Life's Tool Box - For Parents, Educators, and Clinicians

Molly Bolts and Father’s Day – The Often...

2012-06-15T15:46:17-04:00

I remember the first time I saw molly bolts on my dad’s workbench and wondered what those funny looking flipper thingies, or cage like covers for screws were all about. In his confident, carpenter’s voice Dad explained that sheetrock walls can’t support the pictures or other things we want to hang on them, and molly bolts make that possible. Whether the molly is the expandable sleeve type that you slide into a hole you drill in the wall and, when the screw is tightened into it, expands and grips the inside of the wall, or the butterfly hinged type that springs open, a molly is, in essence, an anchor. These miraculous bolts are literally behind the scenes, keeping various decorative and essential elements of our lives from crashing down upon us.

Molly bolts (despite their feminine name – originally a trademark) are a wonderful inspiration for father’s day. There is plenty of sentimental and heartfelt celebration of Moms right out in the open. Dads, on the other hand, are too often feted with cards that depict them lazing in front of the tv and somewhat uninvolved in the family dance. In my life, Dads may not be the obvious out front decorations of families, but they are very much present, so much a part of our success and happiness.

This week, we welcomed our youngest son, back from a second year of study abroad. Within hours, he was his usual self . . . helping around the house without being asked, attuned to everyone’s needs, quietly working at projects and reaching goals he sets for himself. This week we also learned of the wonderful success of our second son, who passed a major exam and life milestone. And our eldest, while he had no specific news or accomplishment to share, was his usual delightful, engaging, witty and wonderful self. Reflecting on what to write for this week of father’s day, I could not help thinking how much of this week’s parenting bounty (and so many others I’ve been so fortunate to experience) are thanks to the father in my son’s lives. I have no doubt that they are the men they have become, that they do what they do, believe what they believe, and accomplish what they accomplish, because of the quiet, sometimes hidden, but always powerful anchoring my husband has always offered them.

I am not a quiet woman. I come from a long line of talkers, and women who never shied from the limelight to hide in the shadows. There are men who would not want such outspoken (or constantly speaking!) women as mates, men who would be angered or intimidated by a partner with a lot to say. I was raised by a father who taught me to be strong and competent, and opened his shop door to me, communicating as he trained me in changing oil and tires, that women can and should be self-sufficient. In his delight at my successes, I learned that not all men run from women who are not shy in their pursuit of accomplishment. Then I met my husband, the finest cheerleader a wife could ever hope to have, a man who genuinely beams when those in his family reach goals, a man who, like molly bolts, anchors and supports.

Despite their behind the scenes support, neither my father, nor my husband, are particularly shy or hidden characters. My dad’s personality endears him to all who meet him. His good nature and playful, twinkling eyes are what people still see in him, although he has the many challenges of aging to face. My children have lived with a father who is so genuinely warm and engaged, who can be so intelligent in one moment and so playfully silly in the next, who is equally obsessed with circling for all family members the relevant news articles we should read and inserting clever lines from comedy routines into our conversations. His clear love for his boys, for extended family, is a given in all our lives.

With father’s day around the corner, I think of these amazing men, my dad and my husband, and my late father-in-law too, and I know for all we see of what they do, there is so much more that is hardly seen and rarely acknowledged. It was often Moms who provided the obvious “dressing” in our families – the kisses on boo-boo’s, the goodies for birthdays. Moms may have been the visual symbol of parenting, the pictures hanging on the wall for all to see. Sometimes, that meant dads were not as noticed.

My Dad lent his skill and effort to so much of our home growing up. He treated a curved wall with molding to give it beauty, built us a deck to dive off into the pool, made a bedside table my sister and I hid toys in to occupy us when we were punished. We may not have understood how he created our decorative ceiling, or kept our cars running, but we knew we could count on him for things beautiful and useful. Although I only met my father in law long after his sons were grown, I heard stories of his, engaging his sons in grassroots political legwork, bringing them to his law office, schooling them in an appreciation for current events and social responsibility. His legacy lives in the men he raised, who serve their communities and their families as he did. And then there is my husband, who assumes the responsibility for the necessary but tedious work of family life, handling every piece of paperwork, billing, health care and other annoyances that modern day living requires. I hope his sons appreciate the unseen but constant infrastructure support he provides our family, how he keeps us in clean laundry (yes, he does all laundry in our home!) and paid bills as well as making us smile and making us think and making us be a family that cares about being a family and about larger issues.

So, on this father’s day, I salute molly bolts, a workhorse of the toolbox, a small piece of hardware that makes the impossible possible, that holds so much more than its own weight. And to the fathers gracing my life . . . thank you for being such strong anchors, keeping us firmly planted in place when it might not have seemed there was anything you could count on. Thank you for making our family possible and magnificent, and giving the next generation of men a lesson in the hard work and rich reward of caring!

Happy Father’s Day to All!

Shooting Off Mouths and Laptops: Parenting...

2012-04-04T21:40:48-04:00

I was working on another blog post when the gun slinging dad hit the airwaves. No doubt you have seen him, the father who responded to his teenage daughter’s disrespectful facebook rant with his own YouTube declaration of disgust capped by firing hollowpoint rounds from his 45 into her laptop. The morning news shows and their resident parenting experts are having a ball. Thousands of parents responded to NBC’s poll, the vast majority supporting the dad’s actions. I understand where the support is coming from. Parents are tired of the disrespect. Parents are tired of the teenage give-me’s and get me’s. Parents want children who understand the benefits of hard work, the value of a dollar, and the importance of saying thank you to those who care for you. The images of this event on the internet are so far from any and all pictures I can conjure in my mind to represent good parenting, and the positive response is so disturbing, that I had to weigh in.

Issue one – we cannot parent virtually! We are raising a cyber-generation that may be more comfortable on-line than in person, but it is our job as parents to keep our children human and related. If our children post their passions, we need to engage them in dialogue. If they text their truths, we need to invite them to share them over coffee, face to face. We need to encourage and model the best in real life connection and communication, in good times and in stress. Especially in the teen years, when our children are invested in creating distance and space from the family, we need to say, live and in-person, loud and clear, that we are here, we are a family, we are with you. This father’s actions do nothing to advance the dialogue, nothing to build connection. He, like his teenager, monologues rather than converses, rants rather than reasons.

Which brings me to Issue 2 – we must, always and forever, BE THE GROWN-UP! Revenge is sweet, anger release feels so good, living in and for the moment is exhilarating . . . that’s why children and teens act out and act without thinking. Good parenting means you don’t get to have the temper tantrums. You don’t get to do what feels good – you do what is good for your children. It is not always fun and that’s why parents often look fondly backwards to their child and teen years. And in those carefree years, hopefully, we were all blessed with adults who got it, who understood what being a grown-up, 24/7, 365 meant. There are no vacations from grown-uphood, and raving, cursing, or shooting off one’s mouth or gun are not exemplars of thoughtful or reasoned adult conduct.

Finally, we are, as parents, our children’s most important teachers. Just as classroom educators bemoan not having enough time to cover the curriculum, we know our opportunity to impact our growing children flies by woefully quickly. We can ill afford to squander teachable moments. The parents polled who agree with the dad’s actions want the daughter in question, and their own children, to learn the lesson that rudeness and disrespect has a cost. We want children to learn that someone pays for negative actions, and the father carefully calculates the money he has spent fixing his daughter’s laptop which lies now fatally wounded. My concern is about the inadvertent lessons taught – that money spent is irrelevant, and what we yesterday build we will tomorrow, in fits of rage, destroy. That revenge is sweet and fair, and the solution to problems comes at the end of gun. That grown-ups and teens use the same methods, to speak their mind and get even. These lessons scare me, and I suspect are less than comforting or growth promoting for children.

In a world that often seems piloted by impulsive, self-serving and whining babies, can we afford to celebrate parents who act childishly? I for one long for a world populated by grown-ups who know how much children need them to be the grown-up. The day in, day out grind of being the grown-up will probably never make YouTube. It won't be validated in surveys or get hours of tv coverage - it is, however, what will make our children grow to become healthy, helpful grown-ups someday, and to develop into the adults and parents that will make us proud.

It's Not Fair - a story

2012-04-04T21:36:07-04:00

Enjoy this storybird which I was inspired to write after several workshops with educators around behavioral and differentiation issues raised the question of how to be fair as a parent and educator.

You can read the story at"

http://storybird.com/books/its-not-fair-13/

Tire Treads and Getting Out of the...

2012-04-04T21:34:21-04:00

Reminiscing about a recent trip to Israel I had a spiritual epiphany. It wasn’t at the Western Wall, or the graves of the Patriarchs. It wasn’t on the top of a pristine mountain or beside a rushing stream. It was thinking about a rainy day and a failed tour of a new archeological site that provided me with a new understanding of spirituality.

We were scheduled to tour Khirbet Khayifa and a bus of adults (we were amongst the youngest) set off from Jerusalem amidst threatening clouds to see the new dig site that was creating discussion about civilization during the King David’s time in the 10^th century BCE. Our tour guide promised that the rain was not scheduled to begin until afternoon in the area near Beit Shemesh that was to be our destination. Nature had other plans, and as we turned off the highway onto the dirt road to the hill that houses the dig, it started to drizzle. It was only a few yards before the bus driver said “I can’t go further. A few more drops of rain, and I’ll be stuck”. The tour guide was adamant and encouraged the driver to keep going. After some harrowing tries, forward, reverse, forward, reverse, the bus rocking and sliding in the mudded ruts, the tour guide suggested we walk the remaining half mile. When the rain began in earnest, all of us cold, soaked through and covered in mud, ended the tour early. Returning to the bus we found it gone, it needed to be pulled from the mud by a tractor, and another one was sent in its place to get us safely home.

Weeks later, during Shabbat prayers, I found myself remembering the heated exchange between the “let’s move forward” tour guide and the “I can’t go further” bus driver, and thought of how we strive for spirituality for ourselves and children. How often do we ignore or push past the voices of children who say “I can’t move forward right now”, or “this doesn’t feel safe for me” or “I’m not ready to go there yet”. We want to help children reach the spiritual summit, so we think we should push them forward. But sometimes that pushing puts them at risk, turns them away, makes them uncomfortable.

What could have helped our bus make it up the muddy hill? A paved road would have made it totally do-able. At times, we try to pave the spiritual road for ourselves and our children, hoping for smooth sailing or short-cuts to the summit. This so often backfires, since spirituality is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. The other solution to slippery roads is good traction, which comes from tires with really deep and defined treads. Tire treads are created by voids in the rubber, hollowed out sections of the rubber. It is what is missing, what is not there, that gives the tire its grip and helps it move ahead on rough terrain.

In the Torah reading for this week, Moses brings the stone tablets with the ten commandments down from the mountain where he has been in communication with God. The Torah says the commandments were written with the finger of God, and the sages teach that the writing was engraved through and through – the words were, in essence, the void in the stones. The word and law of God were in the empty spaces.

This was my epiphany. To reach the pinnacle of one’s spirituality, we need to focus on what is not there, what is unseen. We need to make empty spaces in our and our children’s lives – spaces where we have time to think and to be mindful. In our world with multi-tasking and intense time demands, we need to carve out room for the holy. We will not reach spiritual heights focusing on the cell phone, the newspaper, the daily tasks that are evident before us. And we won’t reach our spiritual peaks because someone else told us to move forward. We will grow spiritually when we open ourselves to the unseen hand of God in our world, and when we give ourselves the time to empty our minds of the mundane and allow the holy letters of God’s commandments to be engraved on our souls.

The Bully Movie

2012-04-04T21:32:03-04:00

I haven’t yet seen the much anticipated and publicized Bully movie. I am certainly pleased with the attention and awareness it has already generated, with movie stars, advocates, educators and politicians weighing in on the R rating it was given for “language”. When I have wondered aloud, to friends and colleagues, why the movie makers, hoping the film would be shown to school and other teen or children’s groups, would include material that might be inappropriate, I’ve been told that the harsh language may be central to bullying, and removing it, bleeping it, or any other editing would compromise the power of the story.

I am very hopeful that a film that is receiving such widespread national attention will make a difference. But the conversations I am having even before seeing it are causing me some worry. I worry about what I often experience in consulting with school and parent groups that I call the “not here” phenomenon. This is the all too common denial, as I describe or discuss bullying, that such things do not happen in “our school” or are not done by “my child”.

The Bully movie, I would expect, likely portrays powerful examples that clearly exemplify bullying, children using harsh language, physically violent acts, emotional harassment writ large. So much of the devastating bullying I see would not play on the big screen. It is the popular girl who flicks her hair, sucks her teeth and rolls her eyes as a less popular classmate joins her lunch table, all barely noticeable by others but painfully felt by the victim. It is the overweight boy who joins the laughter of his classmates when they use the nickname “blubber” they have given him, making it appear to all that this is typical male middle school bonding. It is the subtle social machinations and undercurrents that tell students who to avoid as a social “cootie” and whose good graces to cultivate. So much of it looks fairly innocent and so much of it is complex and continuous and without understanding the larger social context it is difficult to discern. I once visited a third grade classroom and observed one girl ask another for a pencil. “Did you see that?” the astute teacher asked, “She is such a bully”. I responded that I didn’t see any evidence of bullying, and the teacher enlightened me. The pencil requester is the richest girl in the class. While holding her fancy, fluffy topped pen, she asked her peer, a rather disorganized student in tattered shirt, who lives in the poorest area of town to borrow a pencil to highlight that she has nothing, and often needs to get her school supplies from class donations. What looked to me as an innocent gesture could now be seen as a cruel, deliberate and hurtful interaction.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a picture, because it is so specific, can make material less relatable – easier to deny. When we see images of ravished far-away lands and starving children, do we realize that within US borders, many children are malnourished and hungry? Do pictures of industrial dumping and waste prompt us to pick up the litter in our environs? I hope that the Bully movie, in documenting evident and painful realities of bullying that translate to the big screen will help parents, educators and students become more aware. I hope it will help all of us see both the obvious and the subtle bullying that is under our noses, and not see bullying as a story that happens to someone else, a tragedy “that doesn’t happen here”.

After a high-profile bully related suicide, I asked a group of middle schoolers in a faith based school if they thought this could happen in their school. Quickly, and in unison, they replied, “no, never, not here.” I told them, that’s exactly what the students at the school of this young suicide said, until it happened to them. Bullying is in every school and every community. Maybe not looking like it does in the movies, maybe different from the over the top portrayals in Hollywood or in child and teen literature. It’s hidden in the social details and small comments and everyday actions that can be brutally cruel and cripplingly painful. It is time we commit our attention, our resources and our efforts to battling bullying. If we continue to say “this doesn’t happen”, if we fail to see it, and if we fail to address it, we expose our children to much more danger than an R rated movie.

The Bully Movie - A Tool for Beginning

2012-04-04T21:28:38-04:00

I let the tears dry and reflected a bit before writing this. From the opening moments of the Bully movie, my heart was breaking. The stories woven through the film make very real the unbearable pain bullying leaves in its wake. The NYC theater was filled, but it is not enough. Everyone, every child, parent, educator, human being needs to become aware of the epidemic raging through our country and claiming our children. For building this awareness, and telling victims’ stories with such care, the Bully movie deserves acclaim and thanks. It may be impossible, however, for any film to fully capture the complexity of bullying, its causes, effects and what can be done to address it.

I went to the movie with my husband, at his insistence that we trek into the city for its initial release. I was interested in his reaction, since I am so immersed in bully prevention work and therefore not the typical viewer. He wondered why all the stories shared were in rural towns. “Are there no big city bullies?” he asked. It seemed to him that there was greater focus on physical bullying and harassment, that the two living victims most fully portrayed were notably different from peers; one with limited social skills, the other a lesbian teen. He wondered, as do I, if this will allow students and parents sitting in big city theaters, or their own small towns to feel these things can’t happen here, it’s not like this in our schools.

Dorothy Espelage and Susan Swearer, two eminent US researchers on bullying and bully prevention have emphasized a growing international understanding that bullying is a phenomenon that is embedded in a larger system. Since bullying is about those with more power hurting those with less power, one needs to consider how systems are created or maintained that allow a non-democratic, non-egalitarian reality, a place where some are valued more than others. The Bully movie provides a window into a few schools and districts, and the view we get is pretty damning. The audience in our theater let out a shared moan as the school principal showed herself to be nothing short of moronic in her approach to bullying. Over and over the film told us of schools doing nothing to stop the harm done to their students, of parents who do not stop their bullying children, of police and government looking the other way. There is no doubt that schools, parents, government agencies can and must do more. But I was very uncomfortable with the film’s over-identification of easy villains.

Bullying is extremely complex and embedded in the culture and system where it occurs. It is easy to blame schools and lampoon administrators. After all, if they are to blame, all we have to do is fire the bad guys and hire new ones. If we need better laws, we simply lobby our representatives to pass them. Everything we know about bullying, however, says peer bystanders are critical. When in the film we see a busload of students torment a victim, or sit idly by while their classmates do so, the administrator focuses on finding and punishing the bullies. What of all the students who watched this occur for weeks and said nothing? They quietly allowed the bullies to continue. They callously ignored the victim, cementing his status as unimportant and non-valuable. They did not reveal what was happening to adults, serving, although unwittingly, as the bullies’ henchmen, hiding violent actions from adult view. Laying “blame” places other than with peer bystanders is common because I think it is easier for us to conceive of replacing administrators and making laws than it is for us to imagine creating a cadre of caring bystanders.

I have the privilege to work with schools on bully prevention regularly. I say privilege because while we certainly work to improve the lives of victims and correct the actions of bullies, we do the difficult but crucially important work of creating socially responsible, empathic bystanders who can and do make all the difference. We do not accomplish this with moving assemblies, balloon releasing ceremonies, or powerful films. Those impactful events may start the discussion, but they are too quickly forgotten. Building caring bystanders takes hours of teachable moments, weeks of well-thought out lesson plans to build concrete skills, and a school and community commitment to years of building a culture where every child is equally valued, and values others equally.

The Bully movie’s focus is so clearly on documenting pain and loss, helping us see the devastating cost of bullying. I hope many will see it. I hope after their tears dry they will carry with them the stories in the film, knowing that there are many more stories, very different stories, in big cities and small towns, about regular students and those who are different, with good administrators and bad ones, all struggling through a problem that is both prevalent and complex. Unfortunately, the Bully movie barely uses its teachable moment to tell us what to do. There are rallies, and hints that we should stand and speak for the silent. The key, I believe, is that we need to stand and speak for everyone. We need to engage in ourselves and our children a level of intolerance for cruelty, exclusion, and the abuse of power to hurt those who are weaker or have less power. We need a generation that cannot look away, or walk away from the suffering of others.

As parents and educators, it is easy to feel overwhelmed at the enormity of the task before us. The parent of a child lost to bullying declares “I will not be silent”, reminding us that we must raise our parental and educator voices. We must teach over and over, again and again, - empathy, social responsibility, humanity. I have seen what empowered children and teens can do when we give them the tools. I have seen what parents and educators can do to create environments that value the value of each individual. One of the film’s victims says “I don’t believe in luck, but I believe in hope”. Like the parents who have lost so much, we cannot afford silence. But like the victim who believes in hope, neither can we afford paralysis or despair. The lights came up. The movie ended and my red eyes have dried. The work is just beginning.

Poison Penn

2011-11-10T15:02:16-05:00

I should not be writing this. I have so many others things to do, so many deadlines to meet. I am afraid if I do not take the time to speak out, however, mine will be yet another silence that greets the victims of Penn State’s horrific inaction. Over the past days, as the story of Coach Sandusky’s alleged abuse of numerous young boys (over 40 counts of abuse with 8 boys spanning 15 years), and the response, or lack thereof on the part of the athletic and University leadership, I have had endless opportunities to scream at my tv and radio. I am beyond incensed.

I am incensed that the $70 million per year that football brings to Penn State has been seen as more valuable than the uncountable and infinite cost of a child’s soul and safety. I am incensed that the players interviewed before the firing of long standing coach Paterno, sang his praises and waxed poetic about his caring contribution to the team. Can we really celebrate a man’s accomplishment on the field if he turns a blind eye to such heinous damage of young children in his locker rooms? It is beyond comprehension to me that last night, after Paterno and the University President were fired, riots of a sort broke out on Penn’s campus – NOT riots to support the many victims of abuse who have been, for years, watching in shadow while uniformed athletes and whistled coaches were cheered onto the field – but to argue against the removal of their beloved coach! I listened with intense dismay at the temporary interim coach say, before he offered his thoughts and prayers to the victims, that his task was to give the current team for this weekend’s game – the senior game – the game they have worked so hard for and that they “deserve”.

If Paterno really was a great man, he would have built a team that would care less about what they deserve, and care more about contributing in a meaningful way to their world. Frankly, if the University pulled its team off the field, devoted a day of learning to social injustice and abuse of power, and explored its failure to generate in its faculty and students a proper moral compass, I would not think it an over-reaction.

I know this is a mother’s rave. This is not how sports, or the world works. You defend your territory, attack the opposition, run from those who would bring you down, and keep your eyes only on your goal. I can’t help thinking how easily we ignore the words of great men – Machiavelli’s warning that power corrupts – and the absolute power we assign to athletes and coaches has all too often corrupted absolutely.

I am incensed, but I am also incredibly sad. There are very hurt children and our airwaves are clogged with accolades for the coach and debates over the University’s actions. I, for one, can not keep quiet. Einstein’s words ring in my ears – “The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it”. We cannot raise healthy, safe children in a world with the evil of a Sandusky. But until the Paterno’s of the world understand, and put an end to their contribution to this dangerous world – how can we be silent?

Some Storybird additions on Girls' Friendships

2011-11-07T17:56:44-05:00

This month, Storybird initiated a community challenge, for authors to write about friendship. There is so much negative press about girl friendships. Here are two storybirds I authored, for pre-teen and teen girls, about the positive power of friendship. Both growing up, and in my life now, I have been blessed with good girl-friends. They can make all the difference. Happy reading . . . here are the links: http://storybird.com/books/i-will-fight-for-our-friendship/ http://storybird.com/books/friendship-stories/

Chasing Rainbows????

2011-10-28T12:37:30-04:00

The weekly Torah portion we are about to read includes the well known story of Noah and the ark. It is a story about a generation so evil that God decides it warrants destruction. It is also a story about God’s care and concern for mankind, as he protects Noah, his family, and representatives of all the animals.

In the past few weeks, some of my clinical work has prompted my thinking about questions of protection, belief and worry. I saw one child, who since a horrific and well publicized kidnapping and murder of a child has repeatedly asked teachers and parents for reassurance. When they reply that they will protect him, he responds that the murdered child had parents and teachers who promised the same, to no avail. Another child saw an Alice in Wonderland cartoon and is now constantly asking her mom if her food can change her into something else, make her tiny or large beyond belief.

I would usually think of these children in psychological terms, what are their symptoms, what treatments will work. Having recently finished the holiday of Sukkot, a time when Jews demonstrate their faith in God’s care for them by leaving their comfortable homes and eating and living in temporary “booths” or sukkot, I thought of the struggle of these children as a problem of faith – what can help them believe and experience reassurance? What is it that allows us to feel protected?

One answer may come from the rainbow in this week’s Torah reading. After God shelters Noah and his family through the flood – he creates an eternal sign that he will forever save mankind – no matter how evil or debased it may become:

“Then G-d said, this is the sign of the covenant which I give between Me and you and every living creature that is with you for the generations of all time. My bow I have set it in the cloud and it shall now be for a sign of a covenant between Me and the earth.”

Rainbows are seen as so significant an occurrence, that on seeing one, Jewish people recite a blessing:

“Blessed are you, Our God, King of the World, who remembers his covenant, is faithful to his covenant and keeps his promise.”

Obviously, God doesn’t need a rainbow as a reminder, the rainbow is a reminder to the world that there is enough wickedness to warrant its destruction, and if not for God’s oath, it would be destroyed (Perush Hatefillot by Rebeinu Yehuda Bar Yakar). A rainbow, can therefore – both serve to buttress our faith, our Emunah – i.e. reinforce our sense that God will eternally protect us AND cause distress. Distress, since the sages agree that a rainbow signals that without God’s promise, the wickedness that was demonstrated at that moment, would certainly have caused the world to be

destroyed.

Despite the fact that seeing a rainbow presents an opportunity to acknowledge God’s hand in our world, Jewish texts like the Mishnah Brura and the Gemara caution how we should respond to the occurrence of rainbows. The Mishnah Brura and Chayai Adam agree we should not tell others to look at a rainbow, because it is spreading lashon hara or a bad report – since the rainbow indicates that somewhere, someone was engaged in evil doing. Torah Ladaas agrees, even while acknowledging that telling another could provide them with an opportunity to say a blessing. Dissenting opinions come from the Bris Cohunah and Yalkut Yosef by Ovadia Yosef – who says a Jewish person can tell a fellow Jew to look at a rainbow, because that would allow him to make a blessing, in particular a blessing that is an acknowledgement of God’s kindness, something we should be happy to acknowledge and share with others. Ovadia Yosef also suggests that conveying the information – which includes the assumption that evil is

currently occurring in the world, could actually help people reflect on their own actions, and repent their personal evil-doings or mistakes.

In addition to issues about telling others there is concern among early Rabbinic authorities about whether and how one should look at rainbows. The rainbow is associated with the Shechinat Hashem - the essence of God (Yehezkel, 1:18), which one can and should not look intensely upon. The Gemara (Chagiga, Daf 16a) warns not to look too long at rainbows, the High Priest, the King, or the Ruler, all of whom are representative of God’s essence or presence. Many Rabbinic sources therefore suggest looking at the rainbow briefly, making the appropriate blessing, but not engaging in long or involved staring.

Thinking about this, and some differences between Noah and Abraham helped me understand my seemingly inconsolable young patients. Rabbi Aron Tendler writes that both Noah and Abraham were charged with influencing their generations. Noah failed, where Abraham succeeded. Rabbi Tendler suggests that Noach was a doomsayer, while Abraham taught optimism. Noah focused on punishment, Abraham “enveloped people with love, acceptance and reward”. I can imagine Noah gazing carefully at rainbows and thinking of the evil remaining in the world, while Abraham in a quick glance perceived God’s eternal care, kindness and protection of mankind.

There are issues of science for which we demand critical, careful and sometimes even cynical examination, and issues of faith, where we need to use a different approach. My young patients convince me that we need to teach children to refrain from giving too much focus or investing too much energy in looking for the world’s dangers and evils. We, too, the adults in their world, need to bring them comfort and reassurance through the example of Abraham, with positives and compassion, limiting our doom and gloom cautions. I am convinced that when we help children experience, with a quick glance at rainbows, and the myriad other evidences of God’s role in our world, faith results and offers comfort and reassurance beyond words.

House of Faith

2011-10-17T10:49:07-04:00

For a week every fall, Jews observe the holiday of Sukkot. A central feature of the holiday is the construction of a temporary “booth” or shelter, called a Sukkah, in which to live, or at the least, enjoy meals. The move from the comfort of a home to a fragile booth underscores the frivolity of placing one’s faith in the material, when in fact, all blessings and protection come from God.

After this year’s holiday, we will probably retire our family Sukkah, which arrived shortly after our first child did, 22 years ago. Made of pre-drilled 2x8 foot panels, it was meant to be easily assembled, and withstand a week of the northeast’s fall weather for many seasons. It’s modular nature has allowed us, through two different homes and as our family grew, to assemble it in various combinations. The markings on its beams like “face the garage” are wonderfully nostalgic as they reference objects no longer in existence.

I am feeling remarkably conflicted about putting this sukkah out to pasture, in favor of a newer, easier to assemble option. Having schlepped the panels, used my Dad’s tools to coach reluctant bolts into the pre-drilled holes that seem to get smaller from year to year, and looking at the walls filled with staples from homemade and store bought decorations that have been the furnishings year after year, I should feel relieved that this is the last year for this sukkah. After all, the veneer has peeled off some of the panels, many are warped and water worn, and they are not getting any lighter or less bulky to handle.

Our move, three years ago, from the home in which we raised our children, caused less sentimentality. Yes, our youngest child’s first birthday was celebrated in the sukkah, our children’s school projects hung from its slatted roof, we sat within its walls as a family, eating and singing together, but all those things were true of our home as well. Why then, am I anticipating missing this now dilapidated sukkah?

The sukkah that Jews build for this week long harvest festival is reminiscent of the booths that God provided for Jews to live in when they wandered the desert upon their exodus from Egypt. The sukkah is also attached, for me, to more recent memories. It is my Dad’s toolbox I trot out each year to help construct this tentative structure. Over the years, the family dynamic has shifted from young boys watching their parents build, to strapping teens and young adults doing the heavy lifting and “construction” while parental foremen offer instruction and guidance. In 22 years there have certainly been arguments about what goes where, but there has also been unbridled laughter and lots of giggles about our family’s collective and individual carpentry talents – all genetic and learned gifts from my Dad, the head carpenter in the family.

This year, we shared our old Sukkah for the first time with our new daughters in law. We felt hugely blessed watching the stars through the roof, enjoying the autumn sun. Although my parents were enjoying the much warmer Florida sunshine, we remembered times that three generations sat together protected by these flimsy walls.

I think it is exactly its flimsy, jerry rigged nature that is why I am missing this run down sukkah already. It has been, perhaps more than any other place in our family’s lives, where we demonstrate our belief and faith together. Sharing time there, without all the creature comforts of home, we have celebrated for years, a joyous holiday and our conviction that God, alone, provides our blessings.

In past years, every sukkah building was accompanied by the ritual of removing splinters that seemed inevitable. We will probably not buy another wood sukkah. They are too heavy for our aging bones to handle. But I trust, whatever the next sukkah’s composition is, it’s message will continue to get under our skin, and we will forever share and truly appreciate blessed moments of faith.

A Few Thoughts on Forgiveness - A video

2011-10-07T13:12:32-04:00

I shared some thoughts on forgiveness in schools, at Yeshiva University's Instittute for University School Partnership.

You can watch the video at http://www.yuschoolpartnership.org/student-support/social-emotional

The Sweet Life

2011-09-23T10:59:36-04:00

Having just returned from a trip to the land of maple syrup (Canada) and busily stocking the house with honey for Jewish new year recipes and customs, my thoughts turned to sweetness. Jewish families around the world usher in the year by dipping apples in honey and say a prayer asking to be blessed with a good and sweet new year. Learning from my Dad to revere Ebinger’s blackout cake, and from my mom that you “need a little something sweet with coffee”, wishes for sweetness should be easy to understand. But of all the things to hope for in the

coming year . . . why sweetness?

When I think of sweet – beyond the edible – my first image is of a small child. Their wonderful innocence, their exhilarating awe at all things big and

small, their ability to play and laugh, and their cuddly comfort in the lap of those who love, makes adults melt in their presence. And what better could we wish for in a year, but eyes open to the amazing gifts we are given, minds ready to really see and learn, and hearts filled with laughter and warmth.

When I think of sweet, I also think of love, young and old. Newlyweds, caring and connected, sweetly whisper in their new togetherness and find quiet

moments for romance and surprise. No less sweet is the couple with decades shared, caring and connecting through life’s highs and lows. The romance may be more subtle, but the love is there in forgiving glances and tender concern. Couples new and old make us smile and dream. What more could we wish for in a year than having passions excited, connecting with tenderness and feeling connected.

Some of my sweetest moments have been spent in the shade of towering trees, beside a quiet ocean, or on a mountain summit. The sound of water

rushing over stones, the light on a field of wildflowers, that after rain smell in the early morning all sweeten our days. A year of hearing the world’s sounds, enjoying moments of quiet thought, and of finding the beauty and calm surrounding us would be welcome.

I have my honey dish filled, and my sweet tooth ready as always. But as I wish friends, family, and all a sweet new year I will be thinking beyond

calories. I will think of what sweet young children, lovers old and new, and natural moments, show us. I will think of the great gifts of innocence

and wonder, of passion, caring and connection, and of quiet and calm. I will think of the sweetness life offers in the people we meet and places we visit. I will think of how I can sweeten the days for those who know and meet me. And I will hope and pray that we are judged worthy of the magnificent blessing of a sweet new year.

With Whatever Tools We Have: Battling Bullying

2011-09-14T23:07:25-04:00

There is a place in suburban Michigan where a great deal of attention has been paid to insure that teachers will not talk about students’ sexual orientation. The harassment and humiliation of students with suspected or actual homosexual orientation, however, receives no attention. In fact, it is ignored. In this same school district, eight students have committed suicide in the past two years. Gay or straight, I don’t think this is a place I’d want children I cared about to spend any amount of time. There may be no talk about sexuality, but here is plenty being communicated – “you can’t count on adults for protection”, keep your head down and mind your own business”, “membership is our community s by no means guaranteed”.

There are some who will explain the issues in Anoka, ichigan as a power struggle between church and state. Others will discuss crtical civil rights violations. In ther towns, and with other high profile bullying news stories, other issues such technology have been trotted forward as the central problem. The way I see it, we miss the boat when we view bullying in too small and too limiting a wa, about only a particular type of child, a school related issue, a result of the latest invention. Bullying is an issue that is about the state of our world, and our place in it, and bully prevention is, in my mind, the critical test of our humanity. How we deal with bullying reveals the nature of our humanness and either the darkness, or the power of our soul. And our children are watching whether we will stand up as heroes, or remain in the shadows.

There will always be those with religious beliefs that label others as evil and unworthy. History, including the 9-11 anniversary so recently celebrated, provides too many examples of such beliefs serving as excuses for terrorism and mass murder. Yet the Judeo-Christian heritage has at its core the recognition of man’s duty towards his fellow. What does it say about our schools and our nation if we shirk our duty? And what kind of future leaders of our nation and our world can our children become if we walk away from this challenge and opportunity?

Pastor Martin Niemoller, opposed to the actions of the Nazis, said it best:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --

Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --

Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --

Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me --

and there was no one left to speak for me.

If we stand idly by while teenagers are bullied, in Anoka, Michigan, or Boston, New Jersey, every city, town and school district in the country, then we create a citizenry of social ignorers, who will not speak for us. I would argue, that if we, the adults who are charged with the protection of children do not speak, yell, scream, at the top of our lungs at the inhumanity of bullying, of anyone, anywhere, anytime. . . if we don’t put our money, energy and hearts into this battle . . . then I’m not sure we deserve to spoken for at all.

Forgiveness in Marriage Video

2011-09-12T13:27:19-04:00

I recently did a brief video for the Orthodox Union on Forgiveness in Marriage. You can access it at

http://www.ou.org/torah/article/forgiveness_in_marriage

Wishing everyone a season of health, happiness, and gracious forgiveness.

Words, Names and Silence - Tools for the...

2011-09-11T10:20:41-04:00

Listening to names and silence. Both powerfully capturing the immensity of the day and both bringing me to tears. Over the week, judiciously trying to avoid too many images, too much pain, I carefully edited what I would watch and read. In the calm and quiet of the Sabbath, I read two things and heard one that gave me a context, a frame to place around the horror that, while not muting it, allowed me to look at it, to face it, and to be sad in the way one must at such loss and evil.

The first thing I read, a piece by Erica Brown in Jewish Action, discussed Faith in Uncertain Times. Brown comforted me in her compelling argument that one cannot understand misery, or the world at large. She reminded me that “as religious beings, we have to learn to reside in a universe that defies comprehension”. Brown’s recommendation for living in the post-9-11 world is that we learn to stand with Job’s posture of “sacred uncertainty”.

Ten years have passed since I learned of the tragedy as I arrived in my office at the Alliance for School Mental Health at Long Island Jewish Medical Center. Ten years since the day I left work early to meet my children after school and tell them what had happened. The youngest one, then 8 years old, listened to my explanation of the planes crashing into the towers, and asked, with hopeful innocence and remembrance of the massiveness of the buildings he had visited– but the towers are still there? When I said they were gone he was puzzled – how could something so substantial, so real, be lost in a moment, where could they go? Ten years since my colleagues and I manned overnight counseling centers for the Port Authority in the days following the attacks, faxed and hand delivered materials on helping children with trauma to hundreds of schools (internet and phones were widely affected). Ten years, and more experience with post-traumatic counseling of children than I wish had been necessary, and I am certain that I understand the tragedy of 9-11 no more than I did then.

The second words that offered comfort came in Synagogue, reading the L’Dovid psalm 27, traditionally recited from the beginning of the Jewish month of Elul through the holidays. It speaks of David’s trust in God, to shelter him from enemies and evil, and ends with the powerful promise that hoping and trusting in God will strengthen you and provide courage. Coupled with Erica Brown’s suggestion for an acceptance of uncertainty, this seemed a wonderful complement. I can accept uncertainty and all its discomfort, if I can pair it with unshakeable faith and belief.

The final comfort came from the Rabbi’s sermon. He did not speak about the tragedy directly, but about the connectedness of humanity. He spoke of the outpouring of care and support that 9-11 catalyzed – teaching us the best of what we can be. Citing a Torah law from the week’s reading, he spoke about the earth connecting us – the soil, the ground, as the unifier of humanity. This week had me feeling disconnected and lonely. As the morning fills with names of people I did not know, but whose loss I somehow feel, I recognize that the pain that comes with unity makes us a large and wonderful human family.

The names will continue through much of this morning. Today’s images and sounds of the memorial overlaid on the images and sounds still vivid after ten years will reverberate well beyond today. Approaching this anniversary, I had thought there were no words - yet it is words, spoken and written – that brought me comfort. It is words that convince me my eight year old son was right to refuse to believe the towers had disappeared, because the words and images allow the towers and all the good and glory they offered, to continue to soar towards the sky. I pray that words, sounds, images and memories serve to comfort all who are in pain, and that together, while still perplexed and uncertain, we are strengthened in our connectedness and our faith.

Story for the Start of the School Year

2011-09-09T10:26:09-04:00

I just posted a story on storybird.com entitled "The Stars of 4B". As students and teachers struggle to create a classroom where all types of learners feel welcome and successful, I hope this story of a feisty and positive teacher sets a helpful tone! You can search for it by name, or under my stories on the storybird website (www.storybird.com) where my screen name is drronovick. Enjoy, and share your feedback!

Technology in Classrooms: New Drill Bits...

2011-09-08T11:44:28-04:00

There has been a lot of talk about technology and education. A recent NY Times front page story described an Arizona’s school attempt to raise performance (measusred by test scores) by bringing technology into the classroom. Like fitting a new drill bit onto a drill, even the shiniest, sharpest bit will be nearly when attached to an old drill with a run-down motor.

Technology is here to stay. Today’s students need classrooms that prepare them to live in a technological world. Some educators and policy makers are looking to technology to improve education at large. A new, sharp drill bit will make a good machine more effective, as technology will likely build on the positive impact of good teachers and classrooms. But neither logic nor research evidence suggests that technology can fix everything that needs fixing in education. In fact, one of the things most broken in education is the tendency to run after fads without data and the investment of huge funds and energies in unstudied and unproven approaches. Education is great at initiating initiatives, but often doesn’t provide sufficient training or support to allow appropriate and lasting implementation. Mandates and policies often promote or require the educational equivalent of shiny new drill bits – but do they pay enough attention to being certain that the basic motor that will drive the process is sound?

I have seen ingenious use of smart boards in classrooms. I have also seen smart teachers make little or absurd use of this technology. It is a mistake to assume that old ways of working or teaching make sense with new technologies. It is reasonable to assume that training may be critical in helping even the best teachers harness technology’s wonders. I have learned, in my limited experience teaching on-line vs. in person, that not everything translates. I cannot simply do what I did in the classroom via the internet. Just as there is a science as well as art to pedagogy, there is a science, albeit an infant one, in technological pedagogy.

Filling classrooms with gadgets will only fill children with the skills they need if those classrooms also have skilled, cutting-edge humans facilitating the process. That doesn’t mean we should discard technology. We should learn how it helps us learn and how it helps us teach, and make sure our motors are well oiled and ready to go, so each upgrade and shiny new drill bit, only serves to make us that much sharper.

For Jewish Educators re: 9/11

2011-09-07T17:36:09-04:00

I recently provided ideas and links for Jewish schools in addressing the ten year anniversary of 9/11 at http://yuschoolpartnership.org/

September 2011 – A Tool-Less Month

2011-09-05T20:03:59-04:00

I have been struggling to find a tool that fits this September. This September, our family is celebrating holidays with married children, for the first time. This September, our family is sending a student off for a year of study abroad. And this September, our family, along with families all over the world, is trying to mark, in a meaningful way, the 10^th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I thought about caulking guns that apply a bead of silicone to hold things together, and protect against the elements. I thought about saws, cutting through trees, and pry-bars offering leverage. This month, with its myriad feelings and challenges, has me stumped.

There are the routine challenges of September. School starts, and being a Professor, that means courses to plan and projects to begin. The transition from vacation mode to the work grind is never easy, and in our home, graduates fortunate to be gainfully employed are negotiating that shift. There’s also the loss of warmth and light. The days quickly shorten, and the threat of 100+ degrees seems long gone. The air, especially at night, chills in anticipation of seasons to come.

Then there are the personal September challenges. In our family, it is a month filled with birthdays and anniversaries. Some of the latter are reminders of happy joining, but we also meet annually in September to visit the cemetery and remember special ones we’ve lost.

Then there are the challenges of this September, 2011. I realized, about the time the previews of 9-11 memorial shows surfaced, and news stories began highlighting the upcoming anniversary, that the approach was making September especially challenging. I suspect I am not the only one feeling a bit frayed, and the rare earthquake and hurricane in NY in the last few weeks don’t serve to soothe. In fact, being glued to the radio and TV, shifting into emergency mode, recommended for the recent natural disasters, brought back many feelings from the days and weeks post 9-11. The day of the earthquake, every colleague, patient, and friend I met somehow referenced 9-11 in their comments - they thought it was terrorism, they wouldn’t stay inside a trembling building, they were emotionally, as well as physically shaken. The reactions were a jarring reminder of how powerfully events of ten years ago influence us today. If this is the response for those of us with limited personal loss or connection to the trauma of 9-11, my heart goes out to those for whom this anniversary is so much more potent.

The mental health prescriptions from ten years ago; to moderate one’s media exposure, to find meaning, to focus on what you can control, are equally relevant now. I am making it a point to limit the “commemorative” tv specials I watch, no matter how compelling they seem. I am trying to view, not just the anniversary, but all our family’s September challenges in meaningful ways. I am filling days with things I can control, some of which are busy work, but many are important and productive.

In looking for a tool for my toolbox this month, I am wondering if September itself, is the tool. Time is, after all, at least as powerful as a chainsaw or nail gun, and like those tools, can wreak havoc, or be used to build. In the Jewish calendar, September marks a beginning, a new year. It is an ideal month for reflecting, for generous forgiveness but not forgetting, for optimistic moving ahead tempered by realistic appraisal of what went before. In this month of transition and challenge, I am hoping for meaningful moments, and praying for a year of blessings, and send my wishes to all near and far. May September and the year it heralds, bring caring and comfort, good lessons and great learning, a balanced blend of excitement and calm, and lots to add to life’s toolbox!

How to Talk to Children About Hurricane Irene

2011-08-27T22:13:41-04:00

Here is a piece that I wrote for the Institute for University School Partnership of the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration at Yeshiva University. There are additional resources regarding hurricane and trauma and children available on the website at: http://www.yuschoolpartnership.org/

With Hurricane Irene approaching, and on the heels of the earthquake this past week, parents and educators are naturally wondering about how to help children cope and what to say that can prepare and explain these disconcerting phenomena. First and foremost, children want and need reassurance, more than they want or need specific information, so all communication should include a focus on what adults, agencies, and even children can and will do to stay safe. Depending on the age of the child, adults may explain what a hurricane is, or simply say a big storm is coming, and be sure to add a statement of calm reassurance such as but our family, and the people in charge of our town are getting ready so everything works out okay.

We are living with technological advances that bring information rapidly and constantly into our lives and our children's minds - but caring adults may need to do the editing that the media will not. Children can become distressed by pictures on the news that are occurring three states away, because it looks just like the beach near their home. Helping children understand that the media tends to present only the problems, and that pictures or warnings may be for places far away is important. Adults should consider limiting the media access for their children and not having everyone glued to every breaking news bulletin. If family viewing or listening is occurring, adults have to monitor their own verbal and body language responses, since they will greatly affect how children view the situation.

The significant body of research on trauma and tragedy makes it clear that in challenging times, purpose and control are incredibly curative. For all of us the next hours and days are filled with anxiety and a great deal of uncertainty, leaving us feeling quite unsettled. For both adults and children, focusing on what we can control, rather than what we cannot, is helpful. We can't change the weather, but we can unpack some new games to play together during the storm. Focusing on controllable elements can lead directly to having purpose, and adults should strongly consider engaging children in age-appropriate preparations. Young children can help pack up outside toys and bring them inside for shelter. Older children can fill water bottles. Teens can be assigned to call elderly neighbors and see if they need groceries or assistance.

Adults should not be terribly concerned if in moments of uncertainty and threat, children seem a bit regressed, or want more attention or support. Through this stormy weekend, adults should try to be present, patient and the picture of calm, capable caretakers. Children will benefit from seeing how grown-ups cope, and that adults are available and able to keep them safe from life's storms.

Rona Novick, PhD

For more resources, consult the Institute for University School Partnership at http://www.yuschoolpartnership.org/

Irene – A Worrying Mother’s Dream?

2011-08-26T09:15:56-04:00

I admit it – I am a worrying mother. I come from a long line of highly skilled maternal worriers, women who reminded you seemingly constantly of the world’s dangers whether you were heading to the playground or college. My heritage includes mothers and grandmothers who worried empathically for you, who when they were cold, insisted you wear a hat (as per my story – Your Mother’s Cold –Put on a Hat – by drronovick on Storybird.com). So it is not surprising that I can’t move from the weather channel this morning as Hurricane Irene barrels up the coast, right towards our Long Island home and our New York based family.

One of our sons is home with us, and will certainly be drafted today into hurricane preparedness. We’ll tie down lawn furniture and bring in loose trashcans. Depending on how nervous we get, and how dire the predictions, we may move some items off the basement floor. The flashlights are already out on the counter, and water bottles are getting filled. Our other two sons are ensconced with their brides in NYC apartments, and it has been quite a summer of firsts for them. Both couples newly married they have had all kinds of novel experiences, but this week lived through their first earthquake (minor, thank goodness!) and now a hurricane.

As a card carrying worrying mom, I am wondering how long I can hold myself back from my genetic destiny. Almost as powerful as the storm’s surge is my motherly urge to call and tell them what they already know . . . have water, get flashlights, etc. Undoubtedly I will get the same response I always gave my worrying mom. An impatient “I know”, or a look that says “Do you think I’m an imbecile?”

Somewhere along the line, I learned that powerful worrying muscles are best complimented by equally powerful faith and optimism. I don’t know if I could meet the approaching storm, or if I could have worked with 9/11 and other trauma victims, or if I could have raised children, without the positive mindset to balance a natural inclination for worry. I hope I have imparted that sunny vision to my children at least as well as I have shared the darker concerns in life.

I may be able to restrain myself from asking the unneeded questions for a few hours more, but I know my daily phone call to my sons today will be too much of a temptation. I will have to share a bit of worry, prompts for precaution, and weather warnings. I will know, as I do so, that I am only stating the obvious. I may have only sons, but I have certainly gifted them with some of my anxious genes, and I doubt they are watching the news with carefree abandon. They aren’t heading into the surf, or planning on hiking in the rain. They are likely settling in with their hurricane survival kits, cozy with their spouses. We will all, with worry and genuine concern, hunker down. We will mix up our family’s signature cocktail of anxiety and hope, praying that all goes as best as it can, that not only our loved ones but all in the path of the wind and rain will weather the storm, and will be looking at sunshine in the near future.

Sledge Hammers and Discipline – Why...

2011-08-23T08:43:04-04:00

This morning, the news reported the closing phase of the trial of the Alaska mom who videoed herself punishing her six year old by forcing him to drink hot sauce and take a cold shower so she could send the tape to the Dr. Phil show. The court is debating what the appropriate punishment for the mom should be. I certainly believe behavior should have consequences, and especially behavior that is abusive to children should be quickly and seriously addressed. The focus on punishment as a response to bad behavior, certainly on the part of this mom, and echoed by the court, however, feels to me like filling your toolbox with only one tool – a heavy sledgehammer.

A sledgehammer can come in really handy if you need to knock down a wall, or break some concrete. Because of its large size – both in the mallet and its long handle, it is more capable of destruction because it can distribute force over a wide area. Great for demolition - don’t try banging in a nail, or sculpting some stone with a sledge hammer. You may get the nail into the wall, or chip away some of the unwanted segments from your statue, but the collateral damage will make it a total loss.

Punishment can be the sledge hammer of discipline. It is necessary at times, but there are so many other discipline options that have more finesse, and less risk (time-out, response cost, and other techniques are not actually punishment and need not be done in punitive ways). Research in schools and prisons (unfortunately, they have similarities) strongly suggests that punishment and punitive environments can actually escalate violence and misbehavior. The word sledge hammer comes from the Anglo Saxon word slaegan, which means to strike violently. When it comes to punishment, striking violently seems to create more violence.

Another major problem with punishment is what it fails to do. The word discipline means to teach, and often punishment teaches nothing. When a child is hit, sent to the principal, made to stand in the corner . . . what have they learned? Was any new or useful skill developed? What expectations were communicated to the child through this punishment, and how was the child supported in meeting those expectations?

Fall is around the corner. Teachers young and old are considering how they start their school year, and some may have bought into the myth that you have to start tough if you want the students to respect you. Parents engaged in their year round 24/7 struggles to maintain order and keep their families functioning may also be tempted to think strictness and punitive measures should be central in their parenting. We all want children who do their jobs, follow directions and rules, and take responsibility. We will, at times, need to provide consequences for negative behavior – not synonymous with punishment – but we do not need to be limited to punishment or punitive approaches. We can engage children in learning self-regulation and problem solving. We can create logical, teaching consequences (like overcorrection and retribution strategies) and we can provide greater supports to ensure children succeed, rather than waiting for and even expecting behavioral failures and then punishing them. The positive behavior support approach (www.pbis.org) and collaborative problem solving (Dr. Stuart Ablon – www.thinkkids.org) are examples of such approaches.

The power of the sledge hammer is its ability to cut a wide swath of destruction. As parents and educators, we can’t afford a tool that damages even a part of our precious charges. We can’t afford to get caught up in the sometimes exhilarating and cathartic swing of the heavy sledge hammer – no matter how angry we are, or how much we think we need to teach a wayward child a lesson. We are, first and foremost, sculptors,

builders, landscapers and micro-surgeons. We need tools that will create, bring out latent beauty, and carefully separate the good from the not so good. Relying too much on punishment, we risk turning potential masterpieces . . . to dust.

Putting Honesty on Ice? The Price of Good...

2011-08-17T08:38:10-04:00

All over the morning news, for two days straight, is the Hockey Twins $50,000 story. Winning the raffle at a Minnesota event , Nick Smith was given a chance to make an unbelievable shot on the court for the unbelievable prize of $50,000 cash. When his name was called, Nick was outside the arena, so Dad sent his twin, Nate to the ice, where miraculously, he made the shot and won the prize. One day later, stating it didn’t sit right with them, and wasn’t the way they want to raise their children, the family has come forward to admit the wrong boy accomplished the feat and return the money. The media, through polls and unsolicited tweets and emails, has found that over 75% of those speaking out on the issue feel the boys should get to keep the money.

I’m all for honesty paying . At the same time, can we really afford, in this country, at this time, to teach children that dishonesty comes at no cost? I understand the sentiment that wants to see these adorable and belatedly honest twins not walk away empty handed, but I’m concerned about the apparent willingness to forgive dishonesty so easily. I’d suggest we send multiple, healthy messages by dividing the prize money. The sponsoring organization could generously reward the Smith family’s voluntary honesty with a $25,000 or $35,000 prize. This signals a powerful appreciation of truthfulness . . . but a considerable penalty for dishonesty, cheating, or not following the rules. It would be wonderful if the sponsors expand this teachable moment and rather than keep the remainder of the money, donate it to a worthy cause.

Some buzz on the airwaves has been less than positive towards the Smith family. Why did they send the wrong twin onto the ice. Why did they take the money and only a day later develop a conscience? I can’t know what went on in the minds of the Mr. & Mrs. Smith for those 24 hours. I do know that too much of our parenting and teaching is done on the fly, and with the notion that we are stuck with a decision we made and just have to live with it. The Smith family reminded us that grown-ups make mistakes . . . and can unmake them. It may not be easy, and there will be a price to pay, but I’d suggest we consider it an investment. The dividends will come when children see that all decisions, all actions, all missteps can be righted if

they were wrong in the first place. That life lesson is easily worth a million bucks.

Coming Unhinged and The Frontal Lobe – A...

2011-08-14T14:04:43-04:00

Coming out of the shower, I slid the glass door open and it came off its track in my hands. Holding what seemed to be 50 pounds of glass in slippery, wet hands, I called for my husband. Try as we might, we couldn’t get both the top and bottom of the door back on track. We tried brute force (as much as one safely forces glass). We tried subtle angling and coaxing, but nothing worked. My husband suggested we investigate other shower doors in the house to see how this one should work. He examined the bottom of the recalcitrant door and discovered a metal piece attached with two screws. “Maybe” he offered “you unscrew this piece, reattach it to the track and the door, and retighten the screws”. A few turns of the screw later – voila – shower back on track!

Although a Phillips head screwdriver was critical for this repair, much more critical was my husband’s white matter! Particularly, that part of the human brain referred to as the frontal lobe, the seat of reasoning and higher order cognition, really saved the day. Interestingly, I’m the handyman (handywoman) in the family, more spatial and knowledgeable about fixing stuff, largely thanks to my Dad who blessed me genetically with ability in that area, and shared his talents with me in his shop and in the projects he completed throughout our home. But it wasn’t the spatial analysis region of the brain that was needed for our runaway shower door – it was the executive functioning region that is highly involved with problem solving.

My husband’s brain demonstrated superb problem solving skills as we approached this repair challenge. These are skills all parents and educators would love to promote in their young charges (and spouses love to see them in their mates, as well). Problem solving and other higher order cognitive skills can be broken into teachable components. Revisiting my husband’s problem solving steps offers some hints for how to building problem solving in children. First, he did what experts in any field do . . . he looked for patterns, asking - how do other shower doors work? Exploring patterns allows us to discover the similarities and differences in situations. Parents and educators promote the development of pattern seeking abilities with games and guided questions. The Sesame Street segment . . . “one of these things is not like the other” is a prime example.

Next my husband utilized a variant of brainstorming – generating as many ideas as possible to try to find a solution that will work. While I was stuck on trying to get the door to fit, he opened his mind to the possibility that a piece of the door could or should be removed to get it back on track. Brainstorming is also a teachable skill, but one that runs counter to what so many children are accustomed to doing. Adults communicate in subtle and not so subtle ways that children are to give one and only one right answer. This is the absolute opposite of brainstorming, and stunts the growth of the free-wheeling consideration of multiple options so crucial to good problem solving. Parents and educators can strengthen children’s brainstorming muscles by asking for five possible reasons that . . . or three ways you could . . . .

Another component of successful problem solving that helped us fix our shower door was my husband’s value of trial and error – his willingness to try something, assess if it works, and if necessary, try again. His simple statement – “maybe you unscrew this piece . . . “ was a combination of experimental or scientific thinking, acceptance of possible failure, and perseverance to keep trying. These are critical attitudes and habits to build in our children and students, both directly and indirectly. Directly by telling them to think of problems as experiments, chances to wonder about what will work, and to understand that not everything will. Directly, by making mistakes and failures as important learning activities as “correct answers”. Indirectly we communicate the benefits of the scientific method when we congratulate all attempts, even those we suspect will not lead to solutions, when we create opportunities to try many options, and when we applaud “stick-to-it-iveness” as much as correctness.

I credit my husband with one more masterful accomplishment in this home repair dilemma. While I was getting frustrated, and might have taken my anger out on the rather fragile glass door, he stayed calm, suggesting much needed breaks, and return to the problem with fresh, more reasoned eyes. Emotional regulation is another talent of the human frontal lobes, helping us manage the frustration that can derail problem solving. This, too, we can build in youngsters, although it is certainly challenging. Partly it requires exposing them to frustration, not providing easy answers or rescuing them from distress. Starting in small doses, giving children the opportunity to struggle is critical.

Eventually, my husband and I needed to take out our toolbox to solve our shower door problem. A simple screwdriver seemingly providing the answer to our prayers. In fact, the tool that solved the problem was far from simple. The complex connections of the human frontal lobe, allowing us to reason, stay calm, try and try again, really saved the day. In a world where children can google anything, find all answers on Wikipedia, or "chacha” their way to the truth, adults need to work extra hard to ensure this incredible tool growing inside little heads doesn’t atrophy. Parents

and educators need to do all they can to help children’s personal problem solving tool boxes are well oiled and ready to go to work on all life’s challenges.

Untitled

2011-08-07T22:32:13-04:00

It felt like 110 degrees in the Mount Vernon blacksmith shop, even without the bellows fanning the fire. Two young craftsman, in 18^th century clothing were making authentic hinges using tools and techniques developed over 200 years ago. The cabin on the Mount Vernon estate was filled with families and adults, asking questions about the implements and products displayed. One of the costumed craftsman, answering a pre-teen’s question about a square nail on display explained that this shop, the property of General George Washington, a wealthy and forward thinking gentleman farmer, was quite antiquated in its time. This was a small, rural farm, there were much more advanced smithing tools in major cities, he explained. I couldn’t help but think of all the 21^stcentury children who, surrounded with cutting edge technology, complain to their parents that they need the latest gadget.

Apparently technology getting old is not a new phenomenon. George Washington’s laborers wished for the shiniest new tools just like our children want the newest cell phone or computer game. The pace of change has become more rapid, meaning we hear ever more frequently requests for updates and upgrades from children who feel an urgent need for the new. Along with parents through the ages, our task is to figure out how and when to say no.

“No” is easier to hear before you have asked for “Yes”. In other words, once your teen asks for the I-phone, they are not terribly receptive to your reasoned explanation of why they can’t have it. If parents anticipate the request, and pre-empt it with a cogent plan – “when you have a job and can pay ½ the monthly fee can you get a smart phone” – they make the “no” easier to accept.

Today’s parents are also confronted with the aging down of technology. Five years ago, only teenagers had cell phones, then middle school students got them. Now second graders are telling parents, “but everyone else has one. . . “ Here, too, parents can set parameters early: “In our family, you get a cell phone when you are old enough for after school activities”. The reality, however, is that parents need to regularly re-assess these parameters. When our children were teens, we blocked texting from their phones, wanting them to use the phones only for important calls. When we discovered that friends, and even teachers and youth groups were using text messages to communicate, and our sons were missing important events,

we changed our anti-texting policy.

Touring Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s luxurious estate, I fantasized that children in the “olden days” appreciated their dolls and toys, realizing that updated versions would be a long time coming. I’m sure the dynamic of children asking and wanting, and parents setting limits is not new. When parents moderate their children’s seemingly insatiable need for the latest doodad or gadget they teach such an important lesson. Children won’t greet this lesson with smiles and thank-you’s. They’ll moan and whine that you are stingy, old-fashioned, and if you’re lucky you’ll earn the title “the worst parent in the world”. In fact, parents saying “no” to these childhood greedies are offering a generous gift – a lesson in patience and

appreciation of the difference between want and need. These tools belong in every child’s tool box . . . and they never become old-fashioned or obsolete.

Paint Mixing Machine and The US Congress

2011-07-27T21:53:39-04:00

If you’ve ever painted a room, you know the drill. You pick your color from a paint chip, the store clerk takes a gallon of base, adds the proper drops of tint and puts it in a machine that vigorously and violent shakes it up. As a result, a few powerful drops of color changes a gallon of paint, which then transforms a room. As we all watch the stagnation in Congress as they struggle with issues, real and petty, aren’t we all wishing for a bit of a shake-up?

I am not a political expert, and recognize the issues and practices that got us to this point are complex and layered. As someone who works with parents, educators, and children, however, I can’t help but think about how adults would respond if the children in our care exhibited the stall tactics, tit for tat attitude, and general immaturity and irresponsibility we are witnessing in our leaders. Parents of siblings who are engaging in petty bickering over who gets the ball, doll or tv remote are very likely to say words like “the two of you can’t leave this room until you work it out” or “if you can’t stop arguing over it, I guess I’ll have to take it”. Educators dealing with procrastinating students set deadlines and demand progress. Adults utilize with great skill the paradigm known in behavior technology as “grandma’s rule” – the basic precept that you can only have cookies after you finish your broccoli.

Where are Washington’s grown-ups? I have heard commentators describe Congress as lazy frat boys. Discussions of beltway time management have centered around the fact that nothing gets done without there being a deadline looming. I know it is simplistic, but I wish, like in the paint store, we could add a few drops of color to this blah Congress, put it into a machine and shake it up. I wish for an extreme House makeover – and leadership that can say move that bus . . . and we will find ourselves in a new place, beyond this stalemate. Mostly, I think about the impact on American children. Instead of watching a country draped in exquisite reds, whites and blues, they are witnessing adults behaving so badly they dirty democracy.

Next week, when I’ll be in DC for the American Psychological Association convention, I plan on taking a tour of the Capitol. If I thought it would make a difference, I’d gladly bring a paintbrush.

The Bonds of Friendship and Hot Glue Guns

2011-07-22T09:07:06-04:00

I recently visited my mechanic to have him remedy, among other things, a light assembly whose plastic bracket had snapped. “I use a great tool from Sears” he told me, and promptly reattached my bracket with a souped up version of the hot glue gun I use for craft

projects. A day later, I was speaking to a group of parents about children’s friendship, and the magic of the glue gun’s bonding seemed particularly relevant.

Glue guns work by heating up a plastic looking glue stick and allowing the hot gooey glue to flow out the end. Since the glue is liquidy it can flow into small areas. Within moments, the glue will re-harden into a plastic like bond. Parents would love the ability to easily mold their children – and especially to support the bonding that makes good friendships.

Parents want their children to be happy, and friends make children happy. But parents, no matter how hard they try, cannot make friends for their children. Parents can, however, learn from the glue gun about creating the right circumstances for successful bonding. First and foremost, no matter how good your glue gun, it can’t join together two items that are miles apart. Parents can certainly contribute to social proximity – making sure their children have the opportunity to be exposed to potential friends. This can include driving carpools so children can participate in social activities, hosting play dates, and even inviting other families to join your barbeque or outing, so that the children can be together.

Proximity alone does not make a bond. The glue gun uses its power to turn a rigid glue stick into a moldable substance. Parents constantly use their power and influence to soften their children’s solitary nature and mold them into social beings. We teach manners and social skills, we promote sharing and caring, and hopefully, we model friendliness. Some children will learn social lessons effortlessly, others may need significant support to master conversation skills, game playing, and negotiating conflict. The parenting shelves in the library are filled with books on teaching children social skills, and books are actually a wonderful resource. Picture books and novels often include stories of social strife and social interactions and can promote safe, non-defensive ways for parents to engage children in discussion about how friendships work and which behaviors are problematic.

My mechanic was successful in repairing my light only after he worked to align the pieces that needed to be connected and held them in place. He set the stage for success before he applied the glue. Parents can similarly contribute to the success of play dates and social interactions with a bit of wisdom and prearrangement. If you know your child is shy, and not very talkative, inviting a friend to the movies will be much easier than a 10 hour play date at home. If your child has a tendency towards bossiness or sore losing, social interactions built around sports or games may

require extra supervision or preparation. A child who struggles to join groups or start conversations may be greatly helped by being allowed to take a remarkable souvenir from the family vacation to share at lunch or recess.

I don’t understand the chemistry of the bonding that hot glue guns utilize. I’m equally mystified by the bonding that occurs, and sometimes despite all factors seeming positive, fails to occur, amongst children. I do know, however, that even without full knowledge of how or why, I can effectively use my glue gun. Through dozens of craft projects I’ve learned where it works best and when I need to use white glue, or a piece of tape

instead. Parents can develop their own expertise about what works best to support their children’s connections to friends. It may take trial and error, but the lessons learned will be well remembered and the efforts much appreciated. Anything that builds bonds and friendships is certain to be a valued tool in life’s toolbox.

Pool Test Kits: Litmus Test for Parenting?

2011-07-17T13:50:56-04:00

In a recent conversation, my Dad mentioned the temporary closing of his community pool in Florida because of an over abundance of algae. He reminisced about how carefully he watched the chlorine and algae levels in his backyard pool. Since this week afforded me several opportunities to notice parents and children in public venues, I thought about those tools used to keep pools clean and safe – chemical test kits – and what they can teach us about good parenting.

Pool test kits usually consist of a number of vials and chemicals. You put samples of pool water into the vials, add the specified drops of chemicals and compare the color of the resulting water to a chart to determine pH, chlorine and other levels. Since weather conditions and usage can impact the readings, pool water needs to be checked frequently – commercial pools are supposed to check and record chlorine levels hourly. Of

course, the only reason for testing is to determine whether any chemicals need to be added to adjust the water and make it safe. Watching parents and their children in restaurants, and at social gatherings, I noticed great variety in how much “testing” and “adjusting” parents do. Some continually checked in on their children, and when their behavior was too base, or bitingly acidic, took corrective action. Other parents, often engrossed in their own socializing, paid no attention to their children, not tracking and never adjusting their actions. I don’t for a moment think it is accidental

that the children of those parents were often doing things I found problematic . . . grabbing, invading other’s space, throwing things and throwing tantrums.

Parenting done well requires constant testing, retesting and adjustment. We lack guides as clear as the color matched strips of the pool test kit. But tracking a pool’s pH let’s you quickly catch and correct a problem before it gets out of hand and similarly, tracking children’s behavior allows for the constant little adjustments that helps them grow into respectful and healthy adults. Good parents employ active scanning and supervision, and are rewarded with teachable moments on which they can capitalize. Noticing your child dive in to a restaurant buffet, fingering foods and elbowing others, provides an opportunity for teaching manners, hygiene and restraint. Monitoring a child’s increasingly tense mood offers a chance to distract

or engage and potentially avoid tantrums or meltdowns. Watching and listening to children as they talk to peers and adults opens the door to lessons on communication and politeness.

Ironically, if you don’t look carefully for the parents who supervise and help make adjustments with their children, you may not notice them, because they are well behaved and appropriate. Children with parents who left their pool test kit, and any other supervising or adjusting tools at home, are painfully obvious . . . and often highly disruptive. You can easily imagine how annoying and unproductive it would be if the pool crew kicked everyone out hourly to get accurate readings and make adjustments. Children can certainly be overprogrammed and overparented, taking all

the fun and freedom from childhood. Equally annoying, and potentially dangerous however, would be swimming in untested and un-supervised waters. To enjoy a great swim you need a pool where pH and other levels are evaluated and where adjustments to keep them balanced are

routine.

As I watched children this week, including my own mostly grown ones, I thought about how their unique personalities and experiences shape them. Watching parents, and reflecting on our own parenting style, it became as crystal clear as a newly tested pool. Children grow in part because of who they are. But regular evaluation and myriad little adjustments made over their growing years contributes to their going through life swimmingly.

Excuses, Excuses. Casey Anthony, The...

2011-07-08T08:41:12-04:00

“I went out of my way to help a friend”. “I want people to stop judging me and leave me alone”

Sharon Velazquesz, one of the Massachusetts teens accused in the bullying that resulted in Phoebe Prince’s suicide, says she wants all the picking on her to stop, she wants to just go to school and not be followed by the past. She says if she had known how terrible Phoebe Prince felt, she would have done something to help her. Her mother, participating in the interview on the Today show said it was very hard to sit in the back of the courtroom and hear things said about her daughter that she cannot believe are true since she knows “that isn’t the child I raised”.

In another courtroom recently, perhaps America’s most infamous mom was acquitted of all charges in the murder of her toddler daughter. I did not follow the Casey Anthony case closely enough to profess to understand or question the verdict. But a mother of a toddler missing for weeks who does not file a missing persons report and spends her nights partying seems to me the epitome of a neglectful parent.

These two moms, juxtaposed on today’s morning news are seemingly opposites, but share the same deadly handicap. Mothering is very difficult – but it is impossible to raise children safely if you do it with blinders on. Casey Anthony may or may not have killed her daughter, but she certainly turned a blind eye to her plight when she was missing. Sharon Velazquez’s mother’s blinders may not have harmed her daughter, but another Mom will be forever mourning the loss of a promising life.

I work with bullies, victims, special needs students, educators and administrators on a regular basis. I am no stranger to excuse making. Adolescents are amazing at it – “I didn’t mean to hurt her”, “He laughed, I thought he like when I called him that”. Just as Sharon Velazquez appears immune to the irony that her pleas to be left alone are identical to what Phoebe Prince must have thought and said, teens seem able to present, and actually believe their innocence even when common sense says different. Adolescents have a still developing brain and primitive moral compass. Moms and

parents, on the other hand, have no excuse for excuses.

A petition is circulating in Florida to create Kaylee’s law that will require parents of missing children to notify the authorities within a reasonable amount of time. If a parent needs this law to keep their eyes on their children’s whereabouts, they are a pretty poor parent to begin with.

Similarly, laws are on the books in several states that hold parents responsible for teen behavior – such as drinking and driving. Again, if a parent

does this because it’s the law, not realizing that on-going supervision, moral education and intense involvement in children’s lives at all ages is critical,

then the battle is lost.

It is hard to be an open-eyed parent. Who wants to believe their child is capable of bad or evil behavior. Who can stand to watch the suffering of their

own child? It is so much easier to believe everything is ok, my child is wonderful. It takes so much courage and strength to look at the good and bad, the positives and the dangers in our children and our lives. Only with that clear and honest vision can we be the grown-ups our children need to become healthy grown-ups themselves.

Tire Pressure Gauge - Tools for Stress Relief

2011-07-03T10:41:31-04:00

If you want your car to get good mileage and handle well, you probably check the tire pressure regularly with an inexpensive and handy tool, a tire pressure gauge. We keep ours in the glove compartment, where I routinely mistake it for a ball point pen. In these hectic days, I find myself wishing I had a way to track and release any built up pressure in the children and adults in my work and my life.

A tire pressure gauge is a hollow tube with a small piston inside it. A spring runs between the piston and a stop at the other end, pressing the piston toward the left side of the tube. When pressurized air from the tire rushes into the ball shaped end of the tube, it pushes the piston towards the

right. Since a ruler of sorts is attached to the piston, you can “read” how much pressure the air in the tire exerted.

We have much less accurate indicators of pressure available when assessing people. For very young children, often basic biology can tell us whether stress or pressure has been experienced. Infants and toddlers under stress, have eating and sleeping difficulties. While we never really outgrow the physical impact stress has on us, older children and adults can have more complex responses. Stressed children can be as cranky as babies, but they can also become more silent and withdrawn, aggressive, stubborn, or worried.

For tires, too little air pressure is as problematic as too much. Thankfully, tires come with manufacturers’ guidelines clarifying how much pressure is ideal. Children also benefit from some level of stress and pressure – the pressure of wanting to hit the home run, do a great presentation for the class, approach a new friend and ask to play. Pressure can motivate and push us to try new things and do our best. Unfortunately for parents and educators, no manual specifies just how much pressure is ideal for optimum performance for any child. Without such a guide, or handy pressure gauge, adults can only help children operate in ideal “pressure” ranges if they take the time to know the children well, so they can learn and read their subtle stress signs.

Our newer car has a built in indicator of tire pressure problems – we still have to fix any problems, but the tires measure themselves regularly. An amazing tool adults can give to children is the ability to regulate their own stress levels. The first step, however, is developing their personal pressure gauge. For some children, this will involve becoming aware of their mood, for others, tracking their sleep and eating. Maybe noticing which music they are listening to on their I-Pod will clue them to their high stress levels. Children’s stress monitors will never be as simple or elegant a tool as the tire pressure gauge I keep in my glove compartment, and they will not be as wonderfully accurate. Children are infinitely more complex and amazing than cars. But every time we help them understand their inner workings, and move them on the path to learning to manage their emotions and needs, we give them the most valuable tool for life’s toolbox.

Fathers - Life's Best Bungee Cords

2011-06-19T11:09:36-04:00

For a recent family trip, with keen awareness that our children are no longer small enough to drive nine hours with suitcases at their feet, we needed to strap some bags to the roof of the van. We managed it with the help of an assortment of bungee cords, those elasticized ropes of varying sizes and colors with hooks on either end. Winding them around the roof rack and our luggage, stretching them well beyond what seemed possible, and marveling at their elegant simplicity would have been enough to inspire me for a father’s day reflection. What clinched it, however, was how easily and naturally the bungee cords relaxed back to their shorter length when we were done with them.

Fathers are a unique and special breed. They come in so many different sizes and types, but like bungee cords, they have remarkable strength when you need them. With their power to pull or tie things together, fathers give us the great gift of security and comfort, just in knowing they are there. And, just as bungee cords can wind and snake through small and large spaces, fathers wind themselves around and through so many areas of our lives – making their mark on all our experiences. Recent research on father’s rough-housing with their children underscored the importance of what men bring to play in children’s lives. Years ago, I heard the prominent pediatrician and author T. Berry Brazelton explain that mothers, tired of having the baby rough-house in their internal playground for 9 months, were more delicate with children; whereas fathers were happy to be human

slides, swings and trampolines!

On the outside, a bungee cord doesn’t seem like much. No moving parts, no fancy motors. Dads too, can be deceptively simple. They don’t always wear their emotions on the outside, like Moms tend to do. Their language may be free of flowery sentiment. Like the bungee cord, they may seem tightly wrapped and compact. Test a dad’s love for his children, however, and you will see him stretch and grow in miraculous ways, and display a strength that rivals any mother lioness defending her cubs.

We arrived at our destination safe and sound, and removed the bags from the roof rack. Despite a myriad of moths, bugs and other road dirt caked into their fabric, they, and we, were no worse for the wear. And those bungee cords, that stretched strong and firm for hundreds of miles, immediately shrunk and were squirreled away in their pack for the next time. Dads are so good at being there when we need them, and too often, they and we are too good at letting them blend into the background of our daily lives.

In the father department, I’ve been blessed with some amazing bungee cords. My dad, the inspiration for this blog who taught me that everything in life in easier when you have the right tool, is himself, the best tool any child could ask for. His strength, wisdom, and flexibility means so much to our family. If he were a bungee cord, he would be a brightly colored one, to match his outward snappy style, and to hint at the fun and funny man inside, who knows the value of a good laugh. I worry that, as the years challenge him, and some strengths wane, that he will feel de-valued. I hope he knows that having him woven through our lives is a gift beyond gifts, and that we see in him always, the strength and love that holds us firm.

We lost my father-in-law several years ago, but not a day goes by without my appreciating the gift he gave our family, through the father my husband is. If my father in law was a bungee cord, he would be a sophisticated one, one that would deny bungee cord physical laws and stand proud and straight, just as the lawyer he was- forthright and beyond ethical. But like all bungees, he would be flexible. He could surprise you with his twinkling grin, or his fierce warmth.

The father most present in my life now is my husband, the man with whom I share my life and my parenting. If he were a bungee cord he would be a chameleon, changing into whatever color our family needed him to be. He is at once cheer-leader, critic, teacher, banker, strategic planner, spiritual advisor, and comedian. He keeps us on the straight and narrow, and helps us to meander in all the right and meaningful ways. He inserts love and laughter in our days, happily making jokes, and a bit less happily being joked about, as all fathers are. Nothing defines him more or better than being the father to our sons, his “boys” turned men, growing in ways that do him honor and bring him joy.

I hope everyone is as lucky to have had the wonderful examples of bungee cord fathers as I am and have been. On this father’s day, while we let the dads of the world relax, let’s not let them shrink away after we make them breakfast in bed, or take them to dinner. Like the ends of the bungee cords, fitted with curved hooks that keep them firmly attached, lets connect and reconnect to dads. For all the times they keep us safe, facilitate our travels, and weave themselves in and out of our days, let’s hook our fathers into our lives, and hold on to them with strength and determination equal to theirs.

Dipsticks and Finding the Love

2011-06-07T15:39:03-04:00

My husband returned from what has become an expensive trip . . . filling the car up at the gas station, excited to tell me that he had thought of a great tool for this blog. There was a fuel delivery at the station, and the truck driver used a supersized dipstick to test the fullness of the underground gasoline tanks. Most of us are familiar with more compact dipsticks, that we use regularly, to see if our cars need more oil. Dipsticks reach down into dark recesses to find the gooey good stuff that keeps our motors running. Sometimes, parents and educators need to mine the depths of their history and relationship with children, to find the good stuff that keeps our emotional connections healthy and strong.

Feeling warm and gooshy around adorable infants and toddlers is easy. Even when they do terrible things, such as paint the sofa in pudding, or yell at parents or teachers in the midst of a temper tantrum, we don’t usually assume evil, premeditated cruelty. We excuse their misdeeds and are often rewarded, within moments, with some piece of adorability and pinchable cuteness. It is more challenging to remain in love with our students and children as they grow. They lose their babyish can-do-no-wrong attractiveness, and we expect them to follow rules, listen to us, respect and understand us as human beings, and so on. At the same time, our parenting and teaching moves as children grow from clap hands or say “mama” to reading, writing, arithmetic, and life’s harder lessons like fighting peer pressure, being truthful, and making safe, healthy choices.

Raising and teaching school aged children, teens, and even adult children can be frustrating and conflict-ridden. Adults are more likely to be successful when they use their emotional dipstick to find the love they have for the children in their lives. A dipstick is useless, however, if it only documents low levels of essential elements. When you discover your car is down 2 quarts of oil, you hustle to the gas station. When the dipstick measuring love and connection to the children important to us comes up dry, we need to find ways to refuel.

Father’s Day is a week away, so this is a natural time to reflect on the fathers in my life. My Dad is the man who introduced me to dipsticks, from my the hand-me-down 65 Buick LeSabre I took to college, to my first new car, a 5 speed manual transmission Toyota Tercel, he knew the way to make things work. Together with my mom, Dad taught me what it feels like to love and to be loved. No matter what happens in his life, his children are central and his love for them, and his grandchildren, unending. My husband, the inspiration for this dipstick post, has uncanny admiration and love for his sons. His eyes twinkle at their antics and tear at their important moments. He is at once consummate protector and teacher and quintessential play mate. He has always loved them both for who they are, and for what they have the potential to become.

Uri Bronfenbrenner, a child psychologist who pioneered the ecological approach, a way of understanding children in the context of their complex environment, is quoted as saying that every child deserves at least one adult in their life who is madly in love with them. Most children are not equally easy to love every day of their lives. It is only natural that we will, at times, fall a bit out of love with them. When that happens, we need to roll up our sleeves, use whatever dipstick or measure we have at our disposal to assess where we are. More importantly we need to dredge up the love we have for our children that, while it may, at times, seem beyond our reach, is always there just waiting to be discovered and refreshed.

Dangerous Tools and Safety Goggles

2011-06-02T13:51:21-04:00

It happens to me fairly frequently. As both a child psychologist, an educator, and a bully prevention practitioner and researcher, I am asked about the terrors of texting, the intrusion of the internet and the dangers of all things electronic. Parents and educators struggling to create safe environments for children and teens worry and wonder about what technology to allow and what to ban from their homes and schools. From a young age, I remember watching my Dad work in his shop filled with extremely dangerous tools – saws bigger than me with spinning blades, sharp and powerful drills, a heavy vise that would smash a foot if dropped. Dad never banned me from the garage – but he did make sure we had all the safety equipment we needed, not least of which were pairs of safety goggles.

Safety goggles are a great metaphor for how parents and educators can confront the dangers of the cyber world. Just as it is potentially deadly to look away from a circular saw, closing our eyes to the electronic media in the lives of children is a mistake with potentially tragic consequences. Parents and educators, I’m afraid, have become too focused on banning and not on the best way to attenuate the danger . . . careful and consistent supervision.

Every home has danger lurking within. My gas stove has an open flame and operates using deadly gas. It also, however, cooks the chicken soup that cures my family’s colds and warms their hearts. I would no sooner ban the stove from my home than I would eliminate all the electrical outlets (for fear of electrocution) or throw out the bathtubs (to prevent accidental drowning). Parents of infants and toddlers know well that baby proofing, while critical, is no substitute for constant and careful supervision. Yes, use outlet covers, but don’t assume your crawling child won’t figure out how to remove them if left unattended.

Children grow, and over time, need less supervision to remain safe. Parents and educators want to promote independence. So we go from saying a loud “NO” to a toddler who reaches for the stove top, to allowing a child to stand on a chair and watch Mom or Dad cook, to having a pre-teen help stir the sauce, to inviting teens to make their own dinner. Through the developmental process, we teach, over and over, the safety parameters, and wean our supervision only when we see the task has been safely mastered. We don’t make decisions based on chronological age, since some 8 year olds are more careful and competent than some 16 year olds.

Technology is a bit more complicated than our kitchen appliances. As dangerous as a stove can be, parents can rest assured that it is not maliciously targeting a child’s weaknesses. What happens at the kitchen stove is private and short-lived, possibly forgotten by the next day. The internet is public and forever. Yet with all these important differences, the need for careful, ongoing teaching, and developmentally appropriate supervision is exactly the same whether we want children to learn to safely cook a meal, or live in the digital world. Parents and educators would not allow most children to set up a private bunsen burner in their bedroom, yet they feel they are invading children’s privacy when they are the “parent over shoulder” reviewing a teen’s on-line use.

Safety goggles are bulky, and make a loud statement that the goggle wearer is present and watching. In the same way, parents and educators should not attempt to hide their supervision of children’s electronic use. Let children and teens know that your access to their facebook, email, and text messages, is a requirement for their continued use of such technology. Employers routinely tell staff that all computers will be spot-checked to guarantee that they are used appropriately, so this is not infantilizing – it’s preparation for life. Parents who feel their children’s private lives should be allowed to remain private, and don’t want to “snoop” should buy their children an old-fashioned diary, the kind with the tiny gold key. NOTHING your child does in the cyber-world is private. If it is being shared on the world wide web, if it is travelling in the ether, parents and educators have not just a right, but a clear responsibility to be sure it is appropriate and safe.

I would have been devastated if my Dad’s shop was off limits to me. I learned so much watching him work, and the smell of sawdust still brings back great memories. I’m glad he always had the safety goggles ready for me, to allow me access and participation in a world filled with dangers. Despite all its potential dangers, I want my children to benefit from skype-ing distant relatives, having decades of literature and research at their fingertips, and accessing information with simple keystrokes. But I’ll be, always, the parent over shoulder, my safety goggles strapped on, supervising and watching, to keep them safe.

One Last Mother's Month Story

2011-05-25T22:19:16-04:00

I promise, this is the last one! I just couldn't resist closing out Mother's month on Storybird.com with one final story - dedicated to my mother in honor of her May birthday, and all the times we gently teased her about her sayings and her folk wisdom. I am still learning just how wise she was. I hope you will enjoy my latest story on www.storybird.com entitled Your Mother's Cold - Put on a Hat.

Shop-vacs and Family Celebrations

2011-05-22T12:01:17-04:00

In my father’s shop, there was a well-used tool that was never helped build or shape anything, but still held great importance. The shop-vac, a big canister with its large winding hose was useful to clean up whatever sawdust Dad’s building caused, as well as floods, large household messes and spills in the car. As our family prepares to celebrate two monumental events, the weddings of two of our sons, oddly enough, this was the tool that came to mind. You might think I focused on a shop-vac to clean up the rivers of tears my husband and I, both emotional types, are likely to shed as we walk our sons down the aisle to their respective beloved brides. Or to clean the house after the seemingly continuous cycle of guests and pre- and post- wedding parties. But as we approach these celebrations, it is the ability of the shop-vac to draw everything in that is reminding me what is really important in celebrations.

In a week’s time, we will, with G-d’s help, be surrounded by our families, dancing circles around us, our sons and their brides. Coming from near and far, on trains, planes, buses and in cars, they have been drawn close for this wondrous event. All our siblings, three of four grandparents, whichever nieces and nephews are not travelling the globe will not only share the celebration, they will be, in part, the celebration. Of course, we will dance through the night in honor of the new couple, but what we’ll really be honoring is family, its value and its power to draw and hold us together.

Cell phones, facebook, emails and Skype keep us in touch and in virtual view of the family on a regular basis. Nothing replaces being in the

same room, dancing in a circle, arm in arm. Many mothers of grooms and brides to be have shared their sense of loss, feeling as if they say goodbye to the child they raised as they walk them down the aisle. I won’t know if I will feel any of that sadness or loss until my time comes, twice in the next few months. As I write this, we received the sad news of a true loss in the family, a wonderful woman who succumbed to illness, and that puts so much in perspective. Thinking forward to wedding moments, I feel not loss, but a sense of awe and impending joy.

When my husband and I walk our sons towards their adult lives and the start of their own families, we connect them in new and wondrous ways to an extended family poised ready to welcome them. When I think of it, the walk down the aisle feels like the link in a chain, a step forward rather than a

loss. Our family, together for this magical moment is not G-d forbid, getting smaller or losing anything. We are adding, expanding, growing, and doing it together. My heart wells with gratitude and joy – to our sons for drawing everyone together – and to our families, for confirming what I have always known. The pull of family draws and holds us, and our family being together and adding another link, is a spectacular cause for celebration.

Mother's Month

2011-05-20T08:04:38-04:00

I've shared the amazing resource of www.storybird.com before . . . schools have begun using it to write classwide stories on respect, therapists are writing stories of resilience with clients, and I've written several "books" for specific programs. This month, the storybird website highlighted Mothers in their monthly contest. I have two books there about mothers - this week's book is entitled "I want you to know - A Mother's Wish". Last week, I authored one called "My Mother Taught Me". I have a story about a differentiated classroom "The Stars of 4B" and "Making the Difference" about bullying and "Old Love" a finalist in a prior contest. All my published stories on storybird are under the author name drronovick. I hope you enjoy this month's tribute to mothers, and the opportunity to read and inspire creative writers young and old.

Compressed Air and Overlearning

2011-05-14T22:27:35-04:00

There is a crumb stubbornly stuck in your computer keyboard. You’ve tried every thin implement you have to wrangle it loose, to no avail. What you really need is right under your nose. Actually, it is flowing in and out of your nose, Air. Simple, straight forward air, But even the strongest blow out your nose or mouth won’t dislodge the stubborn crumb. You need air with power, highly compressed air that comes in cans. Nothing has been added, no magical ingredients, just air, held tight in the can until you are ready to release it.

As parents and educators, we often want children to be able to demonstrate a behavior or skill that we think, thanks to our teaching, is “in the can”. We’ve explained multiplication tables, or the need to brush your teeth, or the negative consequences of fighting with younger children, carefully and thoroughly, we believe. We may even have witnessed the child demonstrate mastery of the skill, in quiet moments and under certain circumstances. We are puzzled and perhaps a bit annoyed when, at other times, the exact same behavior seems to have gone into hiding. How can we ingrain skills and knowledge into our children’s and student’s repertoires so they will be there always, even in times of stress and challenge?

The compressed air can, with its amplification of the power of air by simply crowding it all together, reminds me of the paradigm of overlearning and automaticity. Adults are able to drive cars and children able to ride bikes because they have so completely mastered the complex skills necessary that they have become largely automatic. This can only occur when hours, days and months of practice have compressed into a solid sum of experience. There are no short-cuts, no simple tricks. Just hours logged.

In today’s culture of quick answers and videogame entertainments it is no easy sell to convince children of the value of compressed and intense practice. Using the age old Premack principle, also known in less scientific circles as Grandma’s Rule, that is you can have a cookie after you eat your broccoli, may be helpful. Beyond environmental and motivational techniques to encourage practice that builds to overlearning, adults must help children recognize the value of repetition in strengthening skills. Sharing our own experience may be less powerful than helping children remember how helpful overlearning has been for them. Perhaps a reminder of how all that soccer practice helped them know what to do in the critical last minute of the game, or that reviewing their lines play over and over helped make them the star of the play.

Many cans of compressed air come with an extension tube that attaches to the nozzle and allows you to direct the powerful air just where you want it. That’s the real powerful overlearning adults would like for children. We want the learning focused at the moments they are asked to ride in the car of a drinking driver, or when they are tempted to join peers who are bullying a classmate, when they need to make quick and morally right decisions. So we talk and teach, and re-teach, and teach again, about staying safe and making good decisions, and hope our children overlearn each critical word. Mostly, we hope and pray that our words have the impact of the compressed air can, and are not just hot air.

Visit Storybird.com for a Mother's Day Story

2011-05-09T08:56:03-04:00

Sorry for the delay . . . the story did not go up on the storybird website because of a glitch. It is there now.

I just "published" a story on www.storybird.com, a wonderful medium for parents and teachers. It is entered in the May challenge with the theme of Mothers, and is dedicated to Moms everywhere. It is called My Mother Taught Me. I hope you enjoy it and will consider voting for it in the upcoming vote this weekend!

Flying High – For My Mom and All Mothers on...

2011-05-06T15:26:04-04:00

Imagine this scene. My husband and I board the airplane for a vacation the same week that most schools are closed for the Spring holidays. As we find our seats across the aisle from each other, a father with two small children arrives at my row. He installs the 5 and 6 year old in the window and middle seat next to me, says “they’ll be fine” and takes a seat in the row in front. I assumed he was travelling alone, but his wife arrived a few minutes later, scolded him for the foolish idea that two youngsters could sit unattended, and rearranged the children so that each sat with one parent. When the seating was completed, I was fortunate to have this smart Mom and her adorable 5 year old sharing my row.

I don’t always count myself fortunate to have a young child nearby on an airplane. The flight was at 6 am, and we had been up since 3:30, so I was hoping for a quiet, sleep filled flight. This charming young man engaged his sister in the row in front of him in fairly constant chatter while the plane taxied. When the plane picked up speed down the runway, so did his talking, and almost breathless he said, “we’re going faster and faster, wow, we’re really speeding”. And at the moment when the wheels lifted from the ground he stated the obvious, with the most remarkable glee . . . “we’re flying!” he screamed, his unbridled joy was contagious. I couldn’t stop smiling. He narrated, with equal enthusiasm and awestruck amazement, the cars on the ground getting smaller, the ride through blue skies and white clouds. I looked over at his Mom, who beamed at his exuberance, which she said was not atypical for him.

The plane leveled off, the chatter slowed, and eventually Mom, son, and I all slept. My husband and I changed planes, and flew on, with less exciting seat partners. But as that second plane took off, I could hear in my head, in that moment of wheels up, a five year old’s voice triumphantly exclaim . . . we’re flying!

Being a mother takes all kinds of moments. There are times of sadness and worry, days, months, and years of hard work and long hours. And there are moments, miraculous moments where we feel we’re flying, we’re soaring, we are above and beyond anything we ever thought life could offer. These moments of transcendence can come with the grandeur of a child’s first steps, or on a seemingly insignificant routine plane trip. They are there, amidst the laundry, homework, and skinned knees. They are there, among the painful break-ups, ER visits, and college rejections. The small hassles and major traumas of child rearing are inescapable, but juxtaposed with them are small and large delights, some obvious, others that we need to be open to notice and enjoy.

I have no doubt that I am the mother I am in large part because of the mother I have and the children I have been gifted with. I have been blessed with children who often make me feel, with great joy, gratitude and amazement, that I’m flying. And I am blessed with a mother who helped me grow a heart that knows how to take flight and soar.

Happy Mother’s Day and Happy Flying To All!

Chainsaws, Osama Bin Laden, Bullies,...

2011-05-02T20:46:47-04:00

That unique sound that announces a breaking news bulletin came over the TV just as we were turning in last night. At first, my blood pressure and anxiety rose. Was it more deadly weather? Some horrific violence? With the commentators explaining that the President was about to issue a special address to the nation, and the news that Osama Bin Laden had been killed in a raid, I relaxed. Hearing of the spontaneous celebrations at Ground Zero, in front of the White House, at a baseball game, I dozed off before hearing the president’s speech. The prior Friday, on a panel with Dr. Dorothy Espelage and Dr. Ray DiGussepe, at St. John’s University’s conference on bullying, the topic of anger, revenge and retribution was discussed. As the commentators shifted this morning from pure elation to concerns about possible acts of terrorism in retribution for the Bin Laden killing, my thoughts turned to chainsaws and cycles of violence.

A chainsaw has a motor that causes a chain that includes small sharp blades called teeth to rotate. These teeth have multiple cutting edges and are placed all along the never ending chain. Chainsaws can do a lot of damage.

I understand the sense of justice served and the relief that comes with Bin Laden’s elimination. I, like so many others, was distressed that he was still at large, wielding influence and spreading terror. I know it is very different, but I can’t help that it reminds me of how often victims of bullying, and especially parents of victims, voice their desire for justice, and revenge. They want to give the bully a taste of their own medicine, usually in the form of physical aggression. I was asked, at the conference mentioned above, what advice I give to parents of victims who want to encourage their children to violently respond to aggression.

I am either a pragmatic pacifist, a cynical pessimist, or both. I don’t believe the myth that a good solid punch to a schoolyard bully will put an end to aggression (there is no data to support the claim) any more than I believe we have turned the page on terror with the elimination of Bin Laden. Like the chain saw that has teeth all along the chain and can keep cutting, I am afraid that there is way too ample a supply of violence and aggression in the world. I know Bin Laden needed to be addressed, and I am relieved he is gone. It is, I worry, too simplistic to think that is all that was necessary to change the world. Heightened alert states and warnings to prepare for retribution make it hard to feel that the violence is over.

Built into each cutting tooth of a chainsaw is a depth gauge which rides ahead of the tooth and limits how deep it will cut. Depth gauges are critical to safe chain operation, and if filed too low they will make the saw dangerous and hard to control. We may, as individuals and countries, need to use cutting aggression at times. But we may also need gauges monitoring how far we go, so the lines between bully and victim, terrorist and terrorized never get blurred. I have no question that the search for and elimination of Bin Laden was fully warranted, and the courageous Navy Seals, and all our armed forces who worked for years to accomplish it are to be celebrated. The work of eliminating aggressors and terrorists, unfortunately, is, I suspect, as unending as the revolving chain that gives the saw its bite.

A New Way to Cyberbully

2011-04-13T22:47:35-04:00

I recently posted the following comment on the Community of Practice website for student support professionals in Jewish Day Schools:

In the latest edition of the Marshall Memo, an Education Week article about using Formspring to bully classmates was cited. Formspring allows participants to survey each other, asking questions, ostensibly to get to know more about them. Unfortunately, students have been using it to post false information, by creating alternate identities, or through anonymous posts.

I address the issue of cyberbullying frequently, in the context of the bully prevention I am doing in Middle schools. Yesterday I was again shocked and dismayed that a group of seventh graders denied the "permanence" of their internet and computer actions. They argued that as long as you emptied your "trash bin" there could be no trace of your computer content or behavior. These intelligent, honor students doubted that programs existed to recreate files, or that internet materials could be tracked and found even after being removed from a site. It is so critical for educators and counselors to help students get past their adolescent invulnerabilty and accept the power, danger and permanence of their electronic presence.

Students, Teachers and Learning - A...

2011-04-13T22:34:57-04:00

This past weekend we had the pleasure of having two of our sons with us – one is abroad. And we will have none of them with us at the Passover Seder this year. They will all be doing what they’re supposed to be doing, just not with us. This empty table phenomenon, along with a recent request to speak about the role of children in the Passover seder prompted me to reflect.

It is commonly understood that the essential task of the Pesach seder is education. We fill the evening with mysterious symbols and practices to engage the children and actually provoke them to question us. So is the role of children to be the focus of and recipients of our education about the events of Passover and our shared ancestral history? Is our job on Pesach to educate and transform our children? Or is it possible that the focus of the education of Passover is not our children, but ourselves.

Rabbi Shlomo Wolbe, in his wonderful book on parenting, Planting and Building , writes about parents’ responsibility to say prayers, particularly the grace after meals, out loud. His comments make it clear that this practice is NOT JUST for the child.

“We must say Birkas HaMazon (Grace after meals) out loud, deliberately and thoughtfully. We must do this for ourselves and we must do this for our children. Such behavior plants emunah (faith) in the child long before the child can comprehend sophisticated discourses on issues of faith . . . A child is a constant reminder to parents that they must behave properly, as agents who have been entrusted with a valuable deposit that must be protected.” page 52

Making a similar point, commenting on the writing in the Sayings of the Fathers (Pirkei Avot):

“ Rabbi Elazar Ben Shammua said, let the honor of your student be as dear to you as your own, and the honor of your student as dear as the honor of your teacher, and the honor of your teacher as dear to you as the honor of the teacher of the Heaven."

Bunim writes “for the alert educator, teaching is never one-sided. In preparing his lectures, articulating his thoughts . . . he invariably broadens his understanding and stretches his mental horizons.” Bunim further considers a commentary on the Oral Law – that just as the Torah is a tree of life and a smaller piece of wood can set fire to a piece of wood as large as a tree, so too a young learner can spark and stimulate an elder’s mind.

It seems clear that the act of teaching influences teacher as well as student. But is there anything unique about our teaching on Passover night?

In the Talei Oros Haggadah, Rav Meir, the son of Rabbi Levi Yitchak of Berditchev refers to the comment of The Ohr HaChaim, on the passage in Exodus: “And it shall be when your son will ask you at some future time, what is this” (Exodus 13:14). This is read as saying that there is a commandment or mitzvah to tell our children about the miraculous exodus from Egypt at any time of year, whenever they ask. But on Passover night, the mitzvah is to tell them even if they do not ask.

Sometimes we teach because we are asked to, and in those cases we are focused on the needs of our students. On Passover night, when Jews are required to experience the exodus from Egypt as if we, ourselves were there, we do not wait for questions. We do not depend on learners. We teach – for our own sake.

So although I will be at this year’s Passover table without my children physically present, I will, be thinking them, and about how much I have learned, and hope to continue learning, from teaching my children and students.

Whatever holiday you are celebrating this season, may you be blessed with opportunities to learn from the children and students in your life.

Aerating Lawns, Blossoming Children

2011-04-07T09:17:57-04:00

It’s almost here . . . there are hints of buds on the trees and shoots of green in my flower beds. The garden stores are open, and my neighbors are puttering in the garden. Everyone seems to have an impressive array of tools and products. But anyone who knows lawns is starting the process with a soil aerator. An aerator loosens up the soil, because seeds are unlikely to flourish if placed on tightly packed dirt. Aerators usually work by removing small plugs of soil from the lawn, decreasing the compaction of the soil. Compacted soil is problematic because it has inadequate room for the oxygen that roots need to grow.

As parents and educators, we are always planting seeds, hoping for growth. We may be laying in a crop of skills; multiplication, writing a paragraph, riding a bicycle. Or we may hope to cultivate attitudes and values; hopefulness, honesty, perseverance. Like all gardeners, we need to create fertile ground if we have any hope that our plantings will take root. Luckily, we have a powerful aerator readily available to us – our relationship with the children we care about. It is the positive and powerful relationship we create with our children that gives us the “room” to support all kinds of growth.

You can aerate a lawn by hand, or in a matter of minutes with the help of a relatively inexpensive or rented machine. There are no short cuts and no machines to achieve a relationship. It is built through days on the floor playing games, nights of bedtime stories, listening to seemingly endless tales, and talks and more talks. It is built when we turn off the blackberry, turn down the tv volume, turn around from washing the dishes or writing on the blackboard, and be with our children. Time spent, however, will be of no use, if it is given begrudgingly, or if it offers children a negative sense of who they are or how parents and teachers feel about them.

To build relationships, parents and educators may need to aerate their hearts. Like a soil aerator pulls out plugs of hardened soil, we need to unplug the critical, angry, disappointed view we sometimes harbor about our children and students. We need to recapture our wonder at their uniqueness and potential. In short, we need to repeatedly fall in love with the children in our lives. When we invest our time with our children with these feelings of love, admiration, and hope we provide the nutrients our relationships need. Having prepared fertile soil, we can then plant the seeds of growth, and look forward to the blossoming of our children and students.

Time Out – The Lock Box of Parenting

2011-03-24T22:08:03-04:00

Your toddler grabbed something from a sibling, your adolescent cursed at the dinner table, the student in the third row threw paper at a classmate, what do you do? If you are like many parents and educators you send the offender to “time out”, locking him or her away from the rest of the family or class. Sending a child to the corner, to a room, into the hallway is an attempt to punish negative behavior and isolate the trouble maker from the rest of the family or class. This punitive “lock box” technique is poorly understood, and often overused resulting in limited effectiveness.

Time-out was developed by behavior specialists and is properly called “time out from reinforcement”. It refers to a strategy used following a child engages in negative or inappropriate behavior by removing the possibility of reinforcement from the child for a brief period of time. There are several components to true time out that are rarely satisfied in home and school situations. First, the removal of reinforcement cannot be accomplished if the child does their time out in a bedroom filled with toys, or in the corner of the classroom where peers are providing attention and encouragement. Time-out will have little or no impact if the intended isolation (i.e. sending a child to the office, or to another room) actually results in opportunity for socialization or engaging in cool, fun, alternatives. Mostly, time-out, which is usually time-away, can only have an impact, if time-in is valuable, enjoyed, and sought after.

Time-out can be a highly effective strategy for decreasing negative behaviors. Volumes have been written about all the specific parameters that can make it work best. But none of this information trumps the most important factor in time out success. Time out only works in the context of a highly positive relationship or highly rewarding environment. Children won’t mind being placed in a isolated “lock-box” if it means being separated from boring activities or people they don’t feel that connected to in the first place. Like so much of parenting and teaching, what we do, and how we build relationships matters.

Upgrading your lock-box is one way to go. Some schools invest in time out rooms, where disruptive students can safely do their time. Some parents choose to set up spots at home where time-out can be served. The real pay-off of time-out will only come from putting at least as much energy into what time-in is like – creating the bonds and the environments that keep children wanting to engage with us. As a wonderful bonus, in building relationships and making our time together rewarding, we may be able to largely lock time-out away in our parenting tool box.

Caught in the Headlights

2011-03-20T20:23:51-04:00

This has been a difficult week. The news from Japan, earthquake, tsunami, nuclear fallout, is devastating. So many are lost, and so many are suffering. The news from Israel, a family brutally murdered, is so painful. I see people glued to the news and super-focused on every bulletin. At the same time the world seemed so dangerous and unpredictable, our family was blessed with a wonderful opportunity to celebrate, the engagement of our second son. Last night, driving home in the dark and noticing how my headlights lit up various sections of road, I thought about how, in the past few days I’ve shifted my focus between the pain of the larger world, and our personal joy.

There are actually specific ratchet wrenches and other tools to adjust car headlights. If headlights focus in different directions, or at uneven levels, your ability to drive safely is impacted. But to reach the place under the hood that allows you to adjust the focus of the lights often requires a bit of contortions and a ratchet wrench with an elongated handle. Many car owner manuals urge drivers to check their headlight adjustment, which can get out of whack after a traumatic event, or even just from driving over life’s typical, daily bumps.

I noticed myself avoiding newspapers and newscasts this week. My car radio, usually on all news, has remained on the classical music station. It took a few days to recognize the pattern. It’s like after 9/11 when I had to turn off the news, and avoid the reminders. There were moments this week, when the same numbness returned, along with the wish that it was all a bad dream.

But because of the amazing personal event of a young couple so in love, and so committed to each other, I was able to shift my focus this week. I could think about their smiles and excitement, and occupy my mind with plans for celebrations. I experienced some guilty moments . . . how could I focus on my family’s blessings, when so many are in mourning? But I also felt, most days, how could I not? Those of us looking on, when terror or tragedy strikes, are responsible to unselfishly do all we can to lessen others’ suffering. Experiencing it from the sidelines, we also have to find a balance between our sadness and empathic concern, and the optimism or joy in our own lives that will help us move forward

Much of the work on resilience and recovery after trauma emphasizes the role that thinking ahead, and focusing on what you can control and do plays in our healthy adjustment. Of course, it is not healthy to deny or ignore life’s tragedies. It’s a bit like driving on darkened roads in deer country. You have to look at the road illuminated by your headlights, but also beware of what might dart out from the shadows. If our eyes get too drawn to the darkness on the side of the road, we can lose our way.

So, even as the pictures and worries continue to fill the air waves, I am using my tools to adjust my focus. I feel blessed to have an opportunity to celebrate, and a family with which to share such wondrous times, keeping my attention on hopeful futures and happy endings. With full knowlege that terrorism, natural disasters, and all types of darkness may always wait in the shadows, I choose to shine my light forward.

Tiger Moms and the Jaws of Life

2011-03-10T17:26:11-05:00

Ask my children. I’m a pretty hands on, strict, parent. But watching an interview with the “Tiger Mom” gave me pause. This intense, seemingly cutting style of parenting brought to mind the jaws of life tool used in dramatic rescues after car crashes.

The jaws of life is a combination spreader and cutter. When its jaws are closed it can be inserted into a small area and using hydraulics, spread open the mouth of the “jaws”, creating enough space to release the trapped victim. In the middle of these open jaws is also a cutter strong enough to slice through any impediment to freedom. All parents want to save their children from harm, and may wish for their personal jaw of life to release them from any harm, limit, or difficulty that holds them back.

I must confess, I have not read the Tiger Mom’s book on parenting. The few interviews I’ve seen and the buzz it is generating, around the water cooler and on the park bench, as well as numerous friends, colleagues and parents at workshops asking my opinion prompted this brief, and perhaps less than fully informed reflection. The small snip of interview I witnessed discussed a child being sent to redo the birthday card made for her mom because it was sloppy. The mom told the child she expected more. The interview continued to present the notion that children must be held to high standards, arguing that too much coddling and pussy cat parenting leaves children without the skills they need to be successful.

I have two difficulties with my initial take on Tiger parenting. First, I am concerned that it is, in itself a tough love type of coddling. By providing strict guidelines and monitoring all aspects of children’s behavior, it may cut through and cut out the child’s opportunities to get trapped, to struggle, and to find the way out. If I know Mom will critique my work and make me do it again, why do I need to learn self-regulation, and self-evaluation? If someone else is so “in charge” – I can just follow the rules.

Everything I know about parenting, and I believe it is true for emergency rescue as well, tells me that humanity, relationship, warmth and caring, are as essential as standards. The rescue worker who wields the jaws of life expertly, but who doesn’t calm the panicked victim, may have a shocky, uncooperative patient on his hands. The parent who has not invested in building a strong, powerful and loving connection with their child has much less leeway when strict or critical, before risking serious damage to a child’s self-esteem and well being.

I understand and appreciate setting high goals for children – but I think if we are clear about what our most basic and crucial goals are for our children we will recognize that we cannot dole out love and criticism in equal measure. When we set standards and are critical, then, especially we must do it with love and gentleness, and in the right time and place. I have sent many a homework assignment back to be redone for sloppiness – because a child’s respect for teachers and mastery of the content was primary. When I have been blessed to receive a homemade card or gift, the lesson I most wanted to teach was gratitude and the message I most wanted to send was my appreciation for the emotional bond I share with my sons that prompted the gift and thought behind it. My foremost standard, my ultimate goal for my children, is not cutting edge, jaws of life strength or skill – although I’m no slouch about academic or other accomplishments. More than anything, I hope my children know that this lioness judges her children as most successful when they are decent, caring, responsible and engaging human beings.

Chasing the Elusive Bluebird of Happiness -...

2011-03-08T19:51:55-05:00

I was recently invited, as part of a Yeshiva University community wide Shabbat program in Los Angeles, to speak to the congregation of Bnai David-Judea. The topic, which was jointly agreed upon by Rabbi Kanevsky, the Rabbi of the shul, and myself, was Chasing the Elusive Bluebird of Happiness. Here is a summary of the address I gave.

How do we typically chase happiness? Perhaps you’ve had the experience of eyeing a bauble, shirt, new electronic device, or snazzy car, and saying, if I buy that it will make me happy. Or maybe you have been seduced by a yummy looking dessert, or a frothy drink, and you’ve indulged, reasoning – this will make me happy. Or perhaps you’ve looked around your house and decided that a new kitchen, a bit more closet space, a redecorated den, that will make you happy. But anyone who has done any of these things has probably discovered that any happiness you felt was fleeting.

Happiness – by its nature is elusive and fleeting– because it is random. The word happiness – from the Latin root hap – like haphazard, happenstance, means chance, luck, unplanned and unstructured. I’d like us to think with ancient Jewish wisdom today – and consider, instead of elusive and random happiness – Simcha, the Hebrew word for joy. Unlike happiness, the notion of simcha or joy is far from random, and both modern psychology and the lines of the Torah portion of Pekudei which is read in synagogue this week, offer direction for inviting simcha, joy, into our lives.

My field of expertise, the field of clinical psychology has, for most of its history, focused not on studying happiness or joy, but on understanding human faults, mental illness and pathology. The relatively new field of positive psychology however, recognizes the power of the human spirit, and focuses on resilience, and strength. One of the first tasks of this new field has been to determine how to define and measure happiness and joy.

Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Laureate in behavioral economics, defines happiness as pleasure – and has individuals carry a hedonometer, a device that gives off a signal at random and allows the carrier to record feelings of pleasure or pain. The greater the recordings of pleasure – the higher the level of that person’s happiness, Kahneman argues.

Other researchers have suggested that beyond pleasure, happiness should include one’s overall life satisfaction. Still others argue that objective measures that sum our ratings of health, emotional state, relationships, and work satisfaction to form a happiness quotient are inadequate, because our objective ratings of happiness do not jive with our subjective feelings. Consider the following examples:

despite improvement in health, prosperity and safety in the Western World over recent years – people are no happier.

Studies regarding Do Not Resuscitate orders and living wills show this disconnect. When healthy, people often say they should not have heroic measures used to keep them alive, assuming their quality of life will be poor. However, when you speak with chronically ill and debilitated pts, they enjoy life far more than they had expected. 60% of severely ill patients in one study said they would want treatment to the end – even with their limited capacity, if it prolonged their life for only one week.

Despite disagreements about how to define it, psychology has begun to identify elements that contribute to a joyful life. Two of these are present in this week’s Torah reading - Pekudei – and can be organized using the Geometry of Simcha that my colleague, David Pelcovitz, at the Azrieli Graduate School at Yeshiva University, is about to publish. Let’s look at two geometric paradigms for happiness – the line and the circle.

What words or images come to mind regarding lines? We think of

making a bee line,

line of sight,

finish line

All these phrases reflect direction, movement towards a purpose. Parashat Pekudei, this week’s Torah reading, tells us 18 times the clear purpose that Moses, Bezalel and the entire k’lal Yisrael (Jewish people) applied themselves to – the building of the temple, the Mishkan, ka- asher tzivah Hashem – according to the exact commandments of Hashem. They had clarity of purpose. They had no doubts and no confusion about what was needed or why.

Psychologists know that a sense of purpose is a critical element in happiness and joy. I had two experiences this past year that drove this home. During winter vacation, I visited the Carmel region in Israel, recently devastated by a horrible forest fire. I joined a group for a day of volunteering in a Youth village that had been badly damaged by fire. On our bus of volunteers were old folks like me, and high school students on their winter vacation, seminary and Yeshiva students. We spent the day fairly deep in mud, planting areas that had suffered in the fire, and in a library with no running water, dusting books covered in ash, and packing them into boxes. The high school students on the trip, I’m fairly certain, weren’t regular carriers of dust cloths, and would not volunteer for landscaping detail, yet by the middle of the day, spirits were uniformly high. Sent on our way with heartfelt thanks from the staff and residents, everyone smiled, sung, and experienced the “happiness” of having an important purpose.

This past Chanukah, at Yeshiva University, I saw how the joy of purpose can happen even when we engage in not so important tasks, and when the focus is not on solving big problems. The unbridled joyfulness on campus was not from the internet smash of the University’s a capella singing group, The Macabbeats, who had hundreds of thousands of hits with their youtube video, although that was pretty exciting. It was dreidlepalooza. Posters all over campus urged everyone to meet in the gym on the Wednesday night of Chanukah to break the world record for the number of dreidles spun concurrently in one place. I actually dismissed my graduate class a few minutes early so we could participate in making history. We rushed to the next building, were issued stickers saying we spun at dreidelpalooza and arrived in the gym just in time to hear the loudest yell and applause I think I’ve ever heard. In the room were Yehiva Univeristy students, guys and gals, and janitors, security guards, Washington Heights residents from the Jewish community and beyond. Everyone, young children, older folks, all cramped into every inch of space, sitting on the floor spinning multicolored dreidels. The sense of joy was palpable as the cameras and Guiness Book of World Records officials recorded the event. Happily, and with a great sense of purpose and accomplishment, the crowd spilled into the commons for celebratory jelly donuts.

The straight line of simcha, the clear path to joy, is about having direction and focus, putting our minds and energy towards a goal. The circle of simcha, another path to joy, is less about what we do, than who we do it with, who we connect to, and how we belong. Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, a prolific Torah scholar from Germany, in the late 1800’s, in his commentary on the final verses of Pekudai, describes the “free, joyful obedience” with which B’nei Yisrael, the Jewish people, participated in the building of the temple, the Mishkan. It was not a question of individual purpose, of Moses and Bezalel and a few workmen doing their thing, but of an entire community selflessly devoted to the task. “Nowhere could be detected an effort, by adding or leaving out, Hirsch explains, to carry out any idea of improvement, to leave some impression of the artists’ own personality on the work” .

In synagogues, this Shabbat, in addition to reading the weekly portion of Pekudei, a special additional reading is included, Shekalim. This reading, which describes the requirement for every male above the age of 13 (Bar Mitzvah) to donate half a shekel coin, mahazit hashekel , concretizes the unity and connection among B’nei Yisrael, the Jewish people This all inclusive commandment reminds us that every Jew is both unique and critical. Every Jew is equal to every other – no one can replace another by giving more, and no one can be overlooked, or allowed not to contribute.

The unity embodied in mahazit hashekel echoes the unity of the circle. The circle is a symbol of equality. In a circle, no one is a leader, no one is ahead of another, and no one is closer to the center. The circle is also a symbol of connection, of how we are joined one to another in a powerful, unbroken chain.

George Vaillant, Harvard professor of psychiatry explains that human beings are wired both for individual happiness and communal joy. We have a sympathetic nervous system that goes into high gear to support the fight or flight response we need in the face of danger. This allows us to survive as individuals. But it is our parasympathetic nervous system, the part of our brain that handles positive emotions, that supports the survival of the community. It is this communal brain, the parasympathetic nervous system, that allows us to cry. We cry at loss and the grief of disconnection and we cry tears of joy when we experience true connection, when we feel a part of something. Happiness, Vaillant says, is about ME, Joy, or simcha is about US.

Last week, in my synagogue, our wonderful Rabbi, Yehudah Kelemer welcomed visitors from Yachad, an organization for developmentally disabled individuals, who were participating in a Shabbat program. He raised a question about the upcoming new month, which is typically seen as a time of renewal, a new month brings the potential for a new start. Renewal, the Rabbi argued, is a universal concept, marked and celebrated in many religions and with many rituals. What, he asked, makes Rosh Chodesh, the Jewish celebration of a new month, uniquely Jewish? The clue, he answered is the three words that appear in birkat haChodesh, the blessing of the new moon. These three words, chaverim kol Yisrael, all Jews are connected as friends, occur nowhere else in Jewish liturgy. We can only have simcha, joy, and experience renewal when we are connected to each other.

At the end of Parashat Pekudei, this week’s Torah portion, we read: V’hinei asu otah ka-asher tzivah Hashem cayn aso, v’yvarech otam Moshe. And it was done as G-d commanded, so it was done, and Moses blessed them. Moses blesses the Jews for following G-d’s plan exactly. Jewish sages explain that Moses’ blessing to the Jews was: v’yehi noam Hashem Elokeynu aleynu u’ma – aseh yadeynu connenah aleynu u’maaseh yadenu connenehu – that the pleasantness (Hirsch actually says the happiness) of G-d should be upon you and the work of your hands.

Why does Moses invoke the blessing of G-d’s pleasure or happiness on the work of our hands at this time. After all, the work of the Mishkan, the building of the temple, was commissioned by G-d, and it was completed according to his specs. Wouldn’t it naturally be blessed?

The Malbim, a Russian Rabbi known for his Torah commentary (also in the 1800’s) offers a wonderful insight in his commentary to Psalms. When a person builds a grand structure, he has changed the landscape, but has he changed himself? Moses’ blessing for the Jewish people is that in building the Mishkan we have changed much more than the external look of the neighborhood. His blessing is that through the process of building, by walking the straight line towards a Heavenly purpose, and in doing it united as one unbroken circle, the Jewish people have been thoroughly and permanently changed, and therefore all their future work will be graced with the presence of G-d.

As Jewish people the world over prepare for the simcha, the joy of the month of Adar, which includes celebration of the holiday of Purim, let’s agree that chasing the elusive blue bird of happiness with purchases, food, or otherwise is futile. Instead, let’s walk the line of purpose – as the builders of the Temple did, as the heroes of the Purim story that will soon be read, Esther and Mordechai did. Let’s circle our wagons, connecting ourselves, ish l’reyeyhu, each one to his neighbor, being certain to provide equal kavod, honor and welcome to all. And let’s hope that in walking the line and embracing the circle of simcha we merit the blessing to experience in our celebrations, and in all the days of our lives, tzahalah v’samecha, joyous rejoicing.

Socket Wrench Sets and Parenting Across the...

2011-03-04T11:40:38-05:00

I remember neat cases in my Dad’s workshop filled with shiny tubes and handles. These socket wrench sets included interchangeable sockets in standard and extended depths that could be attached to the handle. Having so many sizes of sockets insured that virtually any bolt or screw that presentes itself – you'd be able to loosen or tighten as needed. How often do we wish, as parents, that we could re-size our parenting to fit the needs of our ever changing children?

There are some things I do almost exactly the same as the mom of young adults and teens as I did as the mom of infants. I cook the foods they like and often serve them (of course, they now feed themselves). I talk to them and listen to them. But a lot of my parenting, and I expect this is true for anyone who has parented over the years and decades of their children’s lives, has had to be regularly adjusted. The handyman needs to find the perfect sized socket to fit over the bolt, and parents need to use different “sized” parenting to get just the right fit for where a child is at that moment in time.

It is much easier with socket wrenches than with children. Screws and bolts have markings on them to tell you which socket will fit. With our children, there are no clear guidelines, we usually have to rely on trial and error. At parent workshops, I am often asked questions like “when can I let my son cross the street alone?” or “at what age should I let her have a cell phone?”. Answers are difficult, because unlike hardware, children don’t come in factory arranged graduated sizes. We can over-parent, selecting an approach that is too tight for a child – limiting their growth and independence. We also can under-parent – failing to provide the supervision and guidance older and seemingly independent children need. We often make mistakes when we assume that children reach developmental readiness at the same age as their peers or exactly when their siblings did. A mature 12 year old may study and organize her time independently, and her brother, when he reaches the same age, may need much more support.

As we struggle to make adjustments, often relying on trial and error, and our knowledge of where are children are in their personal growth,our children’s feedback is not always helpful. The child who balks at our rules – protesting that she can do it herself – may still need support and supervision. And even when children are, through their adolescence and young adult years saying with words that they are prepared to be treated as adults, their actions may tell us how much they need and value being the child of a caring parent.

I have been reflecting lately, about how much thought and energy I am applying to parenting, even as my children are growing up and out of the nest. I no longer have sleepless nights, tend skinned knees or nurse a child with a fever. Why don’t I have hours of free time, and tons of extra energy reserves? A relative who was recently blessed with a beautiful and healthy granddaughter told me, as she rocked the infant to sleep, that her mother always said “you carry small children in your arms, but bigger, older children, you carry in your head”. Hearing that, my stress, frequent exhaustion and seemingly constant busyness began to make sense. I am not parenting any less. I’ve not retired my set of parenting socket wrenches – I’ve just shifted from those that involved physical energy to those with more cerebral and emotional demands.

I know the months and years ahead will bring plenty of challenges, and that I’ll continue to struggle to figure out which of my parenting tools fit the new life phases my children are blessed to experience. It is certainly as daunting as it was to figure out what was making my fussy newborn cry, or how I would help my shy toddler adjust to school. In the socket wrench sets, the bigger pieces have greater weight and heft, and I worry that my parenting now may also be particularly important and impactful. I will work on building connection and partnership with my wonderfully growing and independent children, with the hopes that time and effort investing in our relationship will afford me an important dividend - their forgivenss when I pull the wrong parenting socket from my took kit.

Sodium Chloride Pellets, Better Living...

2011-02-05T22:32:54-05:00

On another of our wintry mornings, as I spread ice melt on the front steps, I was reminded of the Dow slogan – better living through chemistry, and of my dad’s favorite line – that everything in life is easier when you have the right tools. Thinking that I could opt for a non-chemical alternative and clear my stairs with a shovel and ice pick, and lots of energy, I thought about children with ADHD and how much work it can be for them to succeed. Luckily, chemistry can help both the winter chill, and children with ADHD.

Sodium chloride, or salt pellets, work by chemically altering the melting point of ice. Usually, water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. But when you add salt to the mix, it must dip to 20 degrees Fahrenheit for water to turn to ice (or less, depending on how much salt is in the water). This chemical reality can make our roads safer, and some of our shoveling easier.

There are also chemical realities at play in some learning, behavior and emotional disorders. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a frequent diagnosis in school-age children has a significant body of research suggesting various biochemical, neurological phenomenon that occur in the disorder. For over 3 decades, medications that address these biochemical realities have been used with children to ameliorate the impulsivity, hyperactivity and lack of focus that can impede their healthy development.

There is no question that some children have been inappropriately diagnosed with ADHD, and that some children are labeled as having symptoms because classrooms and teachers are unable to create successful environments for them. But in many years of clinical practice and reviewing the extensive research literature, it is clear to me that the condition is a real and challenging factor in some children’s lives. Often, talking with parents and educators about children with clear evidence of ADHD, and who are seriously impacted by it, I face enormous reluctance to consider medication. While this is not specific to ADHD, parents are reluctant to consider medication for depression, anxiety and other psychological problems, the medications available for ADHD require less commitment (they only need to be taken when needed – and are washed out of the body relatively quickly).

A thorough discussion of medication for childhood psychological difficulties is beyond my scope here. Ice pellet chemistry reminded me of my frustration at the way we sometimes deny the chemistry involved in some children’s psychological symptoms. In this denial, we may sentence children to extremely hard labor, and may even compromise their ability to lead happy, productive lives. When children have traditional medical difficulties, we seem better able to understand the chemical component of the equation. Parents of diabetic children do not tell their sons or daughters to work harder to make insulin, nor are asthmatic children instructed to just breathe! Yet daily, dozens of children with ADHD are told to focus, sit still and think before they act . . . in spite of possibly innate chemical tendencies.

Of course, even diabetic children helped by insulin, must watch their diet. Asthmatic children using medications and inhalers may need to clear their homes of pets. Medicine and chemistry only do part of the job. Just like ice melt – the sodium chloride capsules make the work of shoveling easier, but don’t do it for us. No medication will do an ADHD child’s homework, or teach him to read. And just as ice melt has its costs (it can be corrosive on some surfaces), medications do have side effects.

The challenge, of course, is to know when a child really needs “better living through chemistry”. We all want our children to try their hardest, and not take the easy way out. But we also know that when work requires extreme effort and offers little hope of success, children give up, or worse, label themselves as losers and failures. In this winter of inundating snow and storms that trap us indoors, I find myself thinking how trapped some children feel by their biology and their symptoms. Despite their best efforts, they may be as stuck and frozen as my driveway. The little pellets of sodium chloride made it do-able for me to chip my way out. Or maybe they helped just enough to make me feel like I could succeed and get me out there with a shovel.

No child should be placed on medication without a careful evaluation by a qualified professional. But no child who needs it should be denied medication because we deny the chemistry of behavior. That’s as unfair and unproductive as expecting my driveway to keep itself warm and clear of ice from now until Spring.

Visit me at storybird.com

2011-02-04T12:23:04-05:00

www.storybird.com is a great resource for teachers, families and children. I have two stories posted there that I hope you'll enjoy - one is entitled "Old Love" and another one "Making a Difference". The former is about the joys and challenges of seasoned and experienced love. Making a Difference is about the power of bystanders, when they choose to use it wisely. You can search for the stories by name, or under my name on the site - drronovick.

Happy Reading!

Phillips Head Screwdrivers and Bullies...

2011-01-28T15:56:50-05:00

During a recent visit with my Mom and Dad, I asked for tool suggestions, and the screwdriver was an obvious pick. Talking about the advantages of the Phillips head versus traditional slotted screwdrivers, I couldn’t help thinking about the nature of bullies and their strong connection to their victims.

The Phillips head screwdriver was invented to improve on another type of screwdriver – the socket screwdriver. Instead of a hexagonal socket in the screw, easily turned by hex keys, the Phillips head screw is made to be turned by a criss cross designed screwdriver head. Having used both slotted and Phillips head screwdrivers for routine household tasks, the advantage of the criss cross design is clear. Unlike with the slotted type where the screwdriver invariably slips out of its designated slot as you tighten a screw, a Phillips head always stays tightly connected to its clearly marked screw.

This is not unlike how bullies stay firmly connected to victims. Something in the way victims respond seems to create a perfect fit for bullies’ tormenting prods. I wrote a bit about this in the post Duct Tape and Bullies - Leaving Their Mark., and about the victim’s reactivity which signals that bullies’ hostile ministrations have hit the mark. Children who are more reactive are often, by definition more sensitive. This means that victims are chosen because of their nature, but are also the most easily and seriously hurt by bullying because of their nature. Imagine the slotted screwdriver type of child, easy going, able to allow injuries and insults to slip through them. How different that is from the Phillips head type child, born with a nature sensitive enough to capture and hold all the world has to offer, including pain and nastiness.

Raising or teaching a sensitive, “Phillips head” type of child is challenging, and helping them through bullying even more so. There is the temptation to advise the child to change their nature, suggesting they not show they are upset, or not be so bothered by things. This is about as effective as telling highly active children to be still and read quietly, or tone-deaf children to sing on key! Not only does such advice suggest to the child that one’s biological temperament can be easily changed through simple acts of will, but it also makes the victim feel somehow responsible for the aggression and for making it stop.

It may seem a minor difference from the typical strategy, but one can both validate victims’ experiences and support their growth with tools not from carpentry, but from the theater. First, it is crucial that victims hear that their feelings are reasonable and normal with statements like, “I can see that really upsets you” or “That would make anyone feel really bad”. After such validation, suggestions for strategies can be offered. Rather than telling victims not to react, advising them to assume a role, or act in a particular way for a brief period may be more successful. This slight modification to the “just don’t react” advice, allows victims to feel that no one expects them to be unaffected by the bully’s insults. What is required is for the victim to separate internal experience from public behavior. Helping children understand that it is possible for what we feel on the inside to be different from what we show on the outside (as is typical for actors) is a valuable life lesson.

In our tool discussion my mom raised the excellent question, which came first, the Phillips head screw or the Phillips head screwdriver. In this case, Henry F. Phillips patented the Phillips screw first, and used it in a successful trial on the 1936 Cadillac. Whether the existence of sensitive children who have in their nature a perfect stronghold for bullies actually contributes to the development of bullies is certainly not my suggestion and in no way lessens the need to address the problem. When adults witness children firmly connect to the vulnerability of others using their most aggressive and power driven meanness they must do all they can to help both the “driver” and the “screw”.

We can and should help victims develop “acting” skills to serve as psychological insulation. We must also, however, help bullies see that turning the screws on another human being is no sign of greatness. Parents and educators who have been fortunate to witness how weakness or need in one child can bring out generosity, helpfulness, or responsibility in another know the power of tools wielded for the right reasons. Perhaps if we create environments where this response to others is taught, encouraged, supported, expected and celebrated all children, including those with the tendency to bully, will attach themselves and their power to turning the world into a place where all feel safe, welcomed and valued.

100 Foot Measuring Tape, Snowfall Estimates...

2011-01-07T10:26:27-05:00

Most of my tools are cast-offs from my dad. Doubles, older versions or not quite right screwdrivers, wrenches and hammers. During the recent blizzard, tending to some household fixes, I found a dim gray oval shaped object which turned out to be a hand retractable tape measure. When I told my Dad, in sunny Florida, what I had found, he said, that must be the 100 foot tape measure. In snowy New York, with the tv obsessively broadcasting number ranges, 8-10, 12-16, 20-24, inches and feet were very much on my mind.

A 100 foot tape measure can measure things large and small. You can pull out the tape as far as you need. Unlike with the more modern push button retractable tape measures, however, in order to “rewind” you open a lever on the tape measure and reel it in. The more you measure, the more effort it takes to get the inches and feet back in their place.

As the snow continued to fall and blanket everything in a pure and beautiful whiteness, the news stayed focused on numbers and measurements. Reporters in snowdrifts used yardsticks to emphasize the breadth of the storm. Looking out my window, I couldn’t help thinking that there was another part of the story more compelling and important.

Juxtaposed with this stormy weather was a wonderful upheaval of a different type in our family. Our oldest son became engaged and the couple is a shining example of love and happiness and excitement. Well wishers called with congratulations before, during and after the storm. The most common questions were when are they getting married, and how long have they known each other? Some even asked how they will make a living (since both want to continue their schooling). Most questions focused on numbers and specifics.

Much as a few minutes in the snow convinced me of the futility and inappropriateness of rulers to measure something amazing and astoundingly beautiful, a few minutes with the bride and groom reminded me of the importance of immeasurables. I could no more quantify the transformational calmness and quiet that the snow brought than I could encapsulate the magic of two young people finding each other and committing to a life together. If we invest our energy in measuring, pulling out the tape measure to its end, what do we miss? And how much energy do we waste reeling in the numbers, to get back to zero and the real important stuff.

As I write, more flakes are falling elegantly onto the yard and the streets. The young couple is visited almost daily by fed-ex bringing terrific gifts to start their lives, and by telemarketers who pounce on the newly engaged offering flowers, photography and such. I know they can, like all to-be married couples, get caught up in the measuring game – tracking who gave what, how many of this or that we need, how big should the bridal party be, how long the dress’s train. But they are smart and passionate people, and I hope that in this season so blessed with flurries (please not enough to shovel again), and through the first purple crocus signs of spring, and into the summer sunshine they hope will shine on their union, they will not for one moment be distracted. They have, in each other and their strong and powerful love, a magic beyond all numbers, an unquantifiable jewel. The gifts, the dress, the party, they are all just the wrapping for the true prize, a life lived and shared with a loving partner.

So, with last week’s snow melting, and more on the way, and with our family, and its newest couple still floating, I will try to take a new approach this winter. Even as wedding plans and future snow falls may force me to focus on numbers, I want to focus, at least equally, on those things even a 100 foot tape can’t measure. I’ll be looking for the sun through snow crusted branches and smiles shared between loved ones. It won’t bring the Spring any faster, but it will, I know, keep my heart wonderfully warm.

Dedicated to Eitan and Gabby – may the love you share grow with you , always.

Duct Tape and Bullies - Leaving Their Mark

2010-12-21T12:30:22-05:00

My dad assumed it was the frequent mention and image of crime scene bad guys duct taping their victims that connected this tool with bullying for me. It was my frustration in removing it from a pipe that actually prompted the association. Duct tape, my dad explained is nothing terribly special, just a very strong cloth based, usually silver-colored tape that is made with a strong adhesive backing and fibers running through it. When I was younger, I thought it was actually duck tape, and wondered why a silvery substance was named for feathery creatures. Duct tape gets its name from its original use – sealing the seams in metal ductwork.

Anyone who has tried to create a temporary plumbing or carpentry fix knows that duct tape is a remarkable asset. But anyone who has used it knows that the temporary fix leaves rather permanent evidence that duct tape was there. Whether the remnant of the strong adhesive, or the stringy fibers, the signs are obvious if you look for them. Hearing way too many news stories of children indelibly marked and some damaged beyond repair by bullying, it shouldn't be surprising that my efforts removing duct tape brought the similarities quickly to mind.

Much of my professional work is spent dealing with bullying, consulting to schools, researching student and teacher attitudes and effective interventions in schools, lecturing to parent and professional groups. I have lost count of how many workshops I’ve given, and I can’t seem to keep up with the need. After every presentation I give to adults, several participants invariably want to talk about their experiences as a victim, often decades earlier, but still painful, still stuck to their psyche, the duct tape phenomenon.

The research on victims of bullying suggests that, in most cases, it is not a physical or personal characteristic that puts a child at risk. Children with glasses, freckles, red hair, who are short or tall, seem no more likely to be bullied than others. What makes a child a prime victim candidate is a quality called reactivity – do they show that they are upset when harassed or hurt. Reactivity appears highly related to temperament, which is an enduring (not unchangeable, but not easily changed) set of characteristics that are part of a child’s emotional make-up. The only issues other than reactivity that seem to place a child at risk for bullying are obesity and behavior atypical for your gender (effeminate boys and tom-boyish girls).

It makes logical sense that bullies would pick on children who react. Bullying is about power – and using power to inflict harm. You don’t feel very powerful if your harassment, teasing or social exclusion of a peer is met with indifference. Having a classmate run crying from the room because of your words . . . that’s power.

In recent workshops with 6^{th and 7th} graders I heard excuse after excuse about hurtful behavior. “I accidentally called him a name. That’s not the same as if I really meant to hurt him”. “I just told the girls at the lunch table to come sit with me. I can’t help it if they all ditched her to come to my table”. Last I checked, words don’t accidently flow from our mouths, and whether we mean them to hurt or not, the harm is done. And I think it is only fair and right that social invitations made in public include everyone present, or at least take the feelings of everyone present into account.

It is not just children who make excuses. Too many adults tell me “boys will be boys” or “it’s just part of growing up” or express their powerlessness in statements that bullying is inevitable and unresponsive to adult or child intervention. Excuses and dismissive platitudes suggest that children and adults are unimpressed with, or willing to accept the duct tape character of bullying, the lasting scars it leaves on its victims.

I am thrilled that my phone and email are barraged with requests for bully prevention programming. It is terrific that schools, families and communities are waking up to the need to do something. But one lecture, one assembly, one counseling session will be about as effective in removing bullying as a paper clip is in removing duct tape remains. If we want our schools and communities to be a place where all children feel safe and valued, we’re going to have to look through our tool boxes, bring out the heavy equipment, and commit to a long term renovation. I meet with plenty of skepticism about whether it can be done at all . . . from 8^th graders, teachers and families. But I also am privileged to hear students, families and educators share stories of what can and has made a difference. So I choose to be hopeful and pack my bags regularly for another visit to another school to help start the process of change.

How effective I, or any person or group will be will come down to how we attack complicated, dangerous and growing problems. Will we take the time to fix things right, even if it takes more effort, leaving the quick fix duct tape in the tool box? Will we work at fixing bullying the right way, with sufficient attention and effort? The investment may be great, but the potential dividends are beyond measure. That is what I work for, children saved from the lasting and painful scars of being a victim.

Holiday Indulgence and the Chalk Line Maker

2010-12-05T22:16:22-05:00

At one point the red lines were all over the house. With cabinets being hung, and lights installed, the contractors measured and snapped a chalk coated string onto the wall or ceiling. Presto – a straight line appeared. Marking a reference point and guide for all future work, the chalk line told workers where they could install an item, or how far above, below, to the right or left, a particular cabinet, tile, or light fixture needed to be.

Having survived black Friday and cyber Monday, we are full swing into the season to be jolly and the season of economic folly, indulgence and blurred lines. Children and adults are barraged with ads convincing them to cross all kinds of lines . . . insisting that there are items they absolutely must have. For my boys, the worst were the Power Ranger years. When I drove past a toy store at 7:30 am on the way to work and observed parents lined up around the block I momentarily thought I must be an unfit mother. Not only was I not on the line, I had no intention of ever being on one. Unless my children’s lives depended on it (I did not believe their impassioned pleas that without a Red Ranger they could not go on living) I would not stand on line for it. I’m happy to report that I recovered from worries of parenting failure and my children survived many a holiday season without the must have item. That toy store line was a reminder of what holiday and year-round indulgence looks like, and which lines our family would not cross.

Chalk lines are, my Dad told me, a simple string on a reel housed in a box filled with a reservoir of chalk dust. Blue is apparently the most common, but many colors are available to help carpenters meet their mark in different conditions. The darker pigment in red chalk lasts longer, and makes it a good choice for outdoors. There are even florescent versions to make boundaries and guide lines really clear.

What was easy for carpenters comes much harder to parents and teachers . . . drawing the line and saying no. It is never received well by the children in our charge, and claims that “you are the meanest …” or “everyone else has . . . “ are sure to follow. Living in a country whose current economic crisis has evolved partly because of overstepped lines, today’s adults have an opportunity to help children learn not only to survive, but actually enjoy holidays within limits. Financial planners can advise what to spend and how to budget. As a psychologist, I think a critical component is simply teaching children how to set a boundary and live within it. In the same way ignoring the chalk line when mounting a fixture can interfere with other parts of the plan, impulsive or desire-driven buying and consumerism can put many elements of our lives at risk.

When teaching children fiscal responsibility, we have to balance how much information they receive. Gaining the cooperation of youngsters by pleading poverty and instilling fear and panic about where their next meal will come from is rarely helpful. I actually advocate financial boundaries even in good times when ample funds are available. I think children should learn the critical difference between “I want” and “I need”. Once that distinction is understood, “wants” can be prioritized, designated for holiday or birthday gifts, or as targets for children’s own saving and purchase. It also helps everyone realize that December’s “must have” item may be off the list by January, replaced by some newer compelling need.

Boundaries, whether in chalk on a wall, or in our holiday spending, can keep us in check but can also inspire creative planning. Imagine giving children a day of sightseeing, starting a tradition of family pajamas ‘till noon day, making your own video or having a Checkers tournament, scavenger hunt, or midnight soiree. Giving of your time, energy and good spirit may cost no money and provide serious dividends.

Financial plans, like chalk lines are not set in stone. They can be easily changed, adjusted and erased. There is great value in teaching children that guidelines exist and that we establish them for ourselves just to keep our “wanting” in check. And as our generous parent and teacher hearts think of all we want to give to our young charges, let’s consider the chalk box – the never ending supply of line and limit making the carpenter uses. This season, and through the year, let’s teach children to give and receive within the chalked lines that limit our resources. Children will learn the lessons of financial limits and thrive quite happily as long as we show them that the priceless generosity of our hearts knows no bounds.

Thanksgiving, Carving, and Chisels

2010-12-02T23:09:16-05:00

Weeks ago, my Dad happily announced . . . “I have a great tool for you . . . a chisel”. I was so busy stuffing turkeys and baking pies that I never seemed to find time for writing about a carving tool, until the pie was eaten and the turkey carved! Chisels are, however, a great tool to help reflect on how we treat those dearest to us.

Chisels have particular shaped cutting edges to allow carving hard materials. There are unique chisels for working with wood, metal or stone. Unlike carving a turkey, where we are most interested in what we carve away (the yummy light and dark meat), when we use a chisel, we are less concerned with the whittled scraps we leave on the floor, and are most focused on what we leave behind. Often, in my clinical practice and consulting work with educators, I am asked how to help chisel away negative behaviors children are exhibiting. Some adults are so overwhelmed and distressed by these behaviors that they are far beyond the delicacy of the chisel and are quite ready to wield an axe.

I wish every parent and educator would be impressed, as I was, by the portrayal of Michaelangelo’s artistry in The Agony and the Ecstacy by Irving Stone. Though it has been years since I read it, I remember clearly the description of how the great master would look at a block of marble and see its potential; how he would chisel away painstakingly, until the beauty and form that he envisioned and believed to be there was revealed. Parents and educators are artists, too, and need the vision and faith to recognize the potential sometimes hidden beneath negative and distressing behavior.

Even with surgical precision, and a delicate hand, chiseling away at problematic behavior can be . . . well, problematic! One of the first lessons behavioral psychologists learn is that you never eliminate behavior without cultivating or reinforcing an alternative behavior. The goal of behavior change should never be the lack of behavior or emptiness, rather new and improved behavior, growth and potential. Even when my Dad waxes poetic about the mechanics of the chisel, its use of an inclined plane to make the work of carving easier, he knows the beauty of the tool is only in what it can shape and create. When adults become focused on chiseling away at negatives, they can sometimes forget the other critical tools of child-raising and education, like hoes and garden shovels, that cultivate and support positive development.

I had the heartbreaking experience recently of speaking at a question and answer forum of educators. The question that was particularly upsetting came from an educator who stated that when disciplining students it is necessary to “tear down” their self esteem. I thought again, of Michaelangelo, wielding his tools with love and care, avoiding the sensitive veins in the stone that if disturbed, could cause his creation to disintegrate. Just as a chisel in the hand of an artist or craftsman can remove unwanted excess without disturbing the integrity of the material, the child-raising and educational tools must allow us to do our work while protecting the wondrous, but delicate souls of those in our care.

As we gobble up the last of our leftovers, and the turkey carcass becomes a thing of distant memory, let’s take care with our chisels and carving tools. When we look for the potential within those we love and those in our care, and chip away at problems with delicacy and caution, we will all benefit, and have much reason to be thankful.

Dovetail Joints, Dating and Marriage

2010-10-23T21:30:05-04:00

An optional upgrade in some cabinets we were ordering prompted a call to my Dad . . . what are dovetail joints and do I need or want them? My father’s answer was simple. Hold your hands up in front of you, palms facing you, he instructed. Mesh the fingers of your right hand with the fingers of your left, that’s a dovetail joint. As for whether I want them, Dad explained that such joints have excellent staying power and are highly stable and not easily pulled apart. It wasn’t until my Dad described how he learned to make such joints while studying to become an Industrial Arts teacher that their applicability to dating and marriage became apparent.

Nowadays, computerized machines are used to make dovetail joints. But when Dad was in college it was seen as a critical skill to be able to plan, measure, cut and assemble a dovetail drawer manually. He and a partner were sent to opposite sides of the shop with their measurements, made their cuts independently and then came together hoping their joint would perfectly interlock. It took much back and forth, large and small adjustments and multiple attempts before the corner was effectively joined.

How many young men and women are hoping to find the partner that will be their perfect compliment: that will make them complete in the way one end of a dovetail drawer completes the corner of the other end? Some seem to enter the dating process excited to contribute their personality, goals, expectations, and personal likes to the process, hoping for a partner who will fit just perfectly into what they have to offer. With that approach, many potential matches will be quickly rejected. Others seem focused on presenting a smooth exterior, forgetting that, as with a dovetail joint, it is the jagged in’s and out’s that allow connection. With these approaches dating may be possible, but lasting relationships are unlikely.

Dovetail joints last. Examples of them have been found in furniture entombed with Egyptian mummies and Chinese emperors, making them almost as old as marriage. For relationships and marriages to achieve longevity, it is both the process and product of making dovetail joints that holds the key. Just as my father and his shop-mate, when their separate pieces wouldn’t interlock, repeatedly had to adjust, change, and accommodate, so life-mates need a commitment to endless do-overs and lifelong negotiation, compromise and accommodation. The product of a finely made dovetail joint includes each side having fingers or pins that protrude into the joint. This design also creates, on each side, a series of voids or spaces into which the pins from the other side fit perfectly. Marriages last when partners insert the best of themselves into the relationship, but are careful to leave room for what their mate brings as well.

As parents, when our teens and young adults begin looking for partners, we can hope we have modeled what it takes to craft a relationship. We can remind them to bring their true selves to any relationship of import, but also to open themselves to what others offer. And we can hope . . . that they will embrace the challenge as my Dad and his shop partner did, even though it took great effort and left plenty of scraps, sawdust and failed attempts on the floor. And we can pray . . . that they find partners who will love them as we have, who will dove-tail with them, who will strengthen them through the joining and share a lasting, happy and healthy life.

*Note: My Dad may have learned about dovetail joints in his college shop class, but his on-the-job training in relationships came from another wonderful teacher, his wife of over 54 years. Together, they have weathered life's storms and danced at its celebrations. A wonderful example of what commitment and on-going adjustment can bring, here's hoping their union continues for many years to come.

Belt Sanders and Sandpaper – Smoothing Our...

2010-09-06T22:29:26-04:00

We are days away from celebrating the Jewish New Year, a joyous time, but also a reflective time when Jews, in preparation for Yom Kippur, admit their past errors, ask forgiveness and commit to making substantive changes. It may seem puzzling that the tool that came to mind when thinking about the coming weeks was the belt sander, but it is exactly the ironic transformative nature of something rough (the belt sander) to make things smooth and ready that made sense for the approaching holiday.

A belt sander is a tool with an electrical motor that turns drums on which a seamless loop of sandpaper is mounted. I asked my Dad how something rough, like sandpaper, could make things so smooth. First, he explained, sandpaper is usually made with neither sand nor paper. Rather, particles of garnet (a semi-precious stone) are generally attached to cloth or mylar. Those small particles, when rubbed against a piece of wood, scratch off particles of wood, or scratch into the wood in tiny crevices. The coarser the grain of the sandpaper, the farther apart the scratches. With finer grain sandpaper, the scratches are so close together, that the entire surface actually feels smooth.

What does admitting errors, asking for forgiveness and a commitment to change require? First, you need to get gritty and strip off some varnish. Varnish is that external layer that allows us to keep up appearances, but also masks the genuine nature beneath. Asking forgiveness is certainly, no pun intended, rough. It requires finesse, and less coarseness than the stripping of outside layers to reveal flaws. It does, however, require a kind of openness, and going deeper than the surface.

To understand reflection and change, consider the power and process of sandpaper. A few passes with a belt sander and a dark wood table is transformed to its naked, original state. It is only in this raw condition, actually so minutely “scratched” by the action of the tiny granules of garnet on the sandpaper, that it can accept new stain. My Dad said something about the scratches, or grooves, providing the new material, stain or paint, a place to grip. In this time of reflection, are we prepared to sand through the myriad layers in which we have wrapped ourselves?

Committing to change is hard, and sticking with it is even harder. We know we can’t take shortcuts with woodworking, painting over a piece of finished furniture hoping no sanding will be necessary. Inevitably, the new paint doesn’t stick. If we want to change in real and significant ways, short cuts probably won’t do. We may need to get a bit rough on ourselves, and thoroughly scratch off old habits and patterns of thinking. It may leave us a bit raw, but it is also the only way to make ourselves ready for the new. Remaking ourselves is challenging work, with more than sawdust at stake. But, if tiny pieces of sand can remake furniture, the human spirit, made in the image of the Creator, has limitless potential.

With wishes that we all are able to make the changes we need and desire to, and that we be inscribed for a happy, healthy and peaceful new year .

Shims Are No Sham

2010-08-29T22:19:00-04:00

It’s that time of year. School supply commercials fill the airwaves, well-rested teachers are decorating their classrooms, and eager and anxious students await the return of school days. For me, the beginning of this school year is coinciding with some house construction, and watching the carpenter’s tricks of the trade made me wonder about the toolboxes of teachers, parents and students

Along with the new lumber and materials delivered when our construction began came packets of what appeared to be scraps of mediocre quality wood in various shapes and sizes. Over weeks of work, I have learned the incredible usefulness of these mysterious and seemingly unimportant remnants – called shims. When hanging a door or replacing a window, to level it and have it lay just right, various shims were wedged into the frames. When cabinets seemed a bit too close, shims hidden under or between them provided the needed space. The shims work behind the scenes, their unfinished nature eventually hidden by molding or other decorative finishes. Shims, I realized, are a carpenter’s guilty little cheat!

From the first day of school, children are going to be asked to fit in. They will be told to sit just right, and stand nice and level. Even in the most progressive and permissive of school environments, they will be expected to use specific skills to learn to read, write, compute and think in particular ways about particular sets of materials. Are we more forgiving of doors that cannot fit without the assistance of a shim, than we are of children who need some “wedge” to get them to where they need or want to be?

The educational equivalent of a shim is often called an accommodation. There are state and federal mandates for providing educational supports and accommodations for formally evaluated and legally determined “special needs” students. But students don’t need to have “special needs” to need and benefit from small, shim-like accommodations. As adults, don’t we do better when we work in our comfortable place, or with music in the background, or when walking around to think? Granted, schools could barely function if everyone did their own thing all the time, and children might well disturb others’ learning if they blared music or roamed the room to facilitate their own concentration.

I think the largest barrier to any shim-like supports for children, however, are adult beliefs that shims, accommodations of any kind, are too much like cheating. Comments like “you don’t prepare them for the real world if you let them . . .” or “if they use that support now, they’ll become dependent on it forever. . .” and “it’s not fair to let some use that tool and not others” make it unlikely such shims will be offered. Last I checked, however, the real world works exactly because we each find and continually use our personal shims. I’d be lost without an electronic planner . . . for my husband, it’s his old-style pen and paper date book. I have scholarly colleagues who have devised ingenious shims for everything from managing their research, to publishing books, to keeping up with past students. I bet if you peeled the decorative molding off any top exec, professional, artist, scientist, parent . . . you’d find some shims – hidden tools that allow them to succeed. As for the unfairness concern – education and parenting should never be about everyone getting the same treatment or doing the same thing. It should be about everyone getting and doing what they need to succeed.

Educators and parents have the chance to give children a September gift. Let’s start the school year with a new attitude towards the little accommodating shims that work for our children. Let’s go even further and encourage students to discover and use those tools that can make the difference for them. Maybe it will be color-coding their notebooks or highlighters, or munching on a snack during homework, or making up songs to remember important facts, or standing instead of sitting for certain tasks.

As I’ve watched the rooms get built around me, I hate to think what my project would look like if I had tied my carpenter’s hands and said every angle needs to be naturally perfect, make everything fit with no help from the little wedges of wood, no cheating! I hope this school year we’ll let students truly build themselves – using whatever tools and shims they need. Successful students, like successful carpenters, understand that improvising, accommodating and using whatever is at hand is not cheating . . . its mastery.

Vises, Compromises, and Being the Grown-Up

2010-08-11T23:28:35-04:00

I have clear memories of a grey hunk of metal attached to my Dad’s workbench in the garage. Dad could unplug all the power tools to keep us safe, but he warned us to stay away from this menacing tool that, if its jaws were screwed together, could crush our fingers. This hefty tool came to mind this week. A vise uses a mechanical screw to move one jaw towards or away from another jaw, allowing materials to be held or clamped. I never realized that only one jaw of the vise moves, the other remains fixed. The mechanical screw allows the movable part to approach, with precision, the opposing side of the vise, and if desired, to remain locked in that position. How often as parents or educators, do we find ourselves facing an immovable child? The one who won’t do their homework, who screams that you are the worst parent or teacher ever, who despite requests to socialize sits reading, alone. And how often have we said “Why won’t he/she …….”? We can so easily get stuck in these situations, wishing for the child to move, when what is really necessary is for us to be the grown-up. There are wonderful moments of movement and growth, where children surprise us and take steps towards us or the goals we think are important. Most times, however, our children need us to be “the grown up”, capable even in the most trying of situations, to move and compromise. The vise demonstrates the power that is possible even with movement from only one side. In recent talks with my Dad, he’s reminded me at least twice, that a vice has ridged edges inside the jaws that can damage. He explains that they make special covers or inserts for vises to protect against such damage. Being the grown-up requires movement and compromise, but it also takes restraint and care. At some point in his workbench down-sizing, Dad offered me the grey hunk of metal remembered from my childhood. While it sat unused on the workbench in my garage, its message has served me well. Having witnessed first hand the grace of a 6 foot, strong capable woodworker, who knew how to approach his tools, his children and his students with practiced gentleness, blending just the right amount of movement, compromise, power, and protection, left a strong and welcome imprint on me.

Well worn tools and Justin Bieber

2010-08-05T14:37:00-04:00

I opened my web browser yesterday to a breaking news story . . . Justin Bieber's biography is due out in days. Yes, he is remarkably successful and world-renowned. But just how much life wisdom does someone of such a tender age have to offer?

Maybe I would have ignored the story, if it weren't the umpteenth day in a row that Lindsay Lohan's escapades monopolized the morning news shows. What does it say about our world, and what does it say to our children, when we seem so obsessed with the young and famous????

So, I called my favorite toolsmith - my Dad, to ask . . . are shiny new tools better than old, well-worn ones? Actually, I think I asked him if there was a specific tool that was better with age, that needed some "curing" , of sorts. His response was quick and unequivocal. "All tools are better if they're old". The reason, however, was not as I suspected. Older tools, he explained, were made to last. They used quality materials and craftsmanship. I could hear the fond reminiscence in his voice, for a time when old meant better, shiny and new were suspect - at least until their value was proven.

Today's parents and educators have to work extra hard to help today's children see beyond the fancy packaging of celebrities and objects. We need to look for heroes of substance, who have the weight and heft of well-worn tools. I remember fondly how powerful it was when Cal Ripken was honored . . . a baseball player made great not by his glitzy out of the park home runs, but by his unwavering dependability! Just like a favorite old tool, Ripken was always there, playing in a record breaking 2,135 + consecutive games, despite injuries. It is ironic that the record Ripkin broke belongs to another substantive hero, Lou Gehrig, a player who, diagnosed with the fatal disease ALS said in his retirement speech, "Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth".

Many of us are fortunate to have heroic, well-worn tools right at hand, as shining examples for our children. Perhaps it is a courageous relative, who immigrated to make a better life. Maybe there is a community leader or neighbor, who creates a food bank or shuttles donations to the local shelter. It might even be a young teen who organizes blood drives and organ donor registries. Those life stories can balance the media's focus on glamour, excitement, and the latest 16 year old sensation. After all, what parent or educator wants to build flash in the pan success stories. We all want to shape the "tools" of the future, a generation with substance and longevity, who will serve well as the world's tools . . . for years and years to come.

Pliers – Holding Tight, From a Distance

2010-07-30T17:39:18-04:00

In just over a week, our youngest child is embarking for a year of study in Israel. We have plenty of experience with packing up children, and we’re practiced at the teary but proud goodbyes at the JFK International terminal. Each time in the past, however, we returned home from the airport to other children who (we believed) needed us. So, it is no surprise that this week, I called my Dad and asked him to tell me about pliers, a tool that helps you hold onto things.

Pliers, my Dad told me when I first starting thinking about tools, are the simplest of tools. “Just think of your thumb and forefinger”, he said. As I am filling my youngest child’s suitcases, using thumb, forefinger, and all eight other digits, I began to wonder just how “simple” it is to grab onto to things and hold them tight.

Thumb and forefinger can join together so easily to affectionately “pinch” a toddler’s adorable cheek. They can even manage to hold a school age child’s chin still long enough to wipe a smudge from a dirty face. But “grabbing” any part of a teenager or young adult, takes a lot more leverage.

Pliers, it turns out, magnify the power of our fingers by joining two levers at a fulcrum (that’s the screw that connects the two pieces of the pliers). The handle is generally longer than the “jaws” of the pliers, providing a mechanical advantage, increasing and focusing our gripping potential. It’s initially a tempting thought . . . magnifying my grip on my rapidly growing children. It’s also, I know, terribly wrong for their well being, and for mine. Parenting and teaching teens and young adults is so complicated. How do we protect when they need and want to be independent? How do we offer guidance about important decisions when we want them to learn to make their own wise choices?

Maybe pliers can offer some guidance for healthy functioning for parents of older children. The mechanical advantage of pliers allows for safely and accurately holding and manipulating objects that are too small or too dangerous for direct handling. Pliers put distance between our grabbing, pinching, manipulating fingers and the objects of our “concern”. In moving from direct touch and control, we actually have greater impact.

Teenagers and young adults need role models, advisors, parents, and teachers no less than their younger counterparts. But they need grown-ups who are grown up enough to realize that up-close, strangulating grips are less meaningful than gentle guidance from a bit of a distance. This requires a lot of restraint and willpower, and at least as much patience as toilet training! Just as small children had to find their own way to learn control of their bodies, and no amount of lecture or pressure could hasten the process, teens and young adults learning to take control of their lives can’t be rushed by any amount of lecture or pressure.

Thinking about pliers and our son’s upcoming flight, the greatest comfort came from something my Dad said about the pads at the end of the jaws of pliers. The ridges on the pads, he cautioned, give you more traction and better grip, but if you’re holding something soft and pliable enough, they will leave their mark. A pair of pliers unique imprint indicates which craftsman’s tool created a particular product. Perhaps the real secret to raising and educating teens and young adults is not how tight we hold them now. Maybe at least as critical is how our holding, grasping, shaping, touching, over all their soft and pliable years, has left its mark.

Having already sent children off for a year of study in Israel, I know I will fill the next few days with filling suitcases. I will remember the vicarious joy I felt when our other children enjoyed the gift of this year away that we felt privileged to give them. But mostly, I will focus on all the ways my husband and I, along with amazing educators he has been privileged to meet, and his grandparents and family, have all left our imprint on the young man we are about to escort to the airport. He will fly away, indelibly marked with a sense of where he comes from and what is important to his parents and his family. We will certainly miss the up-close grasp we have enjoyed, but know it is healthy for him and us to let go. We will, after all, be connected always, even at a distance. And the long reach of our love can span miles of oceans, and last him and us until, with thumb and forefinger, we grasp the face of the man our son is destined to become.

NY Times How to Stop a Bully and Response

2010-07-28T09:09:50-04:00

Th e NY Times recently published a very well written Op-Ed piece on addressing bullying. You can read it at: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/23/opinion/23engel.html?scp=3&sq=&st=nyt

And my response was published in a letter to the editor, available at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/28/opinion/l28bully.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

The Stud Finder - Looking Beyond the Visible

2010-07-23T18:40:54-04:00

The Stud Finder -Looking Beyond the Visible

You may be thinking -what a strange choice of tools . . . a stud finder? After receiving several emails this week seeking my opinion of a new MTV show, I asked my Dad about tools that help you see beyond the obvious. If You Really Knew Me documents high school students participating in “Challenge Day”, a one day conglomerate of games and exercises aimed at breaking down stereotypes and cliques and giving teens a chance to expose their real selves.

I was actually introduced to Challenge Day years ago when MTV produced Surviving High School. That wonderful documentary followed a group of 11 teens chosen from different segments of a California high school (i.e. cheerleader, resource room student, gang member, etc). They spent months with trained facilitators engaging in various eye-opening activities. In addition to team building exercises, they visited a suicide hotline and an ex-anorexic model’s photo shoot, each time challenging them to think and feel in new ways. After these powerful experiences, these teens invited others from their school to participate in Challenge Day. Watching this powerful day, the spontaneous leadership these students offer is riveting. I’ve shown the tape many times to parent and professional groups, and always emphasize what is possible when we give teens the right tools.

So now, what does a stud finder have to do with If You Really Knew Me? My Dad explained that a stud finder works magnetically to find the studs or support beams inside your walls (actually it finds the nails in the studs, but that lets you know where the studs are). It’s useful information, if you want to do something decorative, like hang a picture, or to make significant changes, like cut a new doorway. Teenagers on the MTV show revealing what’s behind their “walls” is a very literal version of a psychological stud finder. But it’s the controversy about the show, and the questions I’ve been getting in emails that really made it interesting to talk to my dad about this seemingly magical tool that sees what we can’t see.

One of the things I spend a lot of my professional time on is bully prevention. I probably speak over 50 times each year to parents and educators about it. I have the wonderful opportunity, through the BRAVE Bully Prevention and Social Leadership Development Initiative, to visit dozens of classrooms and engage middle school students in workshops on bullying, bystanders and social responsibility. I helped develop BRAVE (the acronym stands for believing in the rights and value of every individual) in response to schools’ requests for help with bully prevention, and after a careful review of the extensive research on how to decrease bullying from European, Australian, and other international studies. There are, of course, multiple ways to address the complex issue of bullying, but one thing seems clear from all the research – one shot interventions – no matter how grand or powerful – are not sufficient.

The stud finder gives us a start – a way in. Here’s where I should bang my nail. I shouldn’t cut here – there’s a support beam holding up the house. My Dad reminded me that the stud finder can’t tell you what you’ll find when you open up the wall. (In the case of recent construction in our home – we found nails, but the studs themselves were largely rotted and eaten by hungry termites!). A lot of important stuff, what’s the insulation, where’s the wiring (some newer stud finders do indicate the presence of wiring), what else is hidden in these walls, can only be discovered if we roll up our sleeves and use other tools to peel away the layers.

I watched one of the MTV If You Really Knew Me episodes, and was moved, just as when I watched the Challenge Day held in the context of the more extensive work described in the Surviving High School documentary. But I was also worried. What partial knowledge are teens sharing and learning that would benefit from more careful exploration, and who will be there to guide them in the process. Is there any risk that Challenge Day rips away supports that first need some buttressing, or are better left untouched?

As for tearing down stereotypes and cliques . . . I want to know what impact this highly emotional experience has on the participating teens and their school, weeks, months and years from now. As a researcher, I’m eager for clear, thoughtful studies that help understand how and if Challenge Day works, and reassurance that it, at least, does no harm.

Even with my reservations, comparing If You Really Knew Me to the fairly limited tool of the stud finder, there is something positive about what it offers. If a tool gives you the experience of finding something important, and lets you bang in a nail with confidence, you’re not yet a carpenter. But maybe you’re one step closer. Bullying, social ostracism, cliques and peer violence in schools need lots of attention. Maybe MTV has hit the nail on the head. Are parents, teens, schools, communities and governments prepared to pitch in and build a culture where we truly believe in the rights and value of every student? To succeed we’ll need more to challenge the status quo for more than just one day. And of course, we’ll need all the right tools.

You can view videos of If You Really Knew Me on the MTV website

http://www.mtv.com/shows/if_you_really_knew_me/series.jhtml

If I Had A Hammer . . .

2010-07-20T15:35:34-04:00

When you think of tools, what is the first one that comes to mind? A hammer, of course! How can a hammer serve as a tool for raising and teaching children? Although many among us have said "If I could just bang some sense into that kid", I'd like to suggest that hammers actually teach us alot about how to support the healthy growth of children.

Hammers are among the oldest tools around - some dating back to the Paleolithic era. Okay, the parenting strategy of banging kids over the head mayh be equally ancient. The claw hammer - the one with a forked claw at the back end - is among the most common. The claw hammer teaches a great lesson for anyone working to support children's growth - it allows do-overs! You bang the nail in the wrong place, no problem. Flip your tool around, and you can correct your mistake. Of course, just as you may have left a mark on the wall, errors made with children can also leave marks.

Talking with my Dad about claw hammers there were some other paradigms for parenting and education:

A claw hammer can both bang a nail into and later remove it from a wall. Helping children grow requires building some behaviors AND removing others.

When hitting something with a hammer, the vibrations travel back through the handle and impact the carpenter. The reverberations from the tools we use to change children often have enormous impact on us!

Hammers work well because of the leverage their structure offers. The length of the handle gives just the needed distance to allow the user to do the most with the least effort. Working with children, having distance is critical. When we take things too personally, when our own needs or frustrations take over, we are not effective as parents or teachers.

Enjoy this tool and hammer away . . . remember the endless do-overs and the distance that comes with leverage. Here's hoping that our work with children reverberates and helps us grow, too.