The Narcism Epidemic

I just finished the Narcissism Epidemic. Talk about scary! The book explores how we are raising a generation of the most narcissistic kids in history. I really related to the examples given in the book. 

                                                         

*We are treating our kids like royalty as we worship at the Altar of High Self-Esteem at All Costs.

*We are pampering them with every gift, toy, and lavish party possible which we instantly pin and share via social media as we create a cult of mini celebrities.  

*We are so worried that our kids will be hurt that we refuse to teach them how to lose gracefully i.e. every kid gets a trophy/ everyone is a winner. 

*We overpraise our kids for being smart and then blame the teacher rather than the student when lack of effort leads to a poor score. This is the result:

Here is a quote from the book: 

"Understanding the narcissism epidemic is important because its long-term consequences are destructive to society. American culture’s focus on self-admiration has caused a flight from reality to the land of grandiose fantasy. We have phony rich people (with interest-only mortgages and piles of debt), phony beauty (with plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures), phony athletes (with performance-enhancing drugs), phony celebrities (via reality TV and YouTube), phony genius students (with grade inflation), a phony national economy (with 11 trillion dollars of government debt), phony feelings of being special among children (with parenting and education focused on self-esteem), and phony friends (with the social networking explosion). All this fantasy might feel good, but, unfortunately, reality always wins. The mortgage meltdown and the resulting financial crisis are just one demonstration of how inflated desires eventually crash to earth."

I recommend that every parent pick up this book as soon as possible. It really opened my eyes. You don't need to agree with everything the authors say to quickly realize that we are on the wrong track as a society. The book also gives practical advice as to what we are parents can do differently.

One idea: Praise effort and not innate ability.
(See Tiff's great post on not calling your kids smart here.)

Other ideas:
Teach your kids that it is not always about them.
Promote humility.
Say No.
Don't always allow choice.
Encourage empathy.

Happy Reading! And remember that when you call your darling little 3-year-old a "Prima Donna"--- you don't really want her to grow up to be one!


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Mystery Chore Rewards with QR Codes

January is a great time to revamp your chore system. I always feel the need to clean house and implement some changes in the new year. Here is a fun way to reward your kids for doing their chores. I left the logistics of the system up to you. You can decide how many chores your kids need to do to get the reward. Maybe you want to reward them less often or more often. Maybe you want them to work harder and do a better job on their chores. Or maybe you want them to stick to their jobs and get them done consistently. You will have to decide how to make these rewards work for you.

Here are the QR Code Rewards I have so far! I may just need to update this post with more possible rewards regularly.

1. Ice Cream Cone

2.  Movie Night

3. Late Bedtime

4. Date with Dad

5. Date with Mom

6. New Toy

7. New Game

8. New Book

9. Out to A Restaurant

10. Play Date with a Friend

All I can say is that these QR Codes will be rewarding. There is something about the mystery that drives kids crazy. They just have to earn the reward to find out what it is!!

Print out the QR Codes and laminate them for durability.  (Cut off the sentence that tells what the reward is, of course! That is just to help Mom know which rewards you want to use.)

Stick them in a cute jar with the label that I have provided and let the kids know what they have to do to earn a reward. Then kick up your feet and watch in wonder as the chores magically get done. Once the reward has been earned, let your kids draw a QR Code from the jar and use your smart phone or tablet to see their mystery prize! Doing work has never been so much fun!

Chore Rewards Labels

QR Code Chore Rewards

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Tell Family Stories

By Deborah Pace Rowley

Recently I read an article in the Christian Science Monitor that was entitled, "Tell Family Stories: It Could Determine their Future" by Jim Sollisch. Here is just an excerpt:

"There is evidence that kids who know their families’ stories are much better adjusted than kids who don’t.

Marshall Duke, a psychologist at Emory University, along with his colleague Robyn Fivush, developed a simple 20-question scale called “Do you know?” It asks things like “Do you know where your grandmother grew up? Do you know where your parents went to high school?”

(My father William Pace as a little boy on his pony Flash) 

They gave the survey to 66 kids and then compared the results with a battery of traditional psychological tests the kids had previously taken. They found an overwhelming correlation: The kids who scored highest on the “Do you know?” scale turned out to have higher levels of emotional well-being.

The more you know about your family’s story, the more you feel a part of something bigger. You see yourself as a character in an ongoing saga, a narrative of successes and failures, of striving – because that’s the story of every family, really. 

So the next time your children ask for a story, you don’t have to conjure up faraway kingdoms and alien creatures. Tell them about the time you hit the game-winning shot.Tell them about their grandmother who, when her husband died, talked her way into his job as a traveling auto parts salesman back in 1944. That’s a story my mother told my brother and me, a story that reminded us we come from a family that doesn’t take no for an answer.

It seems to me that the best stories are the ones only we can tell our children."

Wow! I love that. I have always enjoyed telling my children stories about their heritage. One Christmas I made all of my siblings and their children a collection of family stories that I had copied and bound at a local printing shop. The cover looked like this. My children helped color each one.

My children's favorite story in this book is "Grandma Baptized the Chicken." It is a story about my grandmother Virginia Judd Pace when she was a little girl on a small farm in Coalville, Utah.

 

This is a picture of my grandmother with her father George Henry Judd. For you to understand this story, you need to know that we are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) and in our faith, children are baptized when they are eight years old. We have been taught that at age 8 children reach the age of accountability and are old enough to make their own choices and understand right from wrong. We are also baptized by immersion which means that we are completely submerged in water rather than being sprinkled.

Now that you know those few details, you can hear how the chicken got involved. This is the story as told in my grandmother's own words:

"My brother Bill and I were pals. One time we were in the corral at the watering trough by the big barn. The trough was large like a bathtub we use nowdays. We decided to play baptize. So we went to the chicken coop and got a hen. We said words, I can't remember what, but then we pushed her under the water. She flipped and fluttered and sputtered and of course, we knew if you don't go very bit all under the water, it doesn't count. The last time under she didn't fight but when she came up her head flopped. She was dead. O grief, what had we done! What would daddy say? Well, maybe if we put her back on the nest she would dry off before Daddy found her. It didn't work, Daddy found her and guessed what had happened. The two of us were questioned and we were honest and confessed. "Well," Daddy said, "Don't you think you should be punished?" Yes, we knew we should be. So Daddy took from his pocket his best knife and said, "Cut some switches for your lickin." We headed to the back of the house where there was a hawthorn tree which had thorns. Bill said "We really have been bad. Better get some with thorns on it, while we are at it." We slowly, humbly, with heads low brought the thorny switches and turned around, waiting for the punishment. We waited, waited, glanced at each other and then guess what? Our dad started laughing and he really laughed so that he couldn't stop. We turned around and he said, "You have learned a lesson. It's ok kids."

(Virginia Judd's Family) 

I am not sure what lesson my children learn from that story. It is okay to accidentally kill farm animals? Couldn't be that! But as a Mom, I have learned that I don't need to take EVERYTHING so seriously and that when my kids make innocent mistakes, sometimes it is okay to just laugh! I think every parent needs to remember a story that teaches that lesson.

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Elementary Activities: Rethinking ADHD

By Deborah Pace Rowley

Today I came across a fascinating article about ADHD. This article by Marilyn Wedge, PhD. was published in Psychology Today in August 2012. It is entitled "Why French Kids Don't Have ADHD." The title caught my attention but I was even more interested when I learned that French Psychologists are more likely to look for social and situational causes of ADHD while American Psychologists are more likely to look for biological causes. What this means is that American Therapists prescribe ADHD medication like Ritalin much more often.

I have had many students that struggle with ADHD. I have been impressed with the amount of time and effort their parents spend on helping them succeed. None of these parents have chosen medication for their children lightly. By and large, all of the parents of ADHD students in my class have been more involved and not less involved in their child's education. Working with these parents has been a privilege. I count as one of my greatest successes as a teacher helping several young men go off their ADHD medication in my class.

Perhaps that is why this paragraph caught my attention: 

   

   "In my own work as a family therapist for twenty three years, I find that searching out the underlying cause of a child’s distractibility, inattentiveness, fidgetiness, etc. in the child’s social context (family, school and friends) is a safer and more effective way to help the child get over his problems than by dosing him with amphetamine drugs like Ritalin. As French psychiatrists found before me, diagnosing the child with ADHD does not help at all if one’s goal is to solve the child’s problem rather than mask his symptoms with potentially harmful drugs. The cause for a child’s antsy, disruptive behavior in the classroom may well be due to a social context factor like having a teacher who “doesn’t know what to do with boys.” 

As a teacher, I agree that we can be part of the problem. Each day I work hard to keep all of my students engaged in learning and try to accommodate all learning styles. But it isn't easy. And teachers need all the help they can get. If this is an issue that you are concerned about, I would encourage you to read the two part series here and here. 

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Preschool Activities: The Power of Pillowfights

By: Deborah Pace Rowley

In the past, Tiff and I have shared the insights we gained from reading the book Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. Recently I picked up their new book which is entitled Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing. I have been fascinated by this great read and I wanted to share something I learned that relates to our kids.

Chapter Six of the book is called: "The Utter Importance of Pillow Fights." And they aren't kidding. Listen to this sentence: "University of Montreal professor Daniel Parquette recently made the case that parents wrestling, grappling, and play-fighting with their young children is a good thing, not a bad things, because it teaches kids competitive skills."

By rough and tumble play the experts include activities such as pretending to be a monster and playfully chasing kids around the couch, tickling back and forth, engaging kids in pillow fights and playing tug-of-war over cushions. Through cross-cultural studies, experts have shown that rough-housing and rough-and-tumble play are valuable because they help children to be successfully aggressive.

What does being successfully aggressive mean? I will let the experts explain: "Paquette explains that this kind of play, where the parent can escalate or reduce the aggressiveness, teaches children how to express their aggression but in a modulated and controlled way. Doing so within the context of an emotional bond keeps these displays of aggression safe, yet it also destabilizes children, pushing them and expanding their comfort zone."

Pillow fights and rough-and-tumble play help kids later in life to:
Be brave in unfamiliar situations
Stand up for themselves
And learn to take risks.
It gives them training time to get comfortable with the emotional intensity of competition.

There is just one rule: "The imperative thing in roughhousing is that the parent maintain control, animating children but de-escalating when kids are on the brink of anger or frustration."

The chapter emphasizes that there has been a recent trend toward bubble-wrapping our kids. But rough-and-tumble play with a parent is where the fine line between playing and fighting can be safely explored.

Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? There is just enough time to grab some pillows before bed.

*Quotes from Top Dog by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman pages 118-120.

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Parenting Tips: Scaling Back the Holiday Madness

By Deborah Pace Rowley

Even though we have been known to jump on the holiday bandwagon here at Puddle Wonderful Learning, I couldn't help but repost this excellent article by Kristen Howerton at the Huffington Post. I couldn't agree more with what Kristen has to say. It is a great reminder to keep our holiday celebrations simple, cheap, easy and fun for everyone concerned, especially Mom! 

Can We Bring the Holidays Down a Notch? 

By: Kristen Howerton

This past Sunday was St. Patrick's Day, a holiday I had completely forgotten about until my oldest stumbled out of bed and into the living room at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday night while we were watching SNL.  "Can I help you guys hide the gold coins?" he asked. The WHAT?  "The gold coins. I know the leprechauns aren't real. I know it's you, like Santa. So I want to help you. I can make the leprechaun trap, too."

We told him to go to bed and then looked at each other with exasperation. Gold coins? A leprechaun trap? Is he serious?  When I was a kid we celebrated St. Patrick's Day by wearing something green. THE END. I had noticed that over the past few years, our kids were getting some grander ideas from school. But I didn't think that we needed to replicate these experiences at home.

Apparently, the children believed that we did.

All four of them woke up and came into our room like it was Christmas morning.

Did a leprechaun visit?

Can we search for him?

Did he leave a pot of gold?

Let's go find the gold coins!

I bet he left chocolate!

So. Many. Expectations.

All of which were dashed.

I had four seriously disappointed and grumpy kids on my hands. At one point my daughter went into full-blown meltdown mode, kicking random items in her room and yelling about what a LAME HOLIDAY this was.

And in my overly-tired impatient state, I might have yelled back, "YOU'RE RIGHT. This IS a lame holiday. It was never my favorite. All we did was wear green. That's all we're doing today. I'm sorry if you do more at school. That's not what we do here. I don't know where you are hearing this stuff but it's not happening here."

Fellow parents: St. Patrick's Day is supposed to be a "phone-it-in" holiday. Yes, I've turned into a bit of a grinch, but SERIOUSLY WITH THE HOLIDAY OVERKILL. It used to be Christmas was the main event, but now it's as if every holiday must be at a Level 10. And if Christmas wasn't already hard enough as a parent, someone also decided that we have to move an Elf around every day, into creative tableaus? And then someone else decided that the Advent Calendar was A Thing beyond a simple religious observation and now involves some kind of gift each day leading up to Christmas?

And about a month after having survived that whole mess, we've got Valentine's Day, which has became The New Halloween, because God forbid you send a simple store-bought card. You'd better include some candy or your child will be shunned. Shunned! One of my kids came home with not just a candy from each class, but a WHOLE FREAKING GOODIE BAG from each student.

And then, I think I've got a break for a month BUT NO. Surprise! We've got 100 Days of School to celebrate. And by "celebrate" I mean the kids sticking 100 things on a hat. And by "the kids" I mean me.

And suddenly Pi Day is a thing? My children expect to be served pie because someone at school told them so?

And Dr. Seuss's birthday? Sure it's a great event for school, but my kids are now asking what we're doing to celebrate that at home, too.

And do not even get me started on what Easter has become. When I was a kid my mom went to the store and bought us a new dress and a pre-made plastic Easter basket for $8.99.  THE END. There was candy and we loved it. Maybe we would die some eggs from a kit sitting in the check-out lane at Target. They would look like crap.

Now we've got to leave footprints from the Easter Bunny and make artful, Pinterest-worthy eggs with stencils and ikat prints and probably some that are ombre. AIN'T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT.

I don't like the feeling of disappointing my kids. But I refuse to give into this holiday overkill. I'm overwhelmed enough as it is. Today I gave all of my kids a bath. We read with each of them for the recommended 20 minutes. We reviewed our math facts. We practiced guitar. We sat together at the table and ate a meal that was NOT procured at a drive-thru.  We played outside. Most days, I'm struggling to achieve all these things. I can't have these haphazard, once-monthly overblown holidays take over my life.  I can go big for Christmas and Easter. That's all I can handle.

But I can't do this alone. Fellow parents... teachers... sunday school workers... I beseech you. BRING IT DOWN A NOTCH.  Ya'll are setting up expectations that I just can't maintain. Wouldn't we all be just a little happier if we returned to the slacker days of store-bought valentines and kit-dyed eggs and JUST WEARING A GREEN SHIRT AND CALLING IT A DAY?

For the sake of overwhelmed parents like me, I beg you. Stop the madness.

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Elementary Activities: Seatbelt Strategies

By: Deborah Pace Rowley

Yesterday in Utah we had freezing rains that led to treacherous driving conditions. My cute sister was creeping along our driveway, fully aware of how slippery things were. Nevertheless, her vehicle hit a patch of black ice and slid slowly and agonizingly into our fence and nearly into our neighbor's yard. When I heard about the accident, I was teaching and limited in my ability to communicate with her. Were the kids okay? Was she okay? Was the car okay? Gratefully she wasn't going any faster or her car might have overturned into the neighbor's yard which is 4 feet lower than ours or even worse, into the pond on the other side of the driveway. Miraculously, everyone was fine.

This experience reminded me how important it is that everyone in the car is buckled up. This is an easier problem to solve when all your kids are in car seats or booster seats and you buckle them in before hitting the road. This is a little bit more of a challenge when your children graduate from their car seats and buckle themselves into the car. I remember trying tons of different strategies to make my kids buckle up. From bribing to threatening to nagging, nothing seemed to work long term.

Finally, my kids stumbled onto a solution that seemed to work well for us. I even hear my teenage children reminding each other to buckle up using this old favorite chant. Here is how it works. When my kids get into the car, the first person who has on their seatbelt shouts, "Click-It!" The rest of the family members including mom and dad race to be the next person to have their seatbelt buckled. The second person shouts, "Ticket!" This came from an old billboard and radio ad that reminded people to "click it or get a ticket." Because you weren't the first person to be buckled in, you now got an imaginary ticket. The third person got off even worse. The third person with the seatbelt buckled had to shout, "Jail-time!" They had to go to jail because they didn't buckle their seatbelt fast enough.

But just wait. The fourth person who buckled their seatbelt had to shout,  "Crippled!" This meant that since you didn't have your seatbelt buckled right away, you were crippled in an accident. Nice, right? It gets better. The fifth person to buckle their seatbelt had to shout, "Dead!"

When my kids first came up with this game, I was worried that it was too gruesome. Were we tempting fate by shouting these things? I did like the fact that the chant reminded us of very real consequences if we didn't buckle our seat belts. But more than that, I couldn't argue with the results. Every time we got in the car, my kids were buckled within the first few seconds without me nagging them and we were laughing instead of fighting about seat belts.

I secretly wondered if my son purposefully was last to put on his seatbelt just so he could pretend to be dead every time. But whatever...he was buckled and that is what counted. If you are struggling with your children and their seat belts, this game might do the trick for your family also. Feel free to modify it to fit by adding or deleting phrases so that everyone is covered.
Please buckle up, and safe driving everyone.

(An accident on Utah roads on Thursday!) 

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Teen Activities: Grit Assessment

By Deborah Pace Rowley

If your kids are on the same schedule as mine, we are now starting second semester. We have learned the grades each child got first semester (some good, some bad, some ugly!) and we are now faced with the daunting task of starting again with renewed resolve to do better and to learn from our past mistakes.

Much of the reading that I have done lately has had to do with the importance of teaching our children how to have "grit". "Grit" is that difficult to define quality of tenacity, strength, courage, and the unwillingness to give up. Grit doesn't whine, cry or run in a corner at the first sign of difficulty. Grit doesn't accept failure. Grit doesn't give in or give up even when the going gets tough. How do we teach this super important quality to our kids?

(Although Mattie demonstrated amazing tenacity, the new True Grit just wasn't my favorite movie.

Was this because no one could ever replace John Wayne as the indefatigable Rooster Cogburn? Get your kids to look up that word!)

The first step can be in determining how much of that quality our kids currently possess. How resilient are they? How willing are they to try a second or even a third time if the first time they come up short? I came across this grit assessment with my daughter Natalie. She used this assessment in a science project and studied if a high score on the grit assessment translated to high grades and overall satisfaction with school. In her limited scientific survey, they correlated perfectly!

You can find the Grit Assessment and instructions for scoring here:

You may want to use it with your teenagers and your elementary school age kids as part of a family night or dinner time discussion. You can teach your kids how important this quality is to succeed in life and share your experiences when you kept going and didn't give up even when you wanted to. Inspire your kids with stories of heroes who demonstrate this quality of grit and determination. How about Nelson Mandela? Or Winston Churchill? Do your daughters know the story of Joan of Arc? 

I love using these TED talks in my classroom. They would be fantastic to show your kids during a conversation on grit. Each of these woman refused to give up when they were faced with daunting obstacles, instead they turned a tragedy into a triumph because they refused to give up. 

Amy Purdy lost her legs as a result of a bacterial infection. She became a world champion snowboarder. You will be amazed at all the positive things she discovered about being a quadriplegic. 

Janine Shepherd had a devastating bicycling accident. She lost her dream of being an Olympic skier but became an accomplished trick pilot instead.

This last video is about Jarem Frye who lost one of his legs due to cancer as a teenager. You and your kids will be amazed at the things he is able to do with the artificial limbs that he invented. 

Good luck teaching the quality of grit to your children! 

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Parenting Tips: Favorite Parenting Tips of 2012

By Deborah Pace Rowley and Tiffany Rudd

We don't post parenting tips very often but when we do, we really care about the topic we are posting about. Here are our favorite parenting tips of 2012. Did any of these tips help you to be a better parent last year?

1. The Inverse Power of Praise (i.e. Don't Call Your Kids Smart)

2. Don't Rescue Your Kids

3. Nail Biting and Thumb Sucking

4.  Swimsuit Experiment

5. Teaching Your Kids to Listen

6. A Lot Of Smelly Teachable Moments

7. How to Give a Sincere Apology

8.  Refill Mom's Jar

9.  Planned Spontaneity

10.  Nighttime Dryness

11. Lying Continued

12.  Sibling Rivalry

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