their skills to the utmost – when they answer a challenge that’s almost too big – or as my yoga instructor puts it, when they go to “their edge but not past it.” That’s where Stephen’s jousting fantasy was taking him, his imagination firing on all cylinders as he clutched the reigns of the Hippity Hop and balanced the cumbersome stilt to vanquish a fearsome rival. It was an alien, I found out later.

I brought up the concept of flow with Stephen the next day, and we both generated lists of activities most likely to take us there: yoga, painting, hiking in the mountains, soccer, drawing, writing fiction, reading a challenging book. I mentioned the moment when he had been “fighting that alien.” Stephen nodded and smiled, remembering.

“A flowment!” he said.

______________________________

Recommended reading:

The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience, by Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D.

I’ve returned to this again and again. It’s not the most lay-person-accessible book, but it has such good, research-based ideas that it’s worth wading through anyway.  I’ll write a post on it one of these days.

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Counting Jumps: the Importance of Simply Giving “Time”

Posted on September 29, 2010 by Suzita

parenting time: the importance of giving time to kidsA catalog arrived recently, one of the few we still receive.  On its glossy front page was a family playing a board game together in their backyard.  I’d heard about this new game from a friend, one that’s fun for parents and kids, and additionally gives kids’ arithmetic skills a boost.

In the catalog the game-playing family seemed so calm, engaged, and connected.  I thought, “That does look like a great game,” as I put the catalog into my look-through-again pile.  But more so, it looked like a great family (those peaceful, math-minded children spending quality time with their calm and satisfied parents). I wanted “one of those”!

Luckily something must have distracted me from my imminent purchase, because a few days later, I was reminded that a child doesn’t need lots of cool (even if educational) stuff in order to flourish. Yet they can’t thrive without a solid connection with the main adults in their life.

In, The Irreducible Needs of Children: What Every Child Must Have to Grow, Learn, and Flourish, T. Berry Brazelton and Stanley Greenspan say that time spent with our children allows us to see them for who they are. It’s this feeling of being truly known that leads to a content, fulfilled child.  One of the most important things we can do for our kids is to spend time with them each day doing something of their choosing.

Greenspan calls this “floor time” and says that with young children floor time is often simply sitting on the floor, or ground outside, playing with your child.  If your child decides that you should be a bat in the play, that’s what you are (perhaps after asking a few questions for clarification).

With an older child, floor time may be throwing the football together while you talk about whatever is on your child’s mind.  With adolescents, floor time may instead look like listening to the new music they’ve downloaded and hearing why they like it.

With all due respect, this is one of those suggestions that is easier described than achieved.  The other day I had set aside time to be with my 6 year-old daughter, Annie.  She’d recently learned to jump rope and desperately wanted me to count how many jumps she could do at one time.  I soon realized that counting Annie’s jumps was somewhat like counting sheep.  I was getting bored and more than a little sleepy.

In my attempt to wake up, I recalled that Annie’s teacher had requested we find ways to work on simple math and counting.  So I said, “Your jumping is great, Annie!  Can you add up the number of jumps you did the last two times?”  Annie’s smile faded.  She stopped jumping and stomped her pink sneaker.  “You were supposed to be watching me and counting!”  She marched away dragging her rope dejectedly.  With my one small question, I had terminated our floor time.

It all happened so quickly, but once I realized what I had done, I followed what seemed to be my only recourse.  I apologized profusely, groveling as necessary.  I’m pleased to report that Annie gave me another chance, only now she’d moved on from jump roper to bug and worm collector.  She told me I was to make a home for her wiggly bugs and worms with my hands, following her as she collected.  Although I now wished I was back to counting jumps, Annie’s huge smile and relief that I was “listening to her again” more than made up for my slimy hands.

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