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July 9, 2012
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4
I’ve been tapped as the Bing Summer of Doing expert for the week. Part of the gig involves writing a blog using the word of the day. Interesting challenge! I’ll be posting today, then again on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. Hope to see you often. Now it’s Monday and for no particular reason the word is GIVING. But who needs a reason a give? Not me, and so, I give this to you:
 Bing Summer of Doing – Time to give a little For the first couple of years of life we can’t tell people what we want. That’s why the helpful adults who love us and want to keep us happy, pepper us with questions. These often begin with: “Do you want _______?” Since we’re not yet ready for conversation, the grown-ups fill in the blank:
Do you want to play with this?
Do you want a story?
Do you want to go to the park?
Do you want mint chip or jamoca almond fudge?
Our every wish becomes our parents’ command. That’s why we quickly we learn to say “I want _______.” Being a little kid is such sweet gig!
Then comes the day when parents say ‘NO’ to one of our many requests and our 3-year old brain explodes: “What did you say?! What do you mean it’s too close to dinner? What do you mean it costs too much and you won’t buy it for me? This is outrageous!!” We don’t have all those words, so we reiterate the obvious for stupid Mommy/Daddy: “BUT I WANT IT!!!!!”
The tantrums don’t always work, but they work sometimes and for little humans that’s just enough reinforcement to keep hope and self-centeredness alive.
At around age three, as we become more aware of the power dynamics within our family, we start testing boundaries. That’s the time a parent’s “Do you want ______?” may take on a sinister ring:
Do you want me to take that away from you?
Do you want a time out?
Do you want me to tell Daddy?
Do you want me to give you something to cry about?
This last rhetorical question was surprisingly popular amongst certain parents during the second half of the last century. Hopefully it’s gone the way of the landline, but I’ve got no empirical data either way.
Obviously all those years of “Do you want _______?” congeal in the spongy language and reward centers of our brain where we realize how important our happiness is to Mom and Dad. Because we are all about making it easy for them to please us, we learn to be very specific with our demands about what we want and why we ought to get it… NOW:
“I want __________. (pause) I am too old enough!”
“I want __________. (pause) ‘Cause I’m the only one who doesn’t have one!”
“I want a new __________. (pause) ‘Cause my old one sucks!”
“I want you to give me what I want and I want you to leave me alone.” (Double demand… impressive language development!)
And so, for those of us who grew up in comfortable circumstances (yes, I’m talking about you on the laptop) it stands to reason we may need an attitude transplant to get from “I want to get _____.” to: “I want to give ______.” But we can do it! We have the technology to connect with organizations that are doing awesome work. We have the credit cards (which makes spending less painful). Click. Click.
Why wait until December when we’re hit up for donations from .orgs we’ve never heard of and couldn’t care less about? Like E.A.R. (Earwax Anxiety Relief). Sure hope this isn’t a real one. But I guess it’s too late to check now.
Summer is an excellent time to look around and see where you could spread a little sunshine and some green. Oxfam America, International Rescue Committee, Good Weave, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF and Kiva are some of my personal favorites. And there are at least a million other absolutely inspirational organizations that are effectively working on solutions to local, national and international challenges. Giving to any of them makes YOU (and any entitled kid you want to inspire) part of the solution. Find out who’s doing what and support their efforts. Start your search here.
Warning: Giving can become habit-forming, but in a healthy way. And think about it, do you really need more stuff or might you be in the market for some good karma points?
PS When I finished writing this on Friday, I saw a web ad for the July 15th AIDS WALK San Francisco. “Great timing! ” I thought. Within 30 minutes I had signed up to be captain of Team BeTheChange and sent out an email asking friends/family to support the fundraising efforts. Our goal is $500. As of this moment, we’ve got $375 in pledges!
UPDATE: Current funds raised- $425! Thank you to those who’ve pitched in. If you haven’t yet, you can support Team BeTheChange until Sunday July 15th.
FINAL UPDATE: Team BeTheChange raised $625 for AIDS Walk SF. Thanks to everyone who supported the cause!
January 17, 2012
(See UPDATES BELOW)
I’m writing my first book for adults since Armchair BASIC. It’s called: Teaching Kids to Be Good People. It will be available as an eBook in September.
Since one person’s “good” might be another person’s “Are you kidding me?!” I knew I needed to be precise from the onset. So I asked my twitter followers, plus many of my most thoughtful friends, colleagues and family members “How do you define a ‘good’ person?”
Lots of intriguing and insightful responses galloped my way and I’m grateful. My plan is to dissect each one… all in good time. But at the moment, I’m focused on forgiveness.
That’s an aspect of “goodness” I hadn’t considered. Probably says something about me. I mean, I have overstayed my welcome at the Self-Pity Party, ahem… once or twice. So when one especially kind-hearted friend offered me this nugget: “A good person is forgiving”, like a dog and a flying tennis ball, I was on it. Thinking. Thinking. Thinking.
- What does it mean to be forgiving?
- How do you actually forgive someone? Which muscle do you relax or clench?
- What’s the connection between forgiving and forgetting? Are they mutually exclusive?
- What might you gain by holding on to your resentment? Anger? Self-righteous indignation?
- What might you lose?
- Why is it so $#*@ hard to permanently unplug a memory that continues to wound each time you project it onto your mental movie screen?
These are open ended questions, my friends. I don’t know any useful answers… yet. Love to hear your thoughts.
fyi, in the next 6 months, I’ll be talking about teaching kids to be good people at the 18th Annual Character Education Conference in St. Louis, the INTASE Educators’ Conference in Singapore, and at the 19th National Forum on Character Education in Washington, DC.
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UPDATE 3:13 pm Today (9/14/12): The book is finished! And I’ve had only enthusiastic early reviews, including these:
- “Annie Fox has a genuine passion for helping our young people and she has many years of experience doing it. Both are evident in this wonderful resource for parents and teachers. It’s full of insight, wisdom, good stories, and most important – practical advice. I highly recommend it for anyone wanting to help our kids become good people.” –Dr. Hal Urban, author of Life’s Greatest Lessons and 20 Gifts of Life
- I can’t express enough how much I love Annie’s work. Having worked in this field for so long, it becomes increasingly difficult to read new thoughts and ideas. Every time I read something of Annie’s, it makes me think. She writes about subjects with such compassion, insight and practicality that you can’t help but love all that she does. Great book-a great job Annie!” –Sarah Newton, author of Help! My Teenager is an Alien!
- “Another work of magic from what I have come to know as a master in the field. Sharing actual scenarios and follow up ideas, helps to keep readers connected to Annie’s ideas in a way that most parenting books fail to do.” –Joe Bruzzese, author of A Parents’ Guide to the Middle School Years and Founder of Sprigeo.com, the online bully reporting system
- “Finding positive, empathetic role models is often difficult but this wonderfully practical and warm hearted eBook is a great place to start. It will empower parents with some really helpful suggestions and ideas that will help you to navigate the choppy emotional waters of raising great adults.” –Sue Atkins, author of Parenting Made Easy – How to Raise Happy Children
This early feedback, especially coming from these excellent parent educators, has touched and encouraged me. The book is done, so what am I waiting for? Nothing, except to finalize the cover design. That won’t take long. As promised, before the sun sets on the last day of September 2012, Teaching Kids to Be Good People, will be available to everyone interested in raising young adults of good heart and mind. If you’d like to receive an announcement when the book is available, shoot me an email and I’ll let you know… personally.
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UPDATE (10/3/12): I’m very pleased (and excited) to announce Teaching Kids to Be Good People is now available in print and also on Kindle. Here’s an excerpt from the introduction:
We parent-educators are gardeners. We plant seeds and offer nurturing lessons that our kids can internalize. But we are not our children’s only influencers. By re-dedicating ourselves to teaching our kids to be good people, we provide them with the tools to do the right thing while we’re right there beside them and when they’re on their own. Whether they actually do it, is their choice. But at least we’ll know we’ve done our part well.
To help on our parenting journey, I’ve written this very personal and pragmatic guide that includes essays, podcasts, prompts, tools, questions, answers and self-assessment quizzes all for the purpose of teaching kids to be good people. How do you define a “good person?” That’s what I wanted to find out, so I posted the question and received hundreds of answers. Eight words kept reappearing: Emotional intelligence, ethics, help, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, tolerance and social courage — all essential, teachable skills. This book will help you teach them to your children or students. Hopefully, we’ll become so engaged in this process that our teaching will inspire all of our children to become part of the solution.
Look for an announcement next month! In the meantime, if you’d like a personal email when the Teaching Kids to Be Good People is available, let me know.
October 23, 2009
 When we're fakin' it for fun, it's a blast UPDATE (October 2013): This essay is included in my book, Teaching Kids to Be Good People. (Electric Eggplant, 2012)
I love Halloween. Always have. Even though our kids don’t live here any more, David and I still trawl the neighborhood, checking out trick-or-treaters and home makeovers. David usually wears his multimedia producer costume— understated, but totally convincing. Typically I pull out all the stops and morph into a mime with whiteface, red-bow lips, massive amounts of black eyeliner, and a pink tutu on my head.
My senior year in high school I was voted Class Actress, so I fully appreciate the fascination with taking on a new persona and milking it for all it’s worth. The irony isn’t lost on me that this Great Pretender has built a career exploring the MO of kids who constantly fake it by pretending to be someone they’re not, just to get other kids to like them.
I recently emailed a bunch of middle and high school students and asked: “How do you know when you’re faking it?” Here are some answers:
- “I have a feeling of guilt and hatred for myself. I feel like I’m a wimp for not speaking the truth.”
- “It’s hard for me to really shine thru and show people who I am because I am always worried about impressing them. I hate it when I act this way.”
- “I feel like a fraud in my own body. I feel betrayed by myself because I’m not showing everyone who I am and it hurts because I don’t know if they will like me for who I am.”
- “I get a nagging feeling tugging at the back of my brain, telling me ‘Don’t do this, you know this isn’t you.’”
- “Whenever I’m putting on ‘my mask,’ I feel sort of terrible and messy inside, like a lot of spaghetti, all tangled up. I feel almost sick to my stomach and a little anxious, but I still do it to impress others. But it never feels quite right. I do it because I feel like I’m not good enough sometimes.”
Their responses saddened me. We want our kids to be happy and self-assured. We want them to be courageous enough to drop the mask and confidently be themselves. But that’s a huge challenge when they’re unwilling to make a move without first checking out what everyone else is doing. If everyone else is being unkind, our children need tremendous strength of character not to join the hating party. Because the price of social poker is so very high, not many of them are willing to gamble.
Of course some kids embrace their authentic self and don’t hesitate to do the right thing. They show their goodness with equal confidence when no one is watching and when everyone is watching. But more kids need that kind of courage. Too many of them are Peer Approval Addicts, compulsively doing whatever it takes to fit in, including stuff they’re not proud of. For these children, everyday is Halloween, only they don’t get candy—just the hollow feeling of wimping out and not being “good enough” without their mask.
How can we help our kids resist conforming to negative peer behavior? By modeling and reinforcing, early and often, what authenticity looks like. By teaching that our choices matter and everyone deserves respect even when we’re feeling angry with them. Let’s talk about people in the news, characters in books, movies, TV shows, and anyone we know who did the right thing despite the risk that friends might not approve. Let our sons and daughters know that they already are “enough” of everything that matters. Remind them that they’ve got the courage to do the right thing, even when they’re not sure they do.
A week after my initial survey question, I followed up with this one: “How would your life be different if you didn’t have to worry what other people think?” Here’s what they said:
- “I’d probably share with people that ‘Hey, being yourself is cool, and if you can’t do this now… why not?’”
- “I would not spend a lot of money or do stupid things just to fit in.”
- “I would try out for football with the boys.”
- “I’d go to school in costume every day, dressed as a medieval knight, an astronaut, a soldier, or something totally new!”
- “I wouldn’t formulate the perfect words to say to those perfect people. I would say exactly how I feel.”
- “I would eat a cheesecake and wear a flannel vest. Woah! That would be a pretty darn cool world!”
- “I would love it! It would be like a freedom that lets you fly and soar.”
I’ve got no guaranteed tip sheet for you at this point, just a simple question: As a parent and a teacher, what could you do, today and every day, to help your kids fly and soar?
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