Right now I’m reading The War of Art by Stephen Pressfield. It talks about how in the effort to undertake anything creative or vitally important to your development your biggest enemy is Resistance--with a giant, honking, capital R. This resistance takes many forms, but in all of them it keeps you from doing what’s truly important to you. Whether you’re a writer or an artist or just want to lose weight or learn a language, Resistance doesn’t want you to succeed.
At the same time, I’ve been experiencing great Resistance at home in some of my home schooling efforts. I have not been doing much writing, but my son has, and it has been Hell--with a capital H. There’s been crying, complaining, endless talks about attitude and effort and how it’s important to follow directions. He seems to understand, yet inevitably he ignores the instructions and does entirely the wrong thing. Then he’s upset when I point that out and tell him he needs to try again. What on earth was going on? I’m used to setting expectations weekly work goals for my kids, but I’m not the kind of person who forces them to do work that makes them cry, or at least I didn’t think so.
Then it hit me that perhaps this is a similar phenomenon to my own Resistance, the one that prods me to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer (season 6 now!) instead of finishing my novel, or sitting down with a nice warm cup of tea and a book instead of getting my boots on and hiking off a few pounds. The only difference is that I’m letting myself get away with it, and my son isn’t so lucky.
Finally, after many tearsome talks on the couch, my son was able to explain his own resistance: writing is hard, and he doesn’t like having to do the work (Ouch! That sounds familiar). The rest of his schoolwork has come easy to him. Aha.
I wanted to home school my son partially so that he’d be constantly challenged and learn how to work. He’s really smart, and really lazy. I went to college with too many people like this. They’d cruised through their school careers thinking everything could be easy for them only to find themselves unprepared for the hard work of college and the realization that personal relationships couldn’t be aced like a test.
Of course, this means that I’m the sucker who has to deal with the tears, complaints, and prepubescent drama. I’ve got to be the wall he slams against before he sits back down and does his work. This may not be happy, but it’s healthy. Meanwhile, my empty desk chair beckons. On the plus side, my son seems to have learned something, because he’s finally worked hard and written a few very good stories.
I, on the other hand, have a Buffy DVD to watch.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Emotional Intelligence
I know that the nine-year-old can be difficult and moody, but when mine wrote “2008—another year to live through” in his journal, it got me to thinking: those teenage years are going to be bad, bad, bad. Sure, there’s no way to guarantee your kid isn’t going to be miserable or get into trouble, but there’s got to be some way to help inoculate them against the troubles of life.
And so I found The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience, by Martine E. P. Seligman, Ph.D. It gives tools for teaching kids how to develop self-awareness and think critically about their emotions. The gist of the book is that while you can’t control what happens to you, you can recognize and control your thoughts and understand how your feelings arise from these thoughts.
For example, if your friends are whispering to each other at your birthday party, you could respond in several ways. First, you might think “They’re making fun of me and I hate them, I should never have had a party!” Feeling bad yet? Or, you could think “Oh, I’ll bet they’re telling each other about what they got me for presents!” Why feel miserable if the feeling is unfounded? I know which one my son would pick.
As wonderful as all the ideas sounded, the rub was that in order to teach them to your kids, you have to practice them yourself first (and catch yourself if you’re thinking “Oh darn, I’m awful at this, I’ll never be able to do it!”). So after attempting to get enough sleep, meditate in the morning, and have several cups of coffee before my kids woke up, I shut the Mommy Monster in the closet and rolled up my sleeves.
Mid-morning, my son was trying to copy over a story he’d written, and kept forgetting to skip lines. “I’m lousy at writing!” he said, almost in tears. “I can’t do anything right.”
“Aha!” I said (probably a little overenthusiastically, and I’ll blame the coffee). “Give yourself a break—is that really true?” I pointed out that he’d written a really good story, and that his handwriting was even fairly decent. It seemed to me, I said, that the only real problem he was having was remembering to skip lines. “What do you think we could do to help you remember?” I asked. We made little dashes down the page to remind him to skip lines, and he got back to work without any further trauma.
It remains to be seen whether either of us is more emotionally intelligent yet, but I’d argue that averting just that one meltdown was worth the price of the book. If I’m lucky, my son will be able to provide me the same service the next time I lose my keys.
And so I found The Optimistic Child: A Proven Program to Safeguard Children Against Depression and Build Lifelong Resilience, by Martine E. P. Seligman, Ph.D. It gives tools for teaching kids how to develop self-awareness and think critically about their emotions. The gist of the book is that while you can’t control what happens to you, you can recognize and control your thoughts and understand how your feelings arise from these thoughts.
For example, if your friends are whispering to each other at your birthday party, you could respond in several ways. First, you might think “They’re making fun of me and I hate them, I should never have had a party!” Feeling bad yet? Or, you could think “Oh, I’ll bet they’re telling each other about what they got me for presents!” Why feel miserable if the feeling is unfounded? I know which one my son would pick.
As wonderful as all the ideas sounded, the rub was that in order to teach them to your kids, you have to practice them yourself first (and catch yourself if you’re thinking “Oh darn, I’m awful at this, I’ll never be able to do it!”). So after attempting to get enough sleep, meditate in the morning, and have several cups of coffee before my kids woke up, I shut the Mommy Monster in the closet and rolled up my sleeves.
Mid-morning, my son was trying to copy over a story he’d written, and kept forgetting to skip lines. “I’m lousy at writing!” he said, almost in tears. “I can’t do anything right.”
“Aha!” I said (probably a little overenthusiastically, and I’ll blame the coffee). “Give yourself a break—is that really true?” I pointed out that he’d written a really good story, and that his handwriting was even fairly decent. It seemed to me, I said, that the only real problem he was having was remembering to skip lines. “What do you think we could do to help you remember?” I asked. We made little dashes down the page to remind him to skip lines, and he got back to work without any further trauma.
It remains to be seen whether either of us is more emotionally intelligent yet, but I’d argue that averting just that one meltdown was worth the price of the book. If I’m lucky, my son will be able to provide me the same service the next time I lose my keys.
Zombies Ain't So Bad
It’s my personal opinion that games are a great way to teach, and if a game has zombies in it, well hey—that’s a bonus in my book. There’s nothing like a little undead to liven things up.
Zombie Fluxx is a riff on the original Fluxx, a card game put out by Looney Labs (www.LooneyLabs.com). The game starts out with only one rule—draw one, play one. There are four different kinds of cards: Keepers, Goals, Actions, and New Rules. Keepers are cards you place in front of you to help you win, such as “bread” and “the toaster.” Goal cards specify what keepers or conditions you need to have to win; for example, if you have the previously mentioned keepers in front of you and you can put down the “Toast (must have bread and toaster)” goal card, you win. Action cards let you do things like steal a keeper, or switch hands.
The real fun of the game comes with the New Rule cards. Each New rule either adds on to or supersedes the previous ones—so at any one time there are likely to be multiple rules (i.e. “Draw Three,” “Play Two,” “Hand Limit One,” “Dual Goals”) that you need to keep track of. The rules, and goals, change all the time. It’s great for encouraging reasoning, logical thought, and rule-processing skills.
Needless to say, this type of game appeals largely to boys and left-brained people. I’ve tried to play this game with a bunch of women on a girls’ cabin weekend, and nearly got chucked out on my head in the snow.
Zombie Fluxx is all this and more. In addition to Keepers, you have “Creepers,” or zombies—individuals, pairs, trios, and the occasional undead quartet. Part of the challenge is figuring out what to do with your zombies (isn’t that always the case?); do you keep them, try to kill them, or better yet, force some to flee to your neighbors? With some of the goals, you can only win if you have no zombies (for example: “Getaway Driver…You win if you have the Car and at least one Friend Keeper on the table in front of you…and no Zombies!”) For some, you must have Zombies (i.e. “Brain Baseball…You win if you have Brains and the Baseball Bat and at least one Zombie on the table” or my personal favorite, “Zombie Baseball Team…You win if you have at least 9 Zombies in front of you along with the Baseball Bat.”)
My nine-year old son and two of his friends (including one girl who, granted, is a rather left-brained fan of Norm from “This Old House”) had a great time with this game. At one point, they successfully juggled ten rules, full hands and multiple Zombies. “I’ve got Zombies and I’ve got Wood!” one of them cried excitedly.
In addition to Fluxx and Zombie Fluxx, one can get Eco Flux, Spanish Fluxx, and Jewish and Christian Booster packs. I’ve even seen a teacher-made version of “Music Fluxx.” If you’re up for a challenge, you can mix your games together. Can you just imagine—“Rosh Hashanah…You win if you have Friends and Challah…and no Zombies!”
My favorite part of Zombie Fluxx, however, is the New Rule “Zombies Ain’t So Bad.” With this card on the table, you can win with Zombies even if the current Goal says you can’t win if you have any Zombies. Sometimes, things just aren’t as bad as they seem—now isn’t that a great message to send our kids?
Zombie Fluxx is a riff on the original Fluxx, a card game put out by Looney Labs (www.LooneyLabs.com). The game starts out with only one rule—draw one, play one. There are four different kinds of cards: Keepers, Goals, Actions, and New Rules. Keepers are cards you place in front of you to help you win, such as “bread” and “the toaster.” Goal cards specify what keepers or conditions you need to have to win; for example, if you have the previously mentioned keepers in front of you and you can put down the “Toast (must have bread and toaster)” goal card, you win. Action cards let you do things like steal a keeper, or switch hands.
The real fun of the game comes with the New Rule cards. Each New rule either adds on to or supersedes the previous ones—so at any one time there are likely to be multiple rules (i.e. “Draw Three,” “Play Two,” “Hand Limit One,” “Dual Goals”) that you need to keep track of. The rules, and goals, change all the time. It’s great for encouraging reasoning, logical thought, and rule-processing skills.
Needless to say, this type of game appeals largely to boys and left-brained people. I’ve tried to play this game with a bunch of women on a girls’ cabin weekend, and nearly got chucked out on my head in the snow.
Zombie Fluxx is all this and more. In addition to Keepers, you have “Creepers,” or zombies—individuals, pairs, trios, and the occasional undead quartet. Part of the challenge is figuring out what to do with your zombies (isn’t that always the case?); do you keep them, try to kill them, or better yet, force some to flee to your neighbors? With some of the goals, you can only win if you have no zombies (for example: “Getaway Driver…You win if you have the Car and at least one Friend Keeper on the table in front of you…and no Zombies!”) For some, you must have Zombies (i.e. “Brain Baseball…You win if you have Brains and the Baseball Bat and at least one Zombie on the table” or my personal favorite, “Zombie Baseball Team…You win if you have at least 9 Zombies in front of you along with the Baseball Bat.”)
My nine-year old son and two of his friends (including one girl who, granted, is a rather left-brained fan of Norm from “This Old House”) had a great time with this game. At one point, they successfully juggled ten rules, full hands and multiple Zombies. “I’ve got Zombies and I’ve got Wood!” one of them cried excitedly.
In addition to Fluxx and Zombie Fluxx, one can get Eco Flux, Spanish Fluxx, and Jewish and Christian Booster packs. I’ve even seen a teacher-made version of “Music Fluxx.” If you’re up for a challenge, you can mix your games together. Can you just imagine—“Rosh Hashanah…You win if you have Friends and Challah…and no Zombies!”
My favorite part of Zombie Fluxx, however, is the New Rule “Zombies Ain’t So Bad.” With this card on the table, you can win with Zombies even if the current Goal says you can’t win if you have any Zombies. Sometimes, things just aren’t as bad as they seem—now isn’t that a great message to send our kids?
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