Another School Shooting…Are You Paying Attention?

March 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Recently in Ohio, another tragic high school shooting occurred, and the unhappy, struggling 17-year-old who did the killing will likely be tried as an adult. So many young lives cut short including the shooter’s. Everyone is in pain. An entire community feels the loss.

Prosecutors tend to demonize the perpetrators of school shootings in the mistaken belief that these are “bad” kids and that punishing this young person will prevent further shootings. The rationale is the perpetrator committed an adult act and so he must pay as an adult. But who made the gun available to him and modeled using it?

We talk about holding these young people accountable for their actions, but who is going to hold accountable his peers who rejected him, the school officials who created an emotionally painful environment and who neglected to recognize this young man’s struggle and to do something effective about it? Where was his family? Who is going to hold these people accountable for their part?

Most school professionals sincerely try to do their best for the young people in their care. Yet they are also pressured by the hierarchy above them and an educational system based on conformity, not nurturing the emotional needs of children.

Young people who commit these acts struggle painfully with confusing emotions and problems, because of which they can see no other way to resolve their distress. They feel out of control emotionally and disconnected with their family, teachers and peers.

A little known fact is that most school shooters were on anti-depressant drugs, which have a documented history of producing violent and aggressive acts. Will we ever know if T J was taking prescribed psychiatric medication?

If we are to end these violent acts, we must look through the eyes of the perpetrator, beyond punishing him, and explore and discover effective ways to prevent and heal children’s emotional pain.

Looking deeper, the young people who commit violent acts reflect the emotional distress, loneliness, and pressure all students experience in our schools, whether they are academically and socially successful or not. School is a high-pressure institution for our young people, one that isolates them from their peers, their parents and teachers and that demands they conform to the expected standards of achievement.

Even the so-called successful ones who appear to be okay on the surface feel the same things, sometimes more so because more is expected of them. Young people who commit violent acts against others and themselves are like the canary in the mine, indicators of what is happening for all.

Our Western culture values academic, professional, and financial success as our highest measure of accomplishment, even at the price of our inner happiness and peace and loving connection with the precious people in our lives.

Today, as you interact with your child, look to see how he is doing emotionally before you make demands on him.

Is she relaxed and happy?

Has he had a good day and is he sharing it with you?

Is there something else she needs right now – perhaps from you – more than to complete her homework? Does he need some down time by himself to regroup?

The opportunity to learn academic information will always be there. This moment for your child and with your child will never come again. Make it one that nurtures you both!

What are you going to do differently today? I’d love for you to share it with me and other readers by commenting below.

Filed Under: Children, Current Affairs, Education, Grandparenting, Parenting, Parenting Tips Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Children Learn Best with ‘Real Toys’

May 24, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Do you ever feel swamped in plastic toys that have a way of multiplying when you turn your back?

Then they hold your child’s attention only moments until he is on to the next thing?

Most children have too many toys in general; and most of these toys do not encourage or support children’s optimum play.

Webster defines a ‘toy’ as “an object, often a small representation of something familiar for children to play with; a plaything.” I find this definition somewhat limiting, especially when the definition of ‘play’ is “an activity engaged in for recreation, as by children.”

Children do have fun playing; however, for them it is more than simple recreation. Play is serious business for them.

Play is the way children learn, which means children love and enjoy learning. This is their natural state, a perpetual state of exploring, experimenting, and discovering, and learning. They LOVE it!!

(This is important to remember when we see what happens to children’s love of learning when they participate in most educational programs. I wrote more about this in a recent post How Children Learn Best) http://www.joyousfamilyliving.com/children/how-children-learn-best/

Because play is essential to their optimal development, it is important to provide learning environments that nurtures your child’s full potential to learn. This is where ‘real toys’ come in.

Real toys are real-life objects, such as measuring spoons and cups, lids, jars, rocks, bungee cords. Often the seemingly mundane of objects of life hold great fascination for them.

Older children love much the same materials. What’s different is the complexity and skill with which they use them.

If you observe your child when he is playing, you’ll discover the skills he is developing that motivate him to keep learning.

One of Bas’s favorite activities is collecting things from my desk and seeing what he can create with them. These include my stapler and staple puller, scratch paper, 3 by 5 cards, scissors, tape, pens, markers.

Last week in our backyard, he balanced bricks on a piece of wood, then used it as a lever, then used what he’d made to build a house for Mouse-Mouse. (I’m not sure where he got this name.)

Fifteen minutes later, he’s in another section of our backyard and using redwood needles to build a castle, which he promptly destroyed. Then he decided to build a bridge across a narrow rut using a redwood twig and discovered that it was too short to span the distance.

Then he hunted around and found a couple of longer sticks. Woo-la! He built two bridges!

And so it goes from one exploration – creation to the next and not a single plastic ‘toy’ touched!

Children love real objects. They love materials they can manipulate and which they can use in diverse ways.

Traditional toys, plastic toys, often lack options for creativity and self-expression. They have limited function and learning potential to your child. Once she masters whatever learning is in the toy, she loses interest.

Once you realize your child uses toys for discovery and self-expression, you’ll easily understand your child’s limited attention to these toys.

So next time you consider buying your child something from the toy store, no matter how cute, colorful, or invitingly displayed, take a moment and consider it’s learning and self-expression potential for your child. Many buttons that make different sounds has little potential for either learning or self-expression for your child.

Invest wisely in few toys that give your child hours of exploring and discovery, and remember every-day objects provide optimal learning and self-expression for your child. You can put your wallet away!

While you’re at it, tell your family and friends what you toys you want for your child, especially during the holidays and for his birthday.

Please share with me and other parents what ‘real toys’ your child loves best. What is a toy you purchased for her that enjoyed for a long time? What did she lose interest in quickly?

Filed Under: Children, Education, Fun, Grandparenting, Parenting, Parenting Tips Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How Children Learn Best

May 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I had my 3-year-old grandson Sebastian here this week for our usual Tuesday time together. I always enjoy watching his enthusiasm to explore and create.

As I observed and played with him, I discovered something interesting about what he does when he creates, aka plays.

We have a rich variety of cool stuff at our place – two “hick-up’s” (Bas’s word for ‘pick-up’), lots of tools, ropes, bungee cords, a wood pile, all of which invite creating boy-style.

After sitting in the cab of our blue “hick-up” for a while and turning the dials, he asks to look at the area between the seats, an area filled with fascinating tools to explore. He spots the bungee cords, takes the red one, and walks to the back of the truck to find some way to use it, something to hook it to.

The tie-down’s around the pick-up bed are the perfect place. He asks me to lift him into the back of the truck where he hooks one end and then looks for a place to hook the other end. He tries several possibilities and the cord won’t stretch far enough.

Back to the other bungee cords, longer ones. He discovers the white bungee cords will stretch between two of the tie-downs’s on one side. Next question he asks, “What can I do with this?”

“Ah, I can use it to help me climb up the tire and get in and out of the truck by myself”. He repeats this several times. New hand-holds are discovered and he’s quickly swinging his leg over the top to get in.

Back to the other bungee cords and the process continues until he has 4 bungee cords fastened to 4 tie-down’s. Again he asks, “What can I do with this?”

“Connie, put my cycle (his Big Wheels) in here.”

Now he finds places to hook the unfastened ends of the bungee cords to his bike.

And so it goes. He finds tools (stuff in his physical environment) that catches his eyes and then explores ways to use them. He is in a constant state of exploration and discovery. The question he always seems to be asking is “What can I do with this? How can I use it?”

Thus, he develops both coordination and understanding about our physical world. His curiosity and experimentation motivate him and keep him inspired to discover more principles of our physical world, all of which will keep him safe and help him function successfully the rest of his life.

This is learning at it’s best. In fact, this natural, self-driven way of learning is the best way for children of all ages to learn. He asks questions and finds answers through experimentation, just like any good scientist.

What happens to this natural curiosity and drive to learn as children grow older? Why do children seem to stop being interested in learning and to need the external motivation of grades and gold stars? The answer – we adults believe we need to “teach” them in order for them to learn.

Not true! The best way for children of all ages to learn is finding answers to self-created questions.

How have you created an environment in which your child’s natural curiosity and experimentation have flourished? What could you create to nurture his learning from the inside out?

Please write in the comment space below and share with me what inspires your child, what you’ve done to nurture her interests, or what you’re going to do after reading this article.

Filed Under: Children, Current Affairs, Education, Grandparenting, Parenting Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Children Get Smarter with Video Games

May 2, 2011 By 4 Comments

My thirty-something son Orion has played video games for many years, perhaps as many as 25; and he loves them. He’s often gravitated toward the violent ones, in which he competes against other players to see who goes down first or who makes it to the end first.

I’ve never worried about him becoming violent or aggressive in day-to-day living because that is not who he is. Children who are happy and mostly enjoying their life are not aggressive toward others. Perhaps he uses it to work out some of his frustration, which I believe is totally acceptable. It’s certainly an opportunity for him to have fun with his guy friends.

Beyond these reasons, I’ve always believed Orion was getting something more from video games that went beyond the ‘violence’ and social interaction, something that was not obvious to me as an outsider.

In fact, I believed an entire generation was gaining something valuable and developing unseen skills from these interactive games. Otherwise, why would so many young people and adults be drawn to them? There had to be something positive, not just the dumbing down of our society.

Fortunately, I have found an answer, one that makes sense to me and to Orion. My answer came from a book I just read Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson.

Since childhood, Johnson has been a strategic game player even before the advent of video games so he gets his unique perspective from his own experience as well as from his in-depth research and his willingness to think out-of-the-box.

The startling discovery he found is people are actually getting smarter since the introduction of technology, which includes video games, reality TV, the internet, and popular TV series, such as 24 and Lost. IQ test scores have not reflected this increase in IQ because they’ve been adjusted upward to account for the increased intelligence and companies are making the tests harder. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Children, Current Affairs, Education, Grandparenting, Parenting Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Improve Your Art of Observation

April 28, 2011 By 1 Comment

The most important skill for every educator and parent is to be aware of what’s happening with a child emotionally and how he is perceiving and experiencing the world. This is not an exact science nor will it ever be. Yet it is a vital skill to bring out the best in a child.

Because we are all human, you look through your own interior filter, judging and evaluating what you see based on this filter. Your filter includes all the things you’ve learned and decided throughout your life until now.

This means if you believe children need constant guidance from you, you will only see evidence of this and will miss all the child’s actions where she is independent and does quite well without you.

Many people observe through a filter of looking for what’s wrong instead of for what’s right. Because of this, they frequently correct and try to improve their child’s behavior.

Or perhaps you believe that a child who yells is angry, aggressive or mean. You will miss or even misjudge all the times a child is loud because he is passionate and caring deeply about something.

Here are some tips to help you observe outside your usual filters.

1. Mentally step back from your child or the situation. This is simply an internal adjustment that you can make whenever you find yourself too emotionally involved in an interaction or concern. Imagine stepping back to get a wider perspective, like putting a wide-angle lens on your camera.

2. Turn off your ‘right – wrong’ and ‘good – bad’ filters. You want to be a neutral observer, not the prosecutor, judge, and jury. Finding a neutral perspective allows you to see more clearly and to make effective choices.

3. Set aside time every day to observe, to stand back and see what you can see with the intention to discover something new. I suggest you choose a specific time or person or whatever feels best to you.

4. Imagine you are a detective or an explorer in an unknown land. Then you’ll have lots more fun with observation and your discoveries will literally magnify.

By making neutral observation a daily priority, you’ll be thrilled with what you discover about yourself and the children in your life. With this newfound information and awareness, relating with your child will become easier and lots more fun!

Filed Under: Children, Education, Grandparenting, Parenting Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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