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Courage Question of the Day

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Lion’s Whiskers asks: What life skills do you want to teach your child before he/she leaves home? 
For example: How to make fire…you never know when the Survivor producers may call? How to set the table and say “please” & “thank you”? How to raise money for a worthwhile cause and care about the planet they will inherit?  How to call 911?  How to use a knife in food preparation? How to wash laundry (without everything becoming grey), stain-remove, fold, and actually put it all away?  How to ride a bike or drive a car (safely)!?

Please leave your thoughts in the comments!

The Cheese Stands Alone

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I hit a parenting low point the other day.  I drove a piece of cheese to my son’s middle school.  Just the cheese and I, buckled in safely, driving together across town to attend my son’s French 8 Mardi Gras party.  I wasn’t invited, just the cheese.
The cheese was my cross to bear after being interviewed recently for a parenting magazine about when it is okay to rescue our kids, and deliver the cheese when they forget it, and when it’s not okay.  I’d shared with the magazine writer that I’m coaching my kids to be courageous in life primarily through encouraging an internal locus of control.  For example, I discuss with my kids at the beginning of each year what their responsibilities are and what mine are.  I also offer one free rescue per year.  This year both my kids used their freebie in the first few weeks of school.  I was able to do them that favor. Heck, I was even happy to help.  But I was clear that I would not be doing it again.  Since then, I’ve received no calls from my daughter and three more phone calls from my son begging me, in a pleading tone coupled with long awkward pauses.  “I don’t have any lunch money!” “I forgot to get you to sign my assignment, I’m gonna’ lose 15 points if you don’t sign my assignment today.” “I need my rowing gear.”  I problem-solved with him by phone and got him to identify a few possible solutions, but I didn’t rescue him. I know, I sound hard-core right?  Well, that’s the thing about coaching courageous kids who have a belief and expectancy that they are the masters of their own destiny, as their parent you sometimes have to be hard-core.

Why won’t I rescue my kids? Emergencies are one thing, but delivering cheese is quite another.  Basically, I want them to believe and act as if what happens to them in life is to a great degree within their control.  I want them to learn to rescue themselves.  Yes, random acts of violence do happen, disasters strike, devastating diagnoses are received.  But psychology and social learning research is clear, we are healthier, more powerful, confident, and resilient when we develop an internal locus of control and take responsibility for the circumstances and choices that shape our lives.  This requires courage!

Here’s the thing, none of us is all internal or external in our locus of control.  Everyone forgets things occasionally.  Everyone needs to cut themselves some slack once in awhile.  No one deserves a terrible tragedy befalling them.  But, if we protect our children from experiencing the consequences of their choices and actions, even their memory lapses, we are reinforcing as fact that they are not the masters of their destiny. 

As I’ve written previously, the good news is that we have a lot of influence as parents in helping our child develop a secure, self-motivating, self-discipline-inducing internal locus of control.  The bad news, it’s hard to do!  Here’s my advice:  set-out the family rules clearly, encourage self-discipline and responsibility-taking, build in some room for exceptional exceptions, and be consistent.
So why did I make an exception for the cheese you ask? I accepted responsibility for disregarding the reminder email from his classroom teacher, so it make me weak-willed to decline his request when he called from the bus that morning.  The school staff was kind when I delivered the cheese. I tried to hold my head high.  When I asked if this kind of thing happens often, they said “Too often! Usually it’s the same kids, and their parents send in granny, auntie, and friend reinforcements when they can’t rescue their kid.”
What happened to the cheese?  Well, after we bid our goodbyes, my son heard over the school-wide P.A. system, “Could the person who just took the cheese from the main office please return it?  It’s not your cheese!”  “Oh, My God!” my son responded in his science class, “That’s MY cheese.  Someone took my cheese!”  His teacher, needless to say, thought the scenario totally ridiculous, burst out laughing, and allowed my boy to go get his cheese all on his own. 

I personally respect and love my kids’ teachers because they rarely email me, but instead choose to empower my ‘tween and teen kids with their own school responsibilities.  I think it takes courage for teachers to take on the complaining parent who still expects that our children be spoon-fed.  It was up to us to spoon-feed our infant and to teach him/her to independently use a spoon.  Teachers work hard enough, asking them to also overfunction as our child’s parent, is just too much to ask.

When my son was heading to bed, I asked him if he understood why I had decided to rescue him and bring him the cheese.  “’Cause it was a nice thing to do?  It made you feel like a good mom?”  “Sweet of you to say, but no. I did it because I owned 100% of my part of the problem. I disregarded the email from your teacher. I did not feel in integrity though today and want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. I would strongly suggest that you use your school planner more.” I also asked him, “Do you know what I mean when I say ‘being out of integrity’?”  “Yeah, Mom. You are out of integrity when you have to say something to me twice.”  Busted!
If we make a family rule, explain it clearly to our kids, ask if there are any questions (e.g. “Do you understand this rule?” “Do you understand what’s expected of you?”), and make an agreement as a family to follow through, we shouldn’t need to remind or reprimand. If we do, we are reinforcing an external locus of control in ourselves and our children.  We are, in essence saying “My word doesn’t mean much. You and I aren’t capable of following our own rules; we need help from outside sources.” We then nurture dependence not courage in our kids, and will find ourselves driving a piece of cheese to school. 

Lunch Letters

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Every day since K. arrived in this country at the start of second grade, I put a note in her lunch bag. When her English and her literacy were still limited, these notes consisted of pretty simple statements. “I love you, love Mommy,” or “You are a good girl, love Mommy,” or “Do your best, love Mommy,” were in frequent rotation in big, legible printing. As her reading improved the notes got a little more complex: “Work hard and have fun in school, love Mommy” or “Play fair with your friends at recess, love Mommy.”

By the end of fourth grade, her reading was catching up, and the notes became even more complicated. I printed out a business card-sized form with the following request: “Notice something special about, or do something helpful for, or say something nice to __________ today and tell me about it at dinner.” Then I’d fill in the blank with a classmate’s name. At first I put in the names of the girls in her class. The result was fascinating, because when she turned her gaze in this way to the individual girls in sequence she spent attentive time with them, which strengthened existing friendships and created new ones. She was looking for good qualities, and offering encouraging words, and sharing herself more than usual, and the other children responded with affection.


Where it became very challenging for her at 10-almost-11 was when I started putting in the names of the boys in the class. I started with the easiest boy, the goofy and cheerful one. Even so, it was a struggle for her to admit that there might be admirable qualities in the boys, so I had to fish for them. “Is he good at drawing monkeys?” “Is he a good reader?” “Does he stay in tune when you sing?” “Does he have nice manners?” “Did you ever see him help someone?” For the most part, she will reluctantly admit to one good quality per boy, although whenever I suggest she tell the boy what her observation is she’s likely to roll her eyes or grab her throat and pretend to be choking.

In fifth grade I have added other names to these lunch notes – a teacher, a random first grader, a friend’s mom or dad – and asked her to search for the good in a wider circle. The more we notice what is unique in others, the more we recognize and respect them as people with stories of their own, not just as characters in our own life story.  This is what I was getting at when I wrote about how everyone is a hero. When our social courage and emotional courage are strong, we can reach out to make meaningful connections with other people.  We can even make the conscious choice to step into a secondary role in someone else’s story, to act as a helper or guide or companion, and then return to our own path.  My hope is that K. will find it easier and easier to offer words of praise and congratulation to the people around her as she grows up. It takes courage to encourage others, but I have confidence she can do it. Even with boys.

The Gate of Heaven and the Gate of Hell

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One of my greatest challenges in my own life has been admitting to intellectual errors. “I don’t know,” “I made a mistake,” and “I was wrong about that,” have always stuck in my throat, but since becoming a mother I’ve struggled to make them part of my vocabulary (it’s so painful!) How else to reassure my daughter that her many mistakes along the path of acquiring a new language and alphabet are not just forgivable, but normal? This is a personal courage challenge I am constantly working at – to notice my mistakes, forgive myself, and move on, and to let my daughter see me do this. There is nothing to be gained by stubbornly clinging to an idea or answer or plan of action simply because we can’t admit we’ve made a mistake.

Here is a famous Zen story about intellectual courage, the ability to own our mistakes and change course.
One day a samurai visited the great Zen teacher, Haku-in. “My question is this: does paradise exist? Does hell exist?” asked the warrior.
Haku-in looked him up and down. “Who wants to know?” he said in a bored voice.
The samurai glared, very indignant. “I am a samurai! I protect the Shogun.”
“Really? You don’t seem that impressive, frankly.”
“What?” The warrior unsheathed his sword. “How dare you insult me!”
Haku-in glanced at the sword. “I doubt you can slice a melon with that, let alone cut off my head.”
With a cry of fury, the samurai raised the blade high.
“Behold! The gate of hell is opened,” Haku-in said.
In that moment, the warrior recognized the lesson the brave master was teaching, and replaced his sword in its scabbard.
“Behold, “ said Haku-in. “Now opens the gate to paradise.”

Courage Book Review – The Wanderer

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Last week I reviewed two illustrated versions of the Iliad.  Today, we take up the tale with adaptations for kids of the Odyssey.  Although with the earlier epic highlighted the control of the gods, the takeaway for this week is self-control.  Once again, we explore internal vs. external locus of control.
The Wanderings of Odysseus: The Story of the Odyssey [WANDERINGS OF ODYSSEUS -OS]Again, we have the masterful Rosemary Sutcliff at work with The Wanderings of Odysseus.  As many adapters of the story do, she rearranges the events into a chronological narrative.  (The original is full of flashbacks and intercut with “meanwhile, in Ithaca” scenes.)  Sutcliff moves Odysseus briskly from the smoldering ruins of Troy to the island of the Cyclops, where they are captured by the bloodthirsty Polyphemus.   From the extreme external locus of control found in the Iliad, we now have an interior locus of control.  “The Greeks were near despair.  But there was a plan forming in Odysseus’ head, by which he might save at least some of them.”   In Homer (I have the Fitzgerald translation) Odysseus says, “And now I pondered how to hurt him worst, if but Athena granted what I prayed for.  Here are the means I thought would serve my turn.”  Odysseus gets credit now for the plan; you may recall Athena was responsible for putting the thought of the Trojan Horse into his mind.  So we have moved to an interior locus of control in this narrative – and it will be much to the regret of Odysseus, for as they escape from the blinded Cyclops, the cunning man gloats and mocks: “If anyone asks who blinded you, tell them it was Odysseus, son of Laertes and Lord of Ithaca, Odysseus the Sacker of Cities!”  It is this moment of foolish braggadocio that costs Odysseus so dearly, for Polyphemus cries out to his father, Poseidon, god of the sea, to take revenge.  Oops.

The Adventures of OdysseusA beautifully illustrated version of the story, The Adventures of Odysseus by Hugh Lupton and Daniel Morden, although shorter and with fewer episodes, follows the structure of the original more closely.  We have a quick prologue about the Trojan War and then “Nine long years had passed since that great and terrible victory.”  The retellers give us a quick update on Penelope besieged by suitors on Ithaca, and then show us Odysseus washed up on the shores of King Alcinous’ island.  Brought in as a nameless guest, Odysseus begins to cry as a bard sings of the Trojan War.  Here, the tale begins in his voice, as he relates the dangers and tragedies Poseidon has subjected him to.  Here is Odysseus describing the events in the cave of the Cyclops.  “One of my crew drew his sword and stepped forward, intending to plunge the blade through the Cyclops’ skin and kill him as he slept.  I had to restrain him.  The Cyclops was our only means of escape.”  In this version the plan for blinding Polyphemus is presented as more of a group effort.   But then, at the escape, “I had to gloat.  ‘Polyphemus!  It was not Nobody who blinded you!  It was somebody!  It was Odysseus!  A ram among sheep!  King of rocky Ithaca!  Remember my name for the rest of your life of stumbling darkness!'” 
With both books we have the revenge of Poseidon which drags out Odysseus’ return for ten weary years.  Ten years is a long time to repent of gloating and bragging!  When Odysseus does finally reach Ithaca, his self-control is astonishing, for he does not run immediately to the wife he has been yearning for all these years.  No, he has to lay his plans for ridding his palace of the destructive suitors and reclaiming his rights as king.  In both versions, the destruction of the suitors is complete and merciless, meted out after careful, self-controlled planning.  You may have qualms about this aspect of the story, but it is true to the original.  And it does show an interior locus of control!  Both adaptations are excellent, although the Lupton/Morden retelling is shorter.  They are both great for older (10 or 11 and up) independent readers or for sharing aloud with them.  As with the Iliad retellings, these may be picture books but they are not for young children.  Not only is the violence quite gruesome, but the questions about responsibility and self-control are much more appropriate to tweens.  For them, both books are highly recommended.

Are You Raising an Outy?

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What does internal vs. external locus of control have to do with coaching courage in my child? 

Firstly, the cool thing about locus of control is that it is one of those few areas where parenting really matters!  It seems that locus of control is not a genetically-driven trait, but more a nurtured and learned personality adaptation.  The goal in parenting is for children to develop an increasingly internal locus of control over time, combined with a flexibility to move along the continuum depending on life circumstances. 

Given that a child’s sense of diminished control over his/her environment is associated with psychological vulnerability to anxiety in particular, it is imperative that parents coach their kids to really listen to their own inner thoughts, values, feelings, and body.  The more children believe that they are active agents in the successes or failures of their lives—the more likely they are to take responsibility for their actions and develop the six types of courage.

Secondly, the natural evolution for a child is to move from more of an external locus of control (relying on his/her parents, peers, luck, or other external circumstances to guide decision-making and behavior) to an internal locus of control (whereby a child is more self-motivated, self-disciplined, and believes his/her behavior is guided by personal decisions and/or efforts).  It is our role as our child’s parent to coach them to take increasing responsibility in their lives.  We do our children a grave disservice if we continually protect them from the consequences of their own behavior, for example. 

We’re all likely to want to rescue our child at some point during their development: deliver a forgotten instrument to school, pick up their smelly laundry off their bedroom floor, or sell their raffle tickets for the baseball team fundraiser.  But, here’s the thing: if we continue to be our child’s rescuer, he/she will be less prepared or emotionally, physically, morally, spiritually, socially or intellectually equipped to handle the challenges on the path ahead. 

No matter how uncomfortable it is to seem like a bad parent for not delivering the instrument, how nauseating the discarded dirty sock smell, or how much your kid will not look good to his/her coach and peers for only selling one raffle ticket.  Being willing to endure your child’s tantrum, the disapproval of others, and (OMG, if you’re like me this one really smarts) not looking good as a parent, leads to the long-term gain of your child’s increasing independence, confidence, and in psychology-speak self-efficacy. 

Trust me, you want your child to get the lesson the first time!  Otherwise, you can be assured you’ll be learning it again and again and again until your child achieves the kind of independence and self-efficacy needed to grow up.  My son only had to lock himself out of the house once to remember his keys for the next two years.  My daughter only had to forget her instrument once for her to remember that violin for the rest of the year.  Every time I overfunction and pick up the stinky socks at the same time I’m telling my son to do so, I’m turning him into an outy!  Surprisingly, he doesn’t seem so motivated to pick them up himself because the invisible laundry fairy continues to magically do it for him?!

The startling news is that today’s college student favors an external locus of control.  In other words, we may be dropping the ball as parents in preparing our kids to be powerful agents in their future success. Children and college students surveyed between 1960-2002 show that young Americans (by an astounding 80% increase) are more likely now than in previous generations to believe that the circumstances of their lives are controlled by outside forces instead of the result of their own efforts. Yikes!

This research could also be indicative of a significant cultural shift (since 1960) in favor of an external locus of control.  Kids are developing more of an external locus of control, not as healthy development would have it, by becoming increasingly dependent on their parents and/or influenced by outside others, forces, or trends. What does that mean about our children?  According to the meta-analysis conducted by Twenge, Zhang, & Im (2004):
         The results are consistent with an alienation model positing increases in cynicism, individualism, and the self-serving bias. The implications are almost uniformly negative, as externality is correlated with poor school achievement, helplessness, ineffective stress management, decreased self-control, and depression.
Read my previous post Are You an Inny or an Outy? to learn more about internal vs. external locus of control.  My next post, next Sunday, “The Cheese Stands Alone” will give an example of how humbling and hard it can be to raise an inny!

What are you doing to boost your own or your child’s internal locus of control?
Sources:
Chorpita, B. & Barlow, D. (1998). The development of anxiety: The role of control in the early environment. Psychological Bulletin, 124, (1­), 3-21.
Rotter, J.B. (1966). Generalized expectancies of internal versus external control of reinforcements. Psychological Monographs, 80, (whole no. 609). 
Twenge, J., Zhang, L., & Im, C. (2004). Itʼs beyond my control: a cross-temporal meta-analysis of increasing externality in locus of control, 1960-2002. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 8, (3), 308-319. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15454351
Weems, C. & Silverman, W. (2006). An integrative model of control: Implications for understanding emotion regulation and dysregulation in childhood anxiety. Journal of Affective Disorders, 91, (2), 113-124.

Courage Challenge of the Day

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Lion’s Whiskers offers this courage challenge: Before school ends this year and you’ve lost the chance to exercise your social courage muscles, look around:  Is there someone in your child’s class that you and your child haven’t spent much time with? 

Seize the opportunity to arrange an end-of-the-year playdate or a chance to hang out. This potential new friend or family could broaden your social horizons in ways you may not yet have even considered! Everybody has a story. Unless we create opportunities to connect, we may never get the chance to know how that story may add a new chapter to your own life story.
After you and your child have decided whom to invite and what might be fun to do together, your challenge as the parent is to make these arrangements on the phone or in-person while your child is present.  That way you are modeling the kind of social outreach, with all the polite, preamble, get-to-know-you conversation that that entails. Whether you have a preschooler, highschooler, or someone in between, it’s never too late to help your child create a new friendship.

“There are no strangers here;  Only friends you haven’t met yet.” ~ William Butler Yeats

 

What’s a true story from your life about a time you reached out to make a new friend or helped your child to do so?

The Rightful Heir

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Does every child experience doubts about his or her parents? As in, “I wonder if they are really my parents? Who am I, really?” It’s very common (according to Dr. Lisa, and especially if there is an older sibling who has planted a few seeds of doubt!) for children to suspect that they have somehow been switched at birth and ended up in the wrong family. We may share our children’s birth stories with them, but working against them we have many many stories throughout history that speak of doubt, in the form of “foundling” stories or stories of abandoned children who achieved greatness.

 

One of the greatest of these is the story of Moses in the bulrushes. Because the Pharoah had decreed that the first-born sons of the Hebrews in Egypt must be killed, Moses’s mother put him in a tightly-woven basket and set him adrift in the Nile, where she knew the Pharoah’s daughter would find him. Long story short: princess finds baby, princess raises baby as royal prince, baby grows up surrounded by Hebrew servants, learns he’s Hebrew, demands of Pharaoh: let my people go! Leads Hebrews out of Egypt, parts the Red Sea, Ten Commandments,  and we know how THAT story ends. 
Or take the story of King Arthur, raised by Sir Ector. Sent to fetch his foster father’s sword, young Arthur took a shortcut through town only to find a sword handily sticking out of a stone. Little did he know that the prophecy said only the rightful king would be able to draw it out – he just pulled it out and took it to Sir Ector. Imagine his surprise when it became clear that he had just proven himself the king of the Britons!
From the Brothers Grimm we have Fundevogel (Bird-Foundling); from Ancient Rome with have Romulus and Remus, founders of the great city and thus the empire; Persian legend tells us that Cyrus the Great had been abandoned at birth; Blackfoot legend tells us about the Orphan Boy and the Elk Dogs who brought horses to his people; Perseus, infant son of Zeus and a mortal woman was also set adrift in a box at sea, but became a great hero; from Cambodia the legend of Bikkhu Sok tells of an orphaned boy who became a most revered monk. This list goes on and on.

The hard facts from history are, of course, that there were many foundlings in generations and centuries past, in every part of the world. Babies and children were abandoned on purpose or by misfortune. Being taken in by another family, or by a religious order or into service was a lucky break, no matter how arduous that fate might have been; how often lost or abandoned children were left to fend for themselves (or more often, to die) is unclear, but undoubtedly the numbers were huge. Again and again in traditional tales from all cultures we see foundlings rising to glory, the ultimate triumph for any child who feels insignificant or powerless or friendless – and that means most children at one time or another.

(Ironically, I suppose, an adopted child, or should I say a child who knows she is adopted, is not subject to the fantasy that “these are not my real parents.” The question of “real parents” is a separate and complex issue for adopted and step-children, and not one I want to get into at this time, although trust me, as an adoptive mom I will have plenty to say about it later!)

You’ll also find this type of “rightful heir” or “child of destiny” story cropping up often in contemporary children’s literature. I give you two words: Harry Potter. Enough said. What foundling stories have to offer to children is a sense of destiny. No matter what your beginnings are or seem to be, you may yet rise to become a great leader, or the rightful heir to a glorious fate. If that fantasy inspires greater courage – moral courage, social courage, physical courage – that is a fine fantasy to inhabit.

For the impact of fairy tales on intellectual courage, please read “Relativity.”