Letters of Encouragement

Twenty years ago, my husband and I took a video-based parenting course called “Active Parenting” developed by Michael H. Popkin, Ph.D. Impressed with all the valuable information I was able to put to immediate use, I became an Active Parenting instructor for several years.

One of the many “gems” from the course was writing “letters of encouragement.” These were short notes written by parents to their children to keep them from becoming discouraged or giving up in a challenging situation.

You may ask, “Why write a note to a three to six-year-old child who can’t even read? ”

Honestly, I thought the same thing at one time. It may seem like an unnecessary effort, but I’ve discovered some things in the past few years about these letters.

Last year, my daughter and I cleaned and painted her bedroom in preparation for her graduation from college and moving into her own apartment. As we moved furniture and emptied file cabinets, my daughter showed me a folder of notes that her dad and I had written to her over the years. Many were simple handwritten notes. A few follow:

• “I know you’ll have those training wheels off before Santa comes.”
• “Keep trying. You’ll break that board in Taekwondo.”
• “It’s never easy when a friend is upset with you. You’ll figure out how to do the right thing.”
• “‘It’s hard to be away from home.”
• “Thanks for being such a big help in the kitchen today.”

I hadn’t realized she had kept them or how important the notes had been to her. Seeing these simple words after so many years brought to my attention how things had changed. Since leaving home for college and beyond, my daughters now were writing me notes of encouragement.

When I penned my “letters of encouragement,” I didn’t think of them as anything but a note for a certain incident, a kind word or a little push to get over a bump in the road. What I discovered, while painting the bedroom, was that I had planted seeds for my children to encourage others, myself included.

I felt like Jack and the Beanstalk. While I wasn’t looking, something so little had grown quite large. What a wonderful discovery!

Why not take a few minutes today and write each of your children a letter of encouragement?

For good measure, include your significant other, too. Just one sentence will do. You can even write it on a sticky note. Read them out loud if necessary. Get in the habit of stopping at least once a month and thinking about what words of encouragement you can offer to your family, and write them. You’ll be sowing seeds that will grow for a lifetime.

For more information about Active Parenting, visit www.activeparenting.com.

Next week: Be Prepared for Cousin Chaos

Kids Talk is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
http://www.shininglightreading.com/enews.html

©KIDS TALK™
925 N.W. Hoyt #532
Portland, OR 97209
503.274.9788
maren@comcast.net

Freedom Within Limits of Responsibility

Freedom and responsibility are linked together.

We are free to act when we have the right and also take responsibility. For example, in our society, we have the right to drive a car. We exercise this privilege to drive by taking the responsibility to learn how to drive, get a license, have a car and take care of the financial obligations that ensue. Then, we have the freedom to drive.

Understanding the relationship between freedom and responsibility can be a difficult one. When we are 14, we dream of the freedom of driving a red Mercedes convertible down the road at 120 mph, the wind flying.

By 30, we know exactly the costs of that freedom in terms of responsibility. The freedom to drive our dream car takes significant responsibility.

Exercising our right to drive, by assuming responsibility for that privilege, allows us the freedom to drive. Maybe not a two-door roadster, but the freedom to drive.

In our country, we have many rights. In America, at 16 we have the right to drive a car. We must assume the corresponding responsibilities of taking care of a car, getting a license, driving carefully as to not harm others or ourselves and be willing to pay if we cause damage.

We have the right. We take the responsibility. We receive the freedom. In mathematical terms: Rights + Responsibilities = Freedoms.

As parents and teachers, we fail our children when we allow them freedoms without requiring the necessary responsibilities to obtain that freedom. When we confuse rights and freedoms, we neglect to teach our children how to obtain and keep freedoms.

As effective parents, we limit the freedoms we give our children, enlarging them as our children develop more responsibility. If a freedom is extended before the corresponding responsibility has been established within the life of a child, we place the child at high risk for failure.

If we give children cars before they know how to drive, before they understand the cost of money, before they are aware of how their actions can affect others, we invite failure, expensive accidents, serious injury and death.

We want to assure success for our children. To be responsible we need to help our children learn to “respond with ability.” As we observe our children developing abilities, we can offer corresponding freedoms.

For the young child, we limit their freedoms, for example, by not allowing them to go outdoors alone. Once our children show us that they will stay in the yard, wear appropriate clothing and not endanger themselves by climbing the fence, etc., then we might enlarge their freedoms to include going outside by themselves with our permission.

As the child over the age of six begins to explore the world around him, the issues of freedom and responsibility are many times at the core of power struggles; the child desires a freedom,but lacks the responsible skills to be able to have the freedom.

By teaching the skills necessary for the freedom, we can help the child. In other cases, the child might be responsible, and we do not allow the freedom because we consider the child too young. A power struggle ensues.

Conflict is created by not allowing responsibility and freedom to follow each other.

For the adolescent, there are times when a freedom has been granted, and the responsibility is shrugged. For example, there is the teenager who has earned the freedom to drive the car but gets a speeding ticket or leaves the gas tank empty. The freedom has to be taken away and then re-earned.

The consequence of neglecting a responsibility should correspond to the freedom that flows from it. The freedom to have friends over to spend the night might correspond to the responsibility to help with household chores or getting schoolwork completed.

The freedom to play with your toys comes from playing with them safely and properly or putting them away correctly.

The freedom to have dessert comes from helping with dinner, brushing your teeth without being told or eating for proper nutrition.

The freedom to go to a movie comes from taking care of your chores and being respectful of others.

If you are in conflict with your child over desired freedoms, determine if responsibilities match the freedoms requested. If not, sit down and plan with your child (even a three-year-old) how to develop responsibilities that lead to freedom.

Freedom is limited by the ability to respond to a right or privilege. Wise parents limit and give freedom based on the observable abilities of their children. When we understand rights, responsibilities and freedoms, our children will learn to respond with ability, earning freedoms that lead to independence.

Next Week: Writing Letters of Encouragement

Kids Talk is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
http://www.shininglightreading.com/enews.html

©KIDS TALK™
925 N.W. Hoyt #532
Portland, OR 97209
503.274.9788
maren@comcast.net

Be Friendly with Error

Nicholas, a cheerful three-year-old, had cried every day at snack time for a week. Because he had spilt a pitcher of water on the snack table, Nicholas refused to try to pour himself a drink of water. Efforts to encourage Nicholas to pour an eight-ounce pitcher were met with tears. “I can’t. I’ll spill and make a mess, and everybody will be mad at me.”

Pouring water in a Montessori classroom is a critical skill because so many other lessons involve water or pouring, such as hand washing, table washing and cloth washing to name a few. Nicholas had such a fear of failure at pouring that I didn’t know how to get him over this obstacle.

In the middle of the night, when most inspiration seems to arrive, I had an idea. The next morning, I told my classroom assistant that I was going to give a cloth-washing lesson and in the process “accidentally” spill a large pitcher of water. Could she encourage children to set up away from my presentation area to avoid more chaos than necessary?

During the lesson to an older student, I “tripped” and a half-gallon of water rushed over the hardwood floors. “Oops,” I laughed, surveying the water. “It’s okay. I will clean it up. It’s just water.”

To my surprise, Nicholas arrived, mop in hand, asking if he could help me.

“That would be lovely,” I replied.

Nicholas and I mopped and dried the floor, checking that every drop was gone, so our friends wouldn’t slip on a wet floor. We laughed and sang, “…down came the rain and washed the spider out. Out came Nicholas to dry up all the rain…”

“When a big person spills, it’s a big spill,” I joked with Nicholas.

Mike, a four-year-old walked up and said, ”See, Nicholas, I told you it’s okay to make a mistake at school.”

Nicholas broke into a wide grin and turned to put the mop away.

Later that morning, Nicholas came to me. “Ms. Maren, did you spill that water just for me?”

“What do you mean, Nicholas?”

“Did you spill it to make me feel better?”

Now it was my turn to feel as though a bucket of water had just dumped over my head, like in the old 70’s Laugh-In Show. Sock-it-to-me. I thought I was a better actress than that. I imagined myself to be more convincing to a three-year-old.

“Thank you, Ms. Maren. I’m not scared to pour anymore.” Nicholas gave me a hug.

‘You’re welcome, Nicholas.” I took a deep breath.

Thank you, I thought, for helping me remember to be friendly with error.

Next week: Freedom within Limits of Responsibility

Kids Talk is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
http://www.shininglightreading.com/enews.html

©KIDS TALK™
925 N.W. Hoyt #532
Portland, OR 97209
503.274.9788
maren@comcast.net

In Service to the Child

When you help a child climb the tree, everyone enjoys the fruit.
~Nankani Proverb

What do we expect when we patronize a restaurant? Tasty food, cheerful wait staff, good cost/price performance, timely delivery and of course, not to go away hungry.

Our decision-making process is based on factors of price, timeliness, quality of relationships and product delivered. Our expectations at a fast-food joint differ from those for a five-star restaurant, but they are based on similar criteria.

We don’t expect cherries jubilee at a taco place. If our food was wrapped in paper at Chez Louie, we might be irate. Also, we’d never ask to purchase shoes at a restaurant. We select a business to meet specific needs or desires.

When a business tries to be everything to everybody, or everything to a few people, it is apt to fail. A solitary business would struggle to meet every need and desire of every customer.

Responding to over-demanding customers can cause a business to lose focus, neglect clients and ultimately fail.

So, the business of being parents, teachers and caretakers is much like that of any business. Our business is to serve the child or to help the child, in Dr. Montessori’s words, “become a complete human being, able to exercise in freedom a self-disciplined will and judgment, unperverted by prejudice and undistorted by fear.”

Things can start to go wrong in our business as parents and caregivers when, in a misconstrued sense of service, we try to meet every need and whim of a child. Instead of assisting a child’s developmental needs, we inadvertently train them to be over-demanding and unrealistic not-yet human beings.

Children’s basic needs are to become a person engaged in their time and place, and to construct themselves as human beings who will be of service to others. Becoming a person of your time and place has as many variations as people on this planet.

As parents, teachers and caretakers, we offer a service to our children to meet their needs in order for them to become fully functioning adults. It is a role we fill, much like the service a restaurant offers. Adults work to meet the child’s fundamental needs of food, clothing, shelter, loving relationships, along with human development and learning needs while using available resources.

A successful restaurant doesn’t have to meet the impractical whims of every customer. A winning business offers a good product, cheerfully, in a timely manner, at a price the customer can afford and with a desire for repeat business and a long-term relationship.

To serve our children, we need, as adults, to act like a successful business. We cheerfully attend to a child’s genuine needs with the resources we have available in our culture, based on our personal values. We will serve our children well by being the adult we want our children to become.

Next Week: Being Friendly with Error

Kids Talk is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
http://www.shininglightreading.com/enews.html

©KIDS TALK™
925 N.W. Hoyt #532
Portland, OR 97209
503.274.9788
maren@comcast.net

Oxygen for Brain Development

Sometimes a simple and effective solution is right in front of us.

Our bodies are 65 percent water. Our brains are 75 percent water. Water, H2O, is made from two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. Our brain needs oxygen and water for optimum brain functioning. To help our brains be their best, what do we need to do? Drink lots of water and breathe efficiently. Pretty simple, right?

Dr. Phil McGraw in Family First writes that one of the most efficient and effective ways for stimulating brain function is breathing. No drugs necessary. To help focus and recall skills, Dr. Phil recommends inhaling for a count of five and exhaling for a count of five. Take six breaths, which should only take a minute.

Dr. Phil recommends doing this easy breathing exercise when under stress or before and during tests. Take a minute every day to practice with your child so that efficient and effective breathing becomes a habit and a behavior management tool for all your family members.

Dr. Carla Hannaford, in her book Smart Moves, outlines the importance of adequate water intake, deep breathing and movement for learning. As a school counselor, Dr. Hannaford, a neurobiologist, found that a two-minute breathing exercise helps students gain control over their emotions and focus on the tasks at hand.

Getting adequate oxygen to the brain is a critical component of brain development. Since our bodies are 65 percent water, even a small level of dehydration can impair function. Carbonated and caffeinated beverages act as diuretics and do not re-hydrate our bodies. The best drink for hydration? Earth juice, aka water.

Many airplane pilots monitor their blood oxygen levels by use of a fingertip monitor. To avoid accidents, additional oxygen is required by the Federal Aeronautics Administration FAA on any flights above 15,000 feet of altitude.

At 15,000 feet a pilot has only 30 minutes of effective performance time. At 25,000 feet, the effective performance time drops to three to five minutes, and at 40,000 feet it is only 15 to 20 seconds. When body oxygen levels drop, decision-making abilities are diminished, and reaction time is slower. Also, headaches and muscle aches are a common side effect of oxygen deprivation.

We don’t have to be flying in an airplane to become oxygen-deprived. When we are under stress, breathing becomes shallower, and less oxygen gets into our bloodstream.

Making sure we drink enough water and are breathing effectively can help counteract the effects of stress.

Movement and exercise are important for the oxygen they bring to the body and the brain. The saying, “Feeling down, move around,” also helps us to remember that when we are feeling sluggish and unfocused, moving around, and thus increasing our oxygen intake, will help us feel better quickly.

At a recent brain development lecture, Alexander Stephens, assistant Professor of Behavioral Neuroscience at the Oregon Heath and Sciences University, asked the audience to stand up and play a game. Standing up with slight movement for less than a minute helped the audience pay better attention by getting some additional oxygen to our brains.

To ensure the brain has adequate oxygen for optimum performance, drink six to eight cups of water a day, breathe deeply and move around. It can be that simple.

Next Week: In Service or a Servant of a Child?

Kids Talk is a column dealing with early childhood development issues written by Maren Stark Schmidt. Mrs. Schmidt founded a Montessori school and holds a Masters of Education from Loyola College in Maryland.

She has over 20 years experience working with young children and holds teaching credentials from the Association Montessori Internationale. She is also Creative Director for a video-based reading series for children ages three to six, The Shining Light Reading Series. Contact her via e-mail at maren@shininglightreading.com.

Visit www.shininglightreading.com for more information.

Ask your local newspaper to carry Kids Talk. Call, write or e-mail your local newspaper editor and recommend Kids Talk.

Would you like to send Kids Talk to friends and family or receive Kids Talk e-mail updates in your own inbox? Sign up for FREE here:
http://www.shininglightreading.com/enews.html

©KIDS TALK™
925 N.W. Hoyt #532
Portland, OR 97209
503.274.9788
maren@comcast.net