A Song Can Lessen the Fear

Sderot, Israel is near the boarder with Gaza and is a city that experienced (experiences?) a constant threat of Qassam rockets being fired into the city. When a rocket is spotted, there is a "Red Color" alert that is sounded warning people to take cover.

Residents of Sderot have about less than a minute to get to a place of safety when they hear the warning "Red Color" announcing an incoming rocket (spotted by those who watch for them). Hearing a Red Color causes panic in many, especially children. ~ Source

“Children experienced real developmental regressions, some began bedwetting,” she said. “They were getting hysterical when the alarm sounded – some freezing in place, unable to seek cover. One day I felt like ‘now is the time’ and I took this song I'd made up to a kindergarten class.” ~ Source

It is not hard to believe that repetitively experiencing alarming threats to one's life from 'out of the sky' would cause trauma for children. The following video is an example of how one woman helped create change for many children. She could not change the threat of the rockets, but she found ways to shape the experience so that the children were not stripped of all of their power and understanding but could, instead, become active participants in the event. The song she created for the children to sing integrates EMDR therapy, somatic exercises and relaxation techniques to help the fear and tension of the warnings move through the children's bodies, and hopefully freeing them from some of the terror.



I am very inspired by this video. I wonder, what simple ways can we each use in our lives and with those whose lives we touch to gently reshape the ways we experience something, decreasing the impact of fear and unknowing?

Learning From Others

I feel so fortunate that my life includes opportunities to learn from and be with children. Here is a bit of learning that I journaled about the other day. One day as a school counselor, a fortunate human being, sharing, relating and exploring in an educational community.

Today I learned about bravery.

These children are so brave to reach out to someone and ask for help with emotional problems. To accept and surrender to a feeling state that isn't serving them and to vulnerably reach towards another and ask for help.

I learned from the teachers, honoring their bravery to open up and be willing to learn in public, from their peers.

I learned about gossip from a group of third grade girls. They discussed some of the reasons that people talk about other people... For "Something to do", because we're bored, and because it can help to strengthen a bond with another person by talking about a different person. I felt humbled hearing the clarity they expressed of some of the reasons why gossip happens... and how those self-serving intentions can effect the well-being of others.

And I learned about how deeply someone can be touched (I can be touched) by a thank you that bellows out straight from the heart. It amazed me how profoundly I was (and still am) effected when I reached out to a family, helping them to have a resource they needed. I was on the phone with a grandmother when a 5 year old un-promptedly called out a "thank you" that was the most heartfelt, genuine expression of gratitude I have ever heard.

It still echoes through my core, vibrating as my cells, sparking and fueling a current of hope and life's vitality.

Photo collage Celebrating Children by Cocoabiscuit

Empathy

Empathy by Mikala
Age 6

Pen and Ink. Unsolicited gift to mom. Has been hanging on the fridge...

Speaking of empathy and compassion, look at this recent entry to the What Does Compassion Look Like? Campaign. Wow.

Roots of Empathy

Here are some articles and a video about Roots of Empathy, another program I am involved in that Seeds of Compassion has brought to the Seattle area. I'll also take this moment to express my gratitude for being connected with these amazing initiatives. A deep source of hope and inspiration for our future.

• Parent Map - Teaching Empathy: Seattle Launches a Compassion Movement
• The Wall Street Journal - Learn by Cooing: Empathy Lessons from Little Tykes
• Seattle PI - Anti-bullying Program Aims to Teach Students Empathy
• Seattle's Child - Subject: Empathy 101 Instructor: Baby Elsa (scroll down for the article)

What Does Compassion Look Like?

Dear Easily Amazed friends and visitors,

You are absolutely the perfect people to share your art, wisdom and participation with this exciting Seeds of Compassion initiative: What Does Compassion Look Like? The campaign is geared towards children and you adults are welcome to participate as well. Invite some of your children's friends over (any ages), tell their teachers, volunteer to work with an after-school group at a nearby school or at your community center, call your nieces, nephews, grandchildren and friends together, share this information with anyone and everyone across the globe that interacts with children. Let's help the children's expressions shine and be seen so that our communities may learn from the wisdom that youth have to teach us about compassion.


Bird by Anna, Age 13, Lake Washington Girls Middle School

I was inspired by the warmth and compassion that a phoenix represents. To me, warm colors always evoke hope, kindness, and all that this campaign encourages

Compassion comes in all shapes and sizes, but it means the same thing wherever you go. Compassion is the ability to believe in something with your whole body, mind, and soul. It is the ability to devote your time, and even your life to a cause. Everyone thrives with compassion, it is the light that makes all things grow.

~ Indigo M., Grade 7, Seattle Girls School

This is your opportunity to explore what compassion is to you - how it shows up in your life, how you think it affects the world, what happens when we live without compassion. This is an invitation for you to create and express. Please share your experiences and views of compassion through drawings, photography, poetry, videos, spoken word – whatever medium resonates for you.

This project is part of the amazing initiative, Seeds of Compassion, whose intention is to bring compassion to the lives of children and adults throughout Washington State and beyond. Together we can create a more compassionate today and tomorrow.

I picture a world full of the sound of peace,
and empty of the racket of violence.
~ Gamada, Age 11, ArtsCorps

The Loving Owls by Javon
Age 7, Giddens School.
Compassion means showing others that you care for them
and that you will stick up for them when they need help.

P.S. If you do participate (which I hope you will) please make sure to let me know so that I can see and share your artwork with our community here. And if you're an adult and want to participate, don't let the focus towards children stop you. Let your creative expression flow!!

We're Alive, Here Now

"Let there be no more holding back on
our commitment to our life on earth."

Quote by Helen Titchen Beeth in a comment at Seeds for a happy planet
Photo by St John found in Kids and Nature

Roots of Empathy

Tomorrow begins the next amazing (I imagine) training of this summer. I am very fortunate to be participating in the pilot of bringing the successful Canadian based program, Roots of Empathy, to the United States.

I first learned about this program at the Vancouver Dialogues with the Dalai Lama on Educating the Heart (you can listen to those dialogues here). Of all the programs that were presented, Roots of Empathy was the one that most deeply touched my heart as a powerful program with the potential to touch and effect many individuals.

Have a peek at their mission:

The focus of Roots of Empathy in the long term is to build capacity of the next generation for responsible citizenship and responsive parenting. In the short term, Roots of Empathy focuses on raising levels of empathy, resulting in more respectful and caring relationships and reduced levels of bullying and aggression. Part of our success is the universal nature of the program; all students are positively engaged instead of targeting bullies or aggressive children.

The basic structure is that an infant and parent and their relationship are used as the teaching modality for such content as emotional literacy, inclusion, neuroscience, infant development , perspective taking and much more. The infant and parent visit a classroom 9 times throughout the year. A Roots of Empathy instructor goes to the classroom with them and the week before and the week after the parent/baby visit. A synchronistic chain of events has lead to the opportunity for me to be a Roots of Empathy instructor at a local public school. (I'm very excited!)

Here is my response on the application to the question of Why do you want to become a Roots of Empathy Instructor?

I am deeply inspired by this program and how it uses relationships as the core of its teaching, invites and facilitates community connection and belonging, teaches through modeling and experiencing, and has potential to reach a wide variety of people (students, parents, teachers… of all types of diversity). I would like to become an instructor because I would like to see this program touch as many people as possible and therefore I would like to help facilitate that sharing and touching!

Here we go!

On a separate but related note, I'm having a hard time figuring out what to write here these days. There is so much pouring through me on both a personal level and a professional level that I've been clueless about where and how to jump in and share with you (and a little uncertain as to who 'you' are these days). If there is anything that you are curious about from these trainings or anything else that has been going on in my life, please feel free to ask me questions and maybe help inspire forward some writing here! Thanks.

Age Appropriate Skills for Children

Here's a little article that I wrote for my school's Alumi Newsletter.

Did you know that your five year old is capable of taking out the garbage or sweeping the floor, your seven year old can help change the sheets on the bed or put dishes in the dishwasher, your twelve year old can cook meals for the family or do his own laundry, and your teenager can purchase her own clothes with a budgeted clothing allowance or do heavier yard work.

Many children are denied the opportunity to contribute to their families and communities in such valuable ways. They aren’t given a chance to learn essential skills for caring for themselves and others. Well-intentioned adults do things for children that they are capable of doing for themselves. As a result, the children learn to under-function, displaying trained helplessness and learned incompetence.

In a parenting group we explored age appropriate skills that kids are capable of doing for themselves. Many parents felt the a-ha that their child was capable of taking on some new responsibilities at home. Addressing this change with their child also gave them an opportunity to apologize to their child and admit that they had made a mistake. Children love to hear when adults make mistakes. In addition, modeling making mistakes is a powerful way to help address a child’s perfectionistic tendencies.

Below is one parent’s account of how she surprised her son with an apology and gave him an opportunity to feel empowered and begin taking control of one aspect of his life.

“I had still been picking out clothes for my 8-year-old son every morning. I had tried over the last few years to get him to pick his own clothes (“just pick something – what’s the big deal – it’s just a shirt and pants – your little sister has been picking her own clothes since she was 3…”) but he always acted like it was an overwhelming task and he had no idea what to pick. It made the morning go more smoothly if I just pulled out the clothes for him. After a few parenting classes, I told him that I had learned how much kids can do at different ages. Then I told him that I owed him an apology. He straightened up, taken aback, looking very happily interested in this unusual conversation. I told him that I knew that he was capable of picking out his own clothes and had been for many years, but that I had not been giving him the chance to do this for himself, and that this wasn’t fair to him. He looked honored. The first day after this little talk, I came by and asked him if he had an idea of what he might pick to wear that day. He told me what he was thinking and I said that it sounded like a good choice. Since then, he’s just shown up at breakfast, dressed, without any fuss.”

A Funny Conversation

I'm having lunch with two 3rd-grade girls.

One farts.

The other looks at me and then the other girl and says, "Oh my gosh! I would
be so embarrassed to fart in front of someone like that. Wouldn't you, Ashley?"

I smile and make a casual, this-is-life kind of face and say, "Farting is something that we all do."

"Do you still fart?"

"Yep, I still fart. Adults fart just like children."

"Oh, I didn't realize you were an adult. I thought you were a teenager."

The Peril of Praise

This New York Magazine article, How Not to Talk to Your Kids: The Inverse Power of Praise has been making its way through the email circuit. I found it to be a great article, well worth the read if you are involved in the lives of children (and adults!). Also, here is a handout that you can download that complements this article.

For a few decades, it's been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent.

[In a research study, fifth-grade students were] randomly divided into groups, some were praised for their intelligence. They were told, "You must be smart at this." Other students were praised for their effort: "You must have worked really hard."

Dweck had suspected that praise could backfire, but even she was surprised by the magnitude of the effect. "Emphasizing effort gives a child a variable that they can control," she explains. "They come to see themselves as in control of their success. Emphasizing natural intelligence takes it out of the child's control, and it provides no good recipe for responding to a failure."

[In another study, students were taught] that the brain is a muscle. Giving it a harder workout makes you smarter. That alone improved their math scores.

Baumeister has come to believe the continued appeal of self-esteem is largely tied to parents' pride in their children's achievements: It's so strong that "when they praise their kids, it's not that far from praising themselves."

What would it mean, to give up praising our children so often? Well, if I am one example, there are stages of withdrawal, each of them subtle. In the first stage, I fell off the wagon around other parents when they were busy praising their kids. I didn't want Luke to feel left out. I felt like a former alcoholic who continues to drink socially. I became a Social Praiser.

These are only some scattered clips... there's much more in the article!!