UGA researchers: Boys meaner than girls at school

1. A willingness to try new things

2. Pride in taking care of themselves

3. Respect for their home and family

4. Appreciation for rest time

5. Awareness and connection to life around them

As parents we always want to try raise the best kids and often I wonder cano I raise a child that is successful and caring? The research seems to show they parents need to start by looking  at the mixed messages we send. 

If you were asked to rank in order of importance academic achievement, happiness, and care for others as priorities for our young people today, how would you respond?

If you’re like most parents and teachers in the U.S., you would place the highest importance on care for others—a very worthy choice and one that science suggests can actually increase the other two outcomes. 

 

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Yet, a recent U.S. survey of 10,000 middle and high school students conducted by Harvard’s Making Caring Common Project revealed that students believe their parents and teachers prioritize academic achievement and happiness over caring. 

In other words, students are receiving the message from adults that personal success is more important than concern for others. With that being the case, it becomes easier to understand why cheating is rampant among students.

This is a wake-up call for us adults. Even though we may view ourselves as very caring people, and think we’re promoting this value to our young ones, somewhere there’s a disconnect that we need to remedy—and the not-so-easy answer lies within ourselves.

The complexity of care

If getting adults to “walk the talk” of care was as easy as reminding them that they need to do so, then our problem would be solved. But care is very complex, impacted by things such as cultural beliefs and attachment security, and making it a priority in our and our children’s lives sometimes requires us to deeply introspect on how care manifests or not in daily life. 

For example, in a game called “Compassion Continuum” designed by compassion-expert Brooke Dodson-Lavelle, adult participants are asked how much compassion they would feel for their child who gave a speech in school and failed. Most people respond that they would feel a lot of compassion. Then they are asked how much compassion they would feel for another child who had given a speech and failed, but who had also bullied the participant’s own child. As you can imagine, the responses are all over the board—a perfect example of how caring for others is not always black and white and perhaps one reason why our youth, who are equipped with hyper-sensitive radar for hypocrisy, are getting mixed messages from adults.

Ultimately, our view of care is wrapped up in who we are—it’s part of our identity. And, according to Harvard professor and adult development expert Robert Kegan, changing part of one’s identity requires transformation at our deepest core. While the process is neither fast nor easy, it can yield great rewards.

Changing our view of care

After decades of research and practice in adult learning, Kegan posits that in order to truly change, we have to become aware of our unconscious emotions, habits, and beliefs that run our lives so that we can instead reflect on these internal constructs and change them if necessary. 

But this unearthing process can elicit anxiety. For example, many parents and teachers know something has to change with the staggering pressure our students are under to succeed academically, particularly as this pressure is leading to an increase in mental illness. 

Need more ideas on how to cultivate caring children?

Click here for a downloadable, reader-friendly list of research-based suggestions from Harvard's Making Caring Common Project.

However, the thought of having to change our beliefs about success fills many of us with anxiety because it would require us to consider our own identity around success. A parent who is concerned about the academic pressure on his or her child may be forced to examine the belief that getting into a top university will lead to a materially successful life. Upon deeper self-examination, the parent may be surprised to find that this belief is supported by other beliefs such as a materially successful life is the only way a child will be secure and happy in this world. And if a child is not secure and happy, then the parent has potentially failed in his or her parental responsibility. 

The depth of this kind of reflection may be too threatening for many of us. Thus, we unconsciously manage this anxiety by continuing on with status quo. And, hence, our children might get the message that success is more important to us than care.

So how do we start aligning our priority of care with our actions? The process that Kegan and co-author Lisa Lahey outline in their book Immunity to Change is a multi-step approach, the explanation of which would require more room than I have in this blog. However, I can offer these few suggestions based on their work:

1. Start by reflecting on the care you give and receive in your life—or lack thereof—in order to bring to conscious awareness how much care impacts you. Examine how you care for yourself and how you and your loved ones—including your pets—care for each other. Then expand this view to include the care between you and a stranger on the street, the grocery clerk, and/or a difficult work colleague. Now broaden your view of care to examine care at a societal level, from business practices to childcare options to equity to gender roles to political systems.

Did you find yourself getting emotional at any point in this reflection? For example, did a situation that lacks care make you feel angry or scared or sad? If so, why? Kegan and Lahey state that underlying every challenging situation or behavior is an “emotional ecology” that we must explore in order to understand where our potential limitations lie, and their book outlines a very specific and in-depth process to do so. Only when these limitations that have been driving our actions without us realizing it are brought to conscious awareness can we start to change them.

And once you’ve identified these limiting behaviors, Kegan suggests that instead of trying to defend them, admit them with all “their embarrassing glory”. I would also recommend practicing self-compassion, realizing, as self-compassion expert Kristin Neff posits, that you’re not alone. All of humanity struggles with challenging internal constructs. 

2. Ask yourself if there is enough at stake to warrant a change. According to Kegan and Lahey, the process of transformation at this depth can be very challenging, so we have to be sure that we’re willing to try. They have found that people are motivated to change for several reasons, including: if they don’t change, something or someone they love will be harmed; not reaching a goal has become impossible to live with; or there is “deep discrepancy” within themselves.

For instance, a teacher or parent who learns that at the root of a child’s anxiety and panic is the child’s belief that he or she is loved and accepted only when academically successful may be motivated to make some radical changes in his or her own behavior and beliefs.

3. Test out new ways of being. Once you have identified a core limitation, then Kegan and Lahey recommend trying another mode of behavior that acts against this limitation. For example, if you responded with anger to a bullying situation similar to the one described above—anger that was perhaps motivated by your own experience of being bullied—you might try acting compassionately towards the bully and see what happens. If you notice a positive change, then keep doing it.

The reward for all this inner work, according to Kegan and Lahey, is a release from the anxiety caused by the denial of our unconscious emotions, beliefs, and habits. “You [will be able to] scan the world,” write the authors, “for more promising possibilities and bring to your own living a deep restfulness that you may never before have known.” 

By examining and shifting our beliefs and practices of care, we may find that our relationships with ourselves, our loved ones, our colleagues, strangers on the street, and perhaps the rest of the world are transformed into something we could never have imagined—and we may become more successful and happier as a result.

Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a begger; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” And I would add that part of that restructuring includes ourselves.

1. Make connections 

2. 
   Teach your child how to make friends, including the skill of empathy, or feeling another's pain. Encourage your child to be a friend in order to get friends. Build a strong family network to support your child through his or her inevitable disappointments and hurts. At school, watch to make sure that one child is not being isolated. Connecting with people provides social support and strengthens resilience. Some find comfort in connecting with a higher power, whether through organized religion or privately and you may wish to introduce your child to your own traditions of worship.

4. Help your child by having him or her help others 

5. 
   Children who may feel helpless can be empowered by helping others. Engage your child in age-appropriate volunteer work, or ask for assistance yourself with some task that he or she can master. At school, brainstorm with children about ways they can help others.

7. Maintain a daily routine 

8. 
   Sticking to a routine can be comforting to children, especially younger children who crave structure in their lives. Encourage your child to develop his or her own routines.

10. Take a break 

11. 
    While it is important to stick to routines, endlessly worrying can be counter-productive. Teach your child how to focus on something besides what's worrying him. Be aware of what your child is exposed to that can be troubling, whether it be news, the Internet or overheard conversations, and make sure your child takes a break from those things if they trouble her. Although schools are being held accountable for performance on standardized tests, build in unstructured time during the school day to allow children to be creative.

13. Teach your child self-care 

14. 
    Make yourself a good example, and teach your child the importance of making time to eat properly, exercise and rest. Make sure your child has time to have fun, and make sure that your child hasn't scheduled every moment of his or her life with no "down time" to relax. Caring for oneself and even having fun will help your child stay balanced and better deal with stressful times.

16. Move toward your goals 

17. 
    Teach your child to set reasonable goals and then to move toward them one step at a time. Moving toward that goal — even if it's a tiny step — and receiving praise for doing so will focus your child on what he or she has accomplished rather than on what hasn't been accomplished, and can help build the resilience to move forward in the face of challenges. At school, break down large assignments into small, achievable goals for younger children, and for older children, acknowledge accomplishments on the way to larger goals.

19. Nurture a positive self-view 

20. 
    Help your child remember ways that he or she has successfully handled hardships in the past and then help him understand that these past challenges help him build the strength to handle future challenges. Help your child learn to trust himself to solve problems and make appropriate decisions. Teach your child to see the humor in life, and the ability to laugh at one's self. At school, help children see how their individual accomplishments contribute to the wellbeing of the class as a whole.

22. Keep things in perspective and maintain a hopeful outlook 

23. 
    Even when your child is facing very painful events, help him look at the situation in a broader context and keep a long-term perspective. Although your child may be too young to consider a long-term look on his own, help him or her see that there is a future beyond the current situation and that the future can be good. An optimistic and positive outlook enables your child to see the good things in life and keep going even in the hardest times. In school, use history to show that life moves on after bad events.

25. Look for opportunities for self-discovery 

26. 
    Tough times are often the times when children learn the most about themselves. Help your child take a look at how whatever he is facing can teach him "what he is made of." At school, consider leading discussions of what each student has learned after facing down a tough situation.

28. Accept that change is part of living 

29. 
    Change often can be scary for children and teens. Help your child see that change is part of life and new goals can replace goals that have become unattainable. In school, point out how students have changed as they moved up in grade levels and discuss how that change has had an impact on the students.

They say in America these days our kids are having less opportunities to be challenged in a positive way and therefore having a negative impact on them as adults.

Please read below and see how camp can help supplement your child's personal growth.

Competence

• Helping children focus on individual strengths
• Focusing any identified mistakes on specific incidents
• Empowering children to make decisions
• Being careful that your desire to protect your child doesn’t mistakenly send a message that you don’t think he or she is competent to handle things
• Recognizing the competencies of siblings individually and avoiding comparisons

Confidence

• Focusing on the best in each child so that he or she can see that, as well 
• Clearly expressing the best qualities, such as fairness, integrity, persistence, and kindness
• Recognizing when he or she has done well
• Praising honestly about specific achievements; not diffusing praise that may lack authenticity
• Not pushing the child to take on more than he or she can realistically handle

Connection

• Building a sense of physical safety and emotional security within your home 
• Allowing the expression of all emotions, so that kids will feel comfortable reaching out during difficult times 
• Addressing conflict openly in the family to resolve problems
• Creating a common area where the family can share time (not necessarily TV time)
• Fostering healthy relationships that will reinforce positive messages

Character

• Demonstrating how behaviors affect others
• Helping your child recognize himself or herself as a caring person
• Demonstrating the importance of community
• Encouraging the development of spirituality
• Avoiding racist or hateful statements or stereotypes

Contribution

• Communicating to children that many people in the world do not have what they need 
• Stressing the importance of serving others by modeling generosity
• Creating opportunities for each child to contribute in some specific way

Coping

• Modeling positive coping strategies on a consistent basis
• Guiding your child to develop positive and effective coping strategies
• Realizing that telling him or her to stop the negative behavior will not be effective 
• Understanding that many risky behaviors are attempts to alleviate the stress and pain in kids’ daily lives 
• Not condemning your child for negative behaviors and, potentially, increasing his or her sense of shame

Control

• Helping your child to understand that life’s events are not purely random and that most things that happen are the result of another individual’s choices and actions 
• Learning that discipline is about teaching, not punishing or controlling; using discipline to help your child to understand that his actions produce certain consequences

• Children need to know that there is an adult in their life who believes in them and loves them unconditionally.
• Kids will live “up” or “down” to our expectations. 

Overview of Stress

• There will always be stress in our lives. 
• Stress is an important tool that can aid in our survival.
• Our body’s reaction to stress is mediated through a complex interplay of sensory input—sights and sounds—as well as the brain and nervous system, hormones, and the body’s cells and organs.
• Emotions play an important role in how we experience stress because the brain is the conductor of this system. The way we think about stress and what we choose to do about it can affect the impact of a stressful event.

Daily at camp we promote Grataude. It can come in many way from enjoying our nice weather, nature or even friendships. We believe if gratitude was part of very life we would build a kinder group of folks. I recently found this article that we think could help parents continue what we do at SNC.

10 Ways to Build Gratitude In Our Children

by Darcy Kimmel