We’ve all heard it; “Keep it simple,”  “Live simply that others may simply live,” or just, “Simplicity.”  Really?  Wow, why didn’t we think of that?  Naturally, our default setting as parents is to try to complicate life as much as possible.  After all, who isn’t looking for more to do and higher and higher expectations to set?

Okay, you got me, maybe that’s not quite true.  Still, in an effort to make sure our kids have every possible opportunity to participate in every possible activity, we are regularly exhausted, overwhelmed and consistently late and frustrated.   Life is full of choices.  We can choose soccer, ballet, music lessons or karate.  We can even choose to do all of them, or, and this is a radical thought I know, we could even choose to do none of the above.

I saw a movie recently called  “Race to Nowhere” and it was amazing.  I highly recommend it to everyone.  Parents, teachers, neighbors, friends, families and caregivers should make the time to see this movie.  It is dedicated to a child who took her own life because it was the only way she could find to escape the constant pressure of her commitments.  Our children are often over scheduled, exhausted and missing out on the finite experience of childhood as a time of innocence, growth and joy.

In our house we often joke that you only get one year to be each age, so it’s important to take some time to just BE it.  Whether you are 5 or 15, you just have one year at it, so take your time and breath a little, play a lot and keep learning and growing.  All good advice, but the reality of modern life is that there is a lot of pressure on parents to provide EVERY possible opportunity for our children, often at really high cost to the family bank account and to the family dynamic.

We have all heard that it’s important to have dinner together as a family.  I whole- heartedly agree and my family and I get to enjoy that almost every night.  I am grateful for that and I have no illusions that it is a luxury many families don’t have the chance to enjoy.  Between team sports, music lessons and tutoring, many families have to eat on the run between appointments and race around the town with stomachs full of fast food and consciences full of guilt.

My kids have plenty of activities as well and play sports and musical instruments too, I get it; it’s a constant struggle to protect family time and it needs to be a priority to everyone.  Structured family time, either as a game night or dinnertime is wonderful, but so is plain, old unstructured playtime.  I believe time to hang out with your siblings and have a laugh is crucial.  Those are the times to release some of the stress and tension that accumulates for everyone.  Those are the memories that sustain us throughout our lives.

Another idea is story-time.  We all read to our little ones, but what about the older kids?  There is nothing like reading a book together to have great discussions about characters and life in a safe way, where no one is personally embroiled in the drama.  That’s the reason book clubs have always been so popular.  If you a have a wide range of ages, like me, I think it’s fun for the youngest to choose the bedtime story and the older ones to read it aloud.   Modeling anything is the best way to teach our children that we value something enough to do it ourselves.  Modeling reading and being lifelong learners and independent thinkers is crucial.  Seeing that we love to read encourages our kids to read.  Making it a family activity makes it fun for everyone. Story telling games give everyone ownership of the creative process of writing as well as reading.  Once they are readers and writers they have at their disposal, the tools to learn anything and even to pass on their learning to others.  That benefits everyone.

Another thing worth modeling is independent thinking.  We all say we want our children to be able to “think outside the box”, but what if there was no box?  What if we took our families and schools out of the box of old thinking and had the courage to choose differently.  We say our family is our priority, but what do we really mean?  What part of family is a priority?  Do we need more lessons and homework and achievements?  More time together to reconnect and have a laugh?  Is there some combination of the above that approaches that holy grail of modern life known as balance?

What works for your family?  How do you make sure the children in your life have the opportunities they want and the time off that they need?

Keep me posted and keep your face to the sun so all shadows will fall behind.

Marilynn

Over the years I’ve written at least a hundred stories for children of all ages, but no words I’ve ever put to paper are more important than these.   There is a quiet crisis in America today and it affects everyone.  Half of the next generation is becoming disenfranchised and the more people willing to step up and get involved, the sooner we can make a better future for everyone.  Think about that for a minute, half of the next generation.  There is no one whose life will be unaffected by this sad and alarming trend.  Tomorrow’s families and being thwarted today, but we can change all that and it’s easier than you think.  The most important step is already taken because we are talking about it.  Little boys need us now more than ever.  In a recent article for American Way magazine, Charlotte Huff noted that according to the Center on Education Policy, a nonpartisan group that conducted a national analysis in 2010, reading proficiency scores for boys in elementary and secondary school lag behind the girls by as much as 10% in some states; further, the Bureau of Labor Statistics noted that college bound boys dropped to 66% in 2009, while girls continue to enroll at 74%.

As a girl in the 70’s and 80’s, (yes, I realize I’m dating myself), no one could be more grateful than I to see the wonderful advances my daughters can enjoy today.  Any sport is available for girls and education is not only accessible to our daughters, but it is a source of inspiration and empowerment to them.  I would never want to go back to a time when doctor, lawyer and police officer were de facto male occupations and teacher, nurse and babysitter were strictly female.  Anytime we pigeon hole vast sections of humanity we lose out on literally hundreds of thousands of great people who could make our world a much better place to be.  What if we let that happen again?

Forty years ago, the girls needed to be understood and the doors around them opened by caring adults who refused to allow their needs to go unanswered.  There will always be more to be done, like how about equal pay for equal work, but we are now beginning to see that in terms of childhood, the pendulum has swung the other way.

Go into any children’s store and take an informal survey.  Typically at least three quarters of the retail space is devoted to girls.  Check out your local bookstore.  Once you get passed the middle grades, it’s the same thing.  The vast majority of the titles are geared for girls.  It’s an accepted fact that we lose boys as avid readers once we get beyond middle grades.  That’s a vicious cycle.  Our sons lose interest, so they don’t drive sales, so the book publishers can’t justify greater investment in a market sector that offers lower and lower yields.  We can stop this downward spiral.

My generation reaped huge benefits from the people who fought for us to have access to the whole world, not just a small section of it.  How can we, who owe so much to those who opened the world to us, fail to learn the most important lesson?  They taught us that equality matters.  It still does.   They showed us how to stand up against injustice.  Now it’s our turn to pass it forward.

Our boys deserve no less than we did as children.  No less than we insist upon for our little girls.  Stories that entertain, inspire and empower.   Families deserve the chance to celebrate boyhood for the amazing and fun filled adventure it has every right to be.

Great in theory, but what if I don’t have sons?  Interesting, but it doesn’t really apply to me, right?  Wrong.  These underserved little guys grow up to be the husbands, fathers, partners and friends of the next generation.  So much of what they are offered for entertainment is based in abject violence.  That leads to desensitization to violence.  That hardly bodes well for the families of the future.  Strong men who understand their strength and have the self control to use it well, become good foundations for strong families with secure children.  People trying to make that happen deserve our support and the books, movies and games we give our sons must support boys; not diminish them.

How did the natural progression of entertainment for little boys go from Bambie and Peter Pan to Grand Theft Auto and L.A. Noire?  Or maybe a better question is, are we, as a community, okay with that?

Our children deserve better.  Boys and girls deserve the opportunities to grow into healthy people living full lives.  Who wouldn’t want their children to grow up feeling comfortable in their own skin and even celebrated for their differences?  Letting the girls be girls and the boys be boys is not enough, because who are we to define what that should be?  Let’s give them the tools they need to discover and create themselves.  Healthy people who feel empowered to be their best selves and who feel a sense of belonging to the community.

That sense of belonging is a basic human need and right now, our sons are missing out.  Knowing that school and books and lifelong learning are as much for them as for their sisters is the foundation of fulfillment.  Imagine a society where men and women are equal partners in caring for our children, our communities and our environment.  If that kind of equality matters to you, let’s get together and help ALL our children, boys and girls to feel empowered, not diminished by their entertainment, to feel inspired and excited about reading and to create a next generation that has room for everyone to embrace their differences and learn from each other.

I’d love to hear what you think and remember to keep your face to the sun and all shadows will fall behind.

Marilynn

Most of us have good and bad days and we know that ups and downs are a normal part of life, but how do we help our kids learn that?  What are your tips for helping a child deal with a tough day or a team loss?

The people who say, “You win some, you lose some,” almost never have a disappointed child clinging to their leg.  We all want our kids to enjoy cheering for their favorite team and winning a big game themselves.  Playing on a team can teach them about perseverance, commitment and working together: all great life skills, not to mention a great way to have fun.  The thing is, what makes a game interesting and what builds the most excitement is the possibility that the team we love might lose.  As parents, it’s natural to want to protect our kids from disappointment, but as adults we know that learning to deal with disappointment in a healthy and constructive way can be the difference between resilience and despondence.

So, what’s a family to do?  In a couple of weeks we will enjoy our Super Bowl parties and get together to watch our favorites battle it out for the ultimate prize.  Then there’s March Madness with Opening Day fast on its heels.   At every game in the history of the world there is always the same ending.  Only one team wins.  No surprise there for us, but for a child who has banners in his or her room, sleeps in the team jersey and cares more about their favorite team than just about anything else, a loss can be devastating.

Kids are just learning that a loss is one more step on the road to the next win.  They are just developing the perspective to know there is always next week or even next year.  So, what do we say to the pair of sad eyes that just lost the heartbreaker of the season?  What do we do to help them gain perspective and find their resilience?  How do we keep them believing in the potential of their team and themselves?

My personal favorite is to remind my kids that when they play a game, or go to a sporting event, at least half of the people involved get to enjoy a win and the other half of the people involved have to deal with the loss.  Half the crowd goes home disappointed, it’s normal, it’s predictable and if you are going to participate in sports, or even in life for that matter, it’s survivable.  It’s just not possible to become a strong person with the ability to endure and succeed in tough times, (like during a recession, for example), without experiencing some disappointment.  It’s how we learn to bounce back and bouncing back can be the most important skill any of us can ever have. It’s a skill we know we need and that we know our kids must have as well.

Learning that loss, mistakes or even failure is common and can be overcome helps to make these inevitable parts of life less scary and more manageable.   With the experience of losing and trying again, we learn how to succeed and as long as we don’t give up, we can still prevail.

I recently heard the term “teacup”  child. It’s an extension of the “helicopter” parent we have all heard about, who hovers over every minutia of their child’s life.  More of a pet than a person, these parents over protect their child from any and every disappointment and from even the risk of discomfort, let alone pain.

At first blush, who among us doesn’t want to protect our kids from heartbreak?  The only problem is that life doesn’t work that way forever and eventually, when these kids have to face their first crisis, they are so utterly unprepared that they fall to pieces.  No one wants that.   Let’s prepare them for life and show them we believe in their strength in easy and safe ways, so that in times of trouble, they have a history of successes to look back on.  Better to learn to manage stress and disappointment over a lost game, than to be overwhelmed by a true crisis.

So, let me know what you think and your best tips for helping the kids you love learn to bounce back from disappointments and become even stronger than before.

Remember to keep your face to the sun and all shadows will fall behind,

Marilynn