Glitter & Razz Blog

If I had to pick the one thing that matters most to human happiness, I would say that our relationships with other people matter more than anything else.

Step #2 in Christine Carter’s Raising Happiness is entitled “Build a Village.”  This chapter breaks down why it is so important to your child’s overall health and happiness to be positively connected to other people and how you can help him/her be that way.

Inspired by this chapter and my own personal experience working with hundreds and hundreds of likable and unlikable kids, I care share with you the top 5 things you will want to teach and practice with your kids to make sure they have the social and emotional skills to be liked by and connected to other kids.  And yes, it can be taught!

1) Active Listening
Listen when someone is talking.  Make eye contact.  Ask the other person questions.  You know for yourself that you feel more important, valued, and appreciated when someone is really listening to you.  When you are with someone who makes you feel appreciated, you will most likely like that person, right?

I think this is the number 1 thing we can do to teach kids to be connected to other kids because it is so easy to teach.  All it takes is practice.  The reason why I see so many kids who don’t do this is because we don’t expect that they can.  But they can.  Even 4 year olds can.  I take that back…ESPECIALLY 4 year olds can.  4 year olds are just coming to the time in their lives when they understand the power and appeal of friendships.  Developmentally, they are shedding their completely self-centered ways and starting to believe that other people can actually be interesting.  This is the perfect time to teach them and practice active listening:

• Insist that your kids give you eye contact when you are talking to them.  Here’s the trick – make sure you give them the same courtesy.
• Coach them through a 2-sided conversation.  For example, “I just asked you how your day was and I listened to your answer.  Now, it’s your turn to ask me how my day was and you will listen to my answer.”  Here’s the trick – don’t talk too long.  They are only 4.  They will get bored.
• Celebrate them every time they are actively listening.  “Thanks so much for listening to me talk about my day.  I feel very special when you do that.”

2) Self Regulation
We know that kid that gets angry and frustrated all the time and takes it out physically and verbally on other kids.  We also know that kid who cries and whines all the time whenever something doesn’t go her way.  These kids are hard for other kids to be around.  For obvious reasons.  These kids need to learn how to control their feelings in healthy ways.  The main way for you to help them is for you to make it VERY clear, on a consistent basis, that their behavior is not okay.  Check out this cool article from PBS Kids that says, “From the start, set clear limits and provide simple explanations (”No biting. That hurts mommy.”) As your baby grows, try to be consistent as you express expectations and set rules or consequences.”

At Glitter & Razz, we begin each class and camp with a community circle where the kids have to experience a moment of silence together.  We talk about how this is the time for them to transform their free play energy into focused energy.  It’s a very successful practice.  Most of the time kids take this moment very seriously.  However, when they don’t, it’s a wonderful opportunity for modeling and reinforcing self-regulation.  The rule is to be silent.  That’s the boundary.  Any behavior outside of being silent is not tolerated.  So, when someone laughs or makes a silly noise or even breathes too hard, we either start the moment of silence again or we ask that person to step out of our circle.  This is teaching the kid that it is up to them to take care of themselves and that certain behaviors are appropriate at certain times.

3) Navigating Conflict
Kids will fight.  As Christine Carter points out, kids are more comfortable with conflict than adults are.  Conflict is not a problem.  Conflict is a good thing.  The problem is that kids have not yet learned how to work through conflicts.  It’s our job as adults to teach them.  People who can work through conflicts in peaceful, loving ways are well connected people, indeed.

We use a Peace Place to work out conflicts.  It’s a dedicated part of the room where a script hangs on the wall that helps kids work through conflicts.  It’s a classic I-Statement: I Feel___When You___I Need You to___and I promise I will____.

Read this to learn more about what Christine says about this.

4) Kindness
As a transition from “Kids Choice”, our free time time, to focused class time during our camps, we often give the kids an opportunity to share a celebration of someone who was kind to them during  Kids Choice.  We hear stuff like, “I celebrate Sarah because she played with me” or “I celebrate Ben because he helped me clean up the animal toys even though he wasn’t even playing with them.”  Kids appreciate kindness and generosity and want to be around it.  Christine writes in her book, “My guess is that most parents hope their children are kind, but few deliberately teach kindness in conscious ways.”  But, like all of  these skills, kindness can be taught if we as adults are modeling kind behavior ourselves, telling our kids what it looks like, and celebrating them when they do it.  “Raising Happiness” is chock full of ways to teach kindness to our kids.  Here is another good article I found online.

5) Play and Have Fun
Kids like kids who they can play with, have fun with.  This may seem like a no-brainer but we are seeing more and more instances of kids who just don’t know how to play.  We know the story.  Modern kids are overscheduled, have a lot more distractions, spend less time outside, spend more time isolated from other kids, etc. etc. etc.  My 8 year old niece once told me about a girl in her class at school that she didn’t like very much because, “she has no imagination!”

Kids, whose only real work IS to play, to make-believe, are coming to us at Glitter & Razz not very good at it.  When prompted to use their super power of imagination to make up stories or games or simply to play with wooden blocks or plastic animals during Kids Choice, we hear “I don’t know” or “what should I do right now” more often than feels natural. In these situations, our job as adults is not to tell them what to play.  That does not let them learn how to play.  My teachers and I just keep asking questions – questions that will inspire their creative muscles:

• Only you know what to do.  What do you think you should do right now?
• What does this block remind you of?
• What can you do with these blocks?
• What would happen if a zombie came in the room right now?
• What would happen if a zombie came into our story?

The play must come from them.  From their ideas and their imaginations.  The more they use their imagination muscles, the stronger they will be.  And the stronger they are at playing, the more fun they will be to the other kids.

This post is part of a series of posts as I read Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps For More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents in preparation of our event with the author, Christine Carter, PhD on March 20.  Click here for more information and to register for the event>>>

It’s such a simple idea: The happier we are, the happier our kids are.  Christine Carter calls it “Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask First.”  From her book:

Our own happiness as parents influences our children’s happiness in a variety of ways.  Extensive research has established a substantial link between mothers who feel depressed and “negative outcomes” in their children, such as acting out and other behavior problems…Children imitate their parents’ emotions as early as six days old…so if we model happiness – and all the skills that go with it – our kids are likely to imitate what we do.

What do you do just for yourself to make sure that you have the oxygen you need?

This post is part of a series of posts as I read Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps For More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents in preparation of our event with the author, Christine Carter, PhD on March 20.  Click here for more information and to register for the event>>>

I just received my copy of Christine Carter’s Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps For More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents. And I am excited beyond belief that Glitter & Razz will be hosting Dr. Carter next month for a book reading like none other. In our interactive learning event for whole family, parents will be in one room learning directly from Christine, hearing her read from her book, and asking her questions.

Meanwhile, downstairs in the Glitter & Razz Dramatic Play Space, their kids will be working together to create their own original play that explores what a happy childhood means from their perspective.

Christine’s thesis is that “happiness is a skill that we can teach our children.” And this book breaks down all kinds of ways to do just that. I love everything about this because we share this same idea here at Glitter & Razz – that if we provide safe but challenging spaces for kids to learn the social and emotional skills to improve their lives now, it will serve them for life and ultimately improve the planet.

Christine says it best at the end of her introduction – “When we become better parents, our world improves measurably. In our materially rich but spiritually sparse culture, we often forget that this work we do as parents is important, essential. It matters - for our children’s well-being and for the greater good of the world.”

I am reading the book now in preparation for the event.  Get your copy now or at the event from Diesel, A Bookstore right here on College Avenue.  And please read along with me.  I will be posting stuff I find interesting as I read.  I’d love to hear your comments.

We know from the latest science by folks like Carol Dweck and books like Nurtureshock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman that the praising children can actually help them do worse, rather than better.  That it’s much better to say “I see you working so hard” than “I see that you are so smart.”

This learning is key for the creative process.  Did you know that Ancient Greeks and Romans believed that genius had nothing to do with the individual talents or competencies of people?  In fact, geniuses were spirits assigned to us to help us do great work.  In this definition, the spirit provides the inspiration and we do the hard work to make it manifest here, on Earth.  Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love (one of my personal favorites) has an amazing TED Talk about this…

Whether or not you believe in spirits, the fact of the matter is that, this idea that we have been holding that some people are just born very very smart and others are not is not getting us anywhere.  It’s definitely not helping our kids learn any better.  When we start to understand that we may not understand exactly where genius comes from, but we do in fact understand how to work hard, make a bunch of mistakes, and keep working anyway, then we will at least be good partners with genius.  And we can pass that on to our kids.

It’s not even 8am on a Sunday morning and I have already given my 7th gift this week.  I gave it before I got out of bed.  When I finally did stumble out of bed this morning after not having enough sleep, my partner, Allison handed me her gift of a soy tea latte (our fave beverage these days) and said, “Can I tell you how you changed my life this morning?”

“Sure,” I said. “But, what did I do?  I just got up.”

She went on to explain that she woke up in a temper tantrum when Rufus, our Yorkie, insisted on being taken out to go potty (the nerve of him)…she also did not have enough sleep.  But then, she remembered the lesson that I taught the kids during our recent Thanksgiving Gratitude Camp and she was able to turn her mood around with the sheer power of focusing on the things that she was grateful for.

This is actually the 2nd time this week that I shared this lesson as 1 of my gifts.  The first was on Tuesday, Day 2 of my challenge, when a good friend and customer was talking to me about a struggle she had had with her daughter who had attended our Thanksgiving Camp.  I spent a good deal of time listening to her and sharing my views of the situation.  Then, I let her know that her daughter really responded well to the idea that focusing on your gratitudes can give you the power to change your situation around.  She accepted this idea freely and enthusiastically and said, “That’s definitely a tool I can use.”

My other gifts this week were:
Day 3 (Wed): I found this beautiful picture of a customer’s son from summer camp and sent it to her
Day 4 (Thursday): I bought lunch for my partner and my friend/office manager
Day 5 (Friday): I tipped the staff at a local bakery that I have never thought to tip before
Day 6 (Yesterday): I began buying materials for Christmas presents for my family yesterday…I am doing all homemade gifts this year.  But wait, I didn’t actually give them anything so…what else did I give yesterday?  Okay…here’s one…my partner and I were cleaning the house together but then she had to go to an appointment.  So, I finished it while she was gone so she could come home to a clean house.

That feels like a gift to me.

Poor Guy

Forgive me for the grossness of the next sentence.

Walking to work today, I saw a guy carrying a pancake-flat squirrel.  He was picking trash up on College Avenue and, after a candy wrapper or 2, he also picked up this squirrel, and threw them all in the garbage can.  I could not believe that this was someone’s job.  Although I hadn’t seen the squished squirrel before the guy picked it up, I have definitely seen my share of road kill and have often had the thought, “who’s the guy who has to pick that up?”  And here I was…walking behind that guy.

I was faced with an amazing opportunity to express gratitude.  And although I did hesitate (what was I supposed to say, exactly), I seized the moment.  “Excuse me.  Thanks so much for getting that squirrel out of the street.”

“No problem,” he said.  Really?

And thus began my 29 Gifts.  I was planning to begin the challenge tomorrow – Dec 1 seemed like the ideal time to begin a challenge like this (giving 1 thing away each day for 29 days).  But, I couldn’t let this opportunity pass me by.  I had to give this man the gift of thanks for doing what could possibly be the grossest job ever.  And, I am already starting to feel pretty good about it.

The best part is that my personal 29 Gift Challenge will culminate in our Glitter & Razz Winter Holiday Camps where we will be exploring the theme of generosity.  I will hopefully have learned a bunch about it by then to pass on to the kids.  And hopefully, all squirrels can keep themselves safe until then.

Gianna and Gus create artistic gifts for each other.

It’s a small group but sweet at pumpkin pie.  6 girls and 4 boys all making art and exploring the practice of gratitude during this Thanksgiving week camp.

“What are gratitudes,” I ask the group.  Blank stares all around.  It sounds kinda familiar to most but they can’t quite put their finger on the meaning of that big word.

“It’s like when you have a lot of feelings,” Gabriel, age 7 ventures a guess.  And I really wish that was the answer because I love that answer.

“Well, this is the week of Thanksgiving so I guess that it something to do with being thankful.” Madeleine, age 7, nails it.

So, all day we talked about these gratitudes.  Here are some of my favorites – Being Active, Carrots, My mom, my dad, my donor, kindergarten, movies, pink, blue, and – my number 1 favorite – Glitter & Razz.

In Move & Groove class, we created partner dances based on our gratitudes.  In Magic Messes (art class with a brand new teacher to us this time, Shanel) we created pieces of art for a partner.  I loved this activity.  Each partner had to talk about what he or she liked while the other partner had to listen.  And then, each person had to create a piece as a gift for their partner.  They shared it with teh full group before giving it to their partner.  At the end of the day, Sabine, age 5, said that she was grateful for being able to make a gift for your partner.  I loved hearing that.

In drama class, we began making up our play to be performed tomorrow.  We brainstormed as many gratitudes as we could think of and then created a bunch of little stories based on gratitudes that we picked randomly from the list.  Then, we put all of our ideas on one big piece of paper and attempted to take the best ideas and make them into one play.  We did a pretty good job and we are on our way to creating a play that involves a talking Tootsie Roll who is grateful to have her job at the zoo because, you know, “not very many people want to hire a tootsie roll” (says Sara, age 9).  She is so grateful that she will do anything to keep her job and she won’t let the vampire, the zombies, and the shape-shifters get in her way.  Intrigued?

More tomorrow…

I didn’t complete my task of 37 blog posts in 7 days.  Do you know how hard that is?  It is so hard that I have not blogged since then.  I felt too embarrassed.  But, I have bounced back because I am beginning to forgive myself and because I believe that you will forgive me.

Which brings me to a reflection on forgiveness.  Did you see Oprah yesterday and the story about the young man who attempts to rob a check cashing store in Indiana but winds up praying with his victim and then turning himself in?  This is an incredible story.  It is all about second chances and personal responsibility.  It is all about how making one (or 2 or 267) mistakes does not mean that you cannot get up the next morning and make another choice.  It’s all about the power of forgiveness in the personal development of both the forgiver and the forgived.

I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately.  Last month, I went to seminar by Dr. Fredric Luskin, a leading researcher and practitioner on forgiveness.  Before I went, I honestly didn’t know that I had a lot to learn about forgiveness.  But I did.  I do.  We all do.  Luskin said that the practice (yes, it’s ongoing) of forgiveness is learning how to bounce back when things don’t go the way you wanted them to.  How many times does this happen to us…that things don’t turn out the way we hoped?  How often does it happen to the children we work/play/live with?  What can we learn for ourselves and our children if we really practice forgiveness regularly?  What can learn if we stop blaming others or ourselves for all the things that happened before and ask ourselves instead, “What am I going to do about it now?”

The woman, the victim in the above-mentioned news story was on Oprah yesterday and had the opportunity to look the young man who had put a gun to her head in his crying and remorseful eyes and say, “I forgive you.  You know that you did wrong and that you have to pay the price for that.  But, don’t let what you did get in the way of what you can do in the future.”

If she can bounce back from that and he can bounce back from committing this crime and spending time in prison, then I sure can forgive myself for failing to write 37 blog posts in 7 days.

Do you see me blushing?

I’m embarrassed that I likely will not reach my goal of 37 blog posts before the end of Monday.  This one is only 8 and 29 in 3 days seems tough.  Who knows, there is still time and I am sitting here on my couch with my computer and my dogs with not much else to do today except this.  So, I might finish.

But, I may not.  And, according to recent studies, if I blush to show you that I am embarrassed by my transgressions, you will be more likely to forgive me.

This post is one of the 37 I have challenged myself to post in one week (in celebration of my 37th birthday).  Join me in the challenge.

There is quite a bit of interesting research on the practice of gratitude showing that it really is the key to happiness.  On your birthday or otherwise.  Today, on my 37^th Birthday, here are 37 things I am grateful for in my life (in no particular order):

1. I am grateful that Allison, my wife, is looking up the coconut cake recipe that she will use to bake a from-scratch cake for me today.
2. The goofy face of my dog, Rufus
3. The morning kisses from my dog, Roxie
4. The fact that my brother and I have gotten close enough (both in terms of geography and in terms of friendship) that he called me last night at my birthday happy hour just to send me best wishes (since he couldn’t be there himself)
5. Sally Woodhouse and her willingness and ability to love me and support me just when I need her the most
6. Just now, I heard a whole gaggle(?) of geese flying over head in a big dramatic display of nature and flight.  Somehow, I am grateful for having experienced that.
7. Allison’s enthusiasm for making my birthday a big deal
8. Allison for having this idea in the first place that I think of 37 things I am grateful for
9. Allison, in general
10. For the fact that, in the birthday party department of Glitter & Razz, business is picking up
11. A bunch of people registered for our Play in a Day Camps yesterday
12. Even though I just discovered that our cable is out at home (no tv or internet…seriously), I can go into Glitter & Razz where the internet is working to get online.
13. I am so grateful to the College Avenue Presbyterian Church for having us as tenets, supporting us when things go wrong, and being patient with us when we are late on the rent.
14. In fact, I am grateful to all of the folks I owe money to right now…their patience and understanding.
15. Getting to go to the theater tonight to see a MUSICAL…hey Wicked, here we come…
16. Teaching.  After almost 20 years, I can still find joy in teaching and learning from kids.
17. I get to drive a pick-up truck today through City Car Share (what a great program).
18. Facebook Birthday Wishes.  And E-mail birthday wishes.  And text message birthday wishes.  I don’t care what people say about technology killing human interaction.  In my life, it’s just not true.  I feel more connected to the people I care about than ever.  And I mean honest-to-goodness real human connections.
19. Peter Carpenter. What a tremendous amount of love and soul and genius in just one mere human.  Thank you so much for reaching out to me during this time (if anyone reading this is in Chicago, you must check out his new show which opens tomorrow!)
20. Maple Bacon Donuts from Dynamo in San Francisco
21. Claire Shaffer for her deep friendship, her passion and commitment for helping Glitter & Razz grow and thrive, and for introducing me to the Maple Bacon Donuts
22. My parents.  Of course.  Not only did they love me and provide for me in a way that all parents try to do (and we know that many don’t succeed), they also continue to be a source of support into my adulthood.  My 10 day retreat in their home last month was so joyous and relaxing.  Not only did I swim every day, I also wrote that article that I had been meaning to write for years.
23. Every kid I have ever taught.  Even the difficult ones.  Well, especially the difficult ones.  They taught me how to be a better teacher.
24. All of the parents, schools, and other customers of Glitter & Razz.  Not only do you keep us in business, you are also making the choice to join us in making this world a more creative and more connected place for us and our children.
25. I am especially grateful for our “big fans” and regular customers who keep coming back again and again and feel more like friends than customers (you know who you are…Sharon & Shawna, Hilary, Jill, Sarah, Heather, Annamaria & Will, Ioana & Matthew…the list goes on…)
26. To Rebecca Schultz and Kevin Rolston, my fellow ensemble members of OutLook Theater Project.  I am grateful for this artistic outlet, to be able to create theater that is exciting to me and allows me to engage in meaningful ways with a diversity of folks in the LGBT community.
27. My nieces, Ella, Sadie and Lilian.  And my nieces and nephews Devon, Tatum, Hagen, Keali, and Aidin.  And to their parents, Nellie, Chrissy, Shelley and The Mikes, for making me an auntie.  It is a blessing in and of itself to be an auntie.
28. To my aunties – Robin, Pat, Joanne, Judy – for being such cool aunties to me
29. To the radical community of spiritual progressives at the First Congregational Church of Oakland.  I am grateful for how lovingly you hold my wife and me.
30. All my old friends/my peeps/my posse, who I can call or email or FB even after a long time apart and feel just how we felt in the old days, but better, deeper, wiser…I am thinking of Bryan and Kelly this morning…
31. To all of the old employers I have had who have helped shaped me to become the professional I am today.  I am proud of my work and my business and grateful for the professional path I have traveled.  I especially want to thank the Community Network for Youth Development for giving me a framework for how and why I do what I do in the world and the opportunity to teach that framework to others.
32. To all of my past relationships who taught me the proper way to love a mate (and myself).
33. The Alameda Small Dog Park, the only place in the world where my little Yorkie can really be free
34. To Glee.  Enough said.
35. The combination of audiobooks on Audible and my iPod for inspiration and information on my walks to work.
36. I am grateful for my home and that I live close enough to walk to work.
37. To the fact that I have reached my 37^th gratitude and that, if I had to come up with another 37, I am sure I could easily keep going.  I am grateful for how much I have to be grateful for today.

I just read this list to Allison.  She asked me, “How did it feel to write that list?”  I said, “Great!  I have a lot to be grateful for.  My heart feels full.  I feel very happy.”  She said, “It strikes me how your list is so focused on people.  You have such a strong community of folks who love you so much, both locally and around the country.  There are a lot of people out there who don’t have near as much as that kind of support.”

I am grateful to her for pointing that out.

This post is one of the 37 I have challenged myself to post in one week (in celebration of my 37th birthday).  Join me in the challenge.