We hope that you can use this framework as you are transitioning your children into a fall full of new experiences!

This morning at circle time, I introduced a “Yes I Can!” framework to the kids. It goes like this…
When you want to try something new, but are feeling afraid, you can:
1) SEE IT (close your eyes and imagine yourself doing it- bedtime is good for this)
2) SAY IT (put your hand on your heart and say “I can do it”)
3) DRAW IT (draw a picture or make a book that tells the story of you doing this new thing)
4) PLAY IT (act it out or dance it- on your own, with a friend or a grown-up)

Every expressive arts therapist knows that imagination, positive affirmations, art-making and play are some of the most powerful tools around. Not only do these things help us relax and have fun, but acting something out before we do it in real life counts as actual practice toward succeeding in our goal. This can be about tangible tasks, like tying our shoes or a broader topic like starting a new school.

At circle today, the kids shared one thing they hope will happen when they go to school next week. Most of admitted to feeling excited and a little bit nervous about this transition. We closed our eyes and imagined all the things we hoped would happen. Than we offered positive affirmations like “Yes, I can go to kindergarten!” and “Yes, I will make new friends!” “Yes, I can be brave even if I’m scared, too!” We drew pictures of ourselves at school next week and shared them with our neighbors. Then we pretended to be in school learning new songs, asking a kind teacher for help and playing fun things with friends.

When your child arrives at the Glitter & Razz PlaySpace on a Tuesday or Wednesday at 4:00, they will be welcomed and invited to play.  They’ll see the wide-open, carpeted floor and stage.  They’ll notice colorful artwork that other kids have made decorates pale blue walls.  And each week, they’ll see something new-something enticing-waiting for them in the middle of the floor.  These materials (refrigerator box, balloons, hula hoops, costumes, scarves, etc.) will be different every week and will invite open-ended creative play. Inspired by Stanley Greenspan’s Floortime Model of child-led play, this 15-20 min. of each class will help kids enter at their own pace, practice coming up with spontaneous play ideas and experience the joy that happens while connecting with friends.  I’ll notice what kind of support each child needs to engage.  I’ll help “expert players” reach out to kids who need an invitation to play and reinforce the joyful, relaxed vibe in the room.  We be laughing, making friends and creating stories before we know it.

At 4:15 or so, I’ll grab my drum and sing a welcome song that transitions us into clean up and circle time.  There’s nothing like rhythm and ritual to help kids know what’s expected.  We’ll each get a chance to say our name, play the drum and answer the question of the day.  Kids can say “no thanks” to pass on their turn and I’ll say “no problem,” encouraging them to share at the own pace.  Each week, kids will get a new turn to try- by the end of session, even our shyest kids tend to look forward to this time.  This question of the day is how I gather the thoughts, interests and creative ideas of the group.  And since the Fall Session is all about “The Adventures of Friendship”, kids will explore questions like…

• What’s your favorite thing to play with a friend?
• What are good ways to show a friend you like them?
• What can you do if you don’t like what a friend is doing?
• What question can you ask to learn more about someone new?
• Tell about a time you and a friend had an adventure…(real or make believe)

I’ll take the answers to these questions and have the whole class dance them using scarves.  They’ll work in partners to act out scenes using the ideas and in small groups to create artwork.  We’ll play name games and drama games.  We’ll sing songs, paint and use glitter.  We’ll practice Kid Power Techniques of throwing mean words in the trashcan instead of taking them into our hearts. We’ll go to the Glitter & Razz Peace Place to talk out any conflicts. And as the weeks go on, we’ll begin devising our very own play that takes the audience on an adventure through friendship.  Your children will choose their own never-before-seen-on-tv  characters and make-up a story with a beginning, middle and end.  There will be conflicts to solve, dances, facepaint and costumes.  They will rehearse lines (prompted by my narration, as needed!) and theatrical blocking.  They will practice taking center stage, sharing loud voices and knowing when it is their turn to shine.  On the last day of class, they will share their performance as a gift to the audience and celebrate the friendships they’ve made through creative collaboration.  The skills and confidence they build can be carried with them to school, home and every other situation.

ABOUT ALLISON

In Co-Founding Glitter & Razz with my partner, Lynn in 2003, I had the chance to develop the programs of my dreams…literally.  Designing these Itty Bitty Theater Workshops for young children has been one of the main joys in my life, along with teaching the teachers who love them.  In the past 2 years, I’ve taken a break from leading our programs on site to design and lead trainings for preschool teachers all over the Bay Area.  Leading staff teams through my “Dramatic Play in the Preschool Classroom” series and “Relax and Play Awhile: Stress Management for Children and Grown Ups” framework has been a fabulous extension of this work.  I’ve also had the chance to work with Dr. Ilene Lee of Floortime Services, Inc. as a social facilitator for young children on the Autism Spectrum.  Floortime Play Therapy is a perfect extension of the work we do at Glitter & Razz.  It’s child led, open-ended, honors feelings and strives for optimal experiences of joy.  I can’t wait to work with your children in our Glitter & Razz PlaySpace sometime this year!

Here’s a sneak peek of Allison in action…

Today, I bought and read Eve Ensler’s I Am An Emotional Creature from cover to cover.  It is her “manifesta” to girls all over the world to say what they want and don’t want, to resist a world that exploits them, to dance, to be their true selves, and to fight back.  It’s a book of monologues representing the voices of teenage girls from all over the world.  I read the whole thing aloud.  With a box of tissue very close by.  Here she is talking about it:

As a theater artist who believes in the power of stronger emotional connectedness to  change the world.  This book was a easy sell for me.  I am already someone who, like Ensler writes, “insists the world be theater/and loves the drama.”

But here’s the thing – and this is why I do what I do – You do not have to identify as a theater artist or an artist of any kind to “insist the world be theater.”  Theater is simply a place and space where emotions can feel safe.  Where folks can get angry and scared and dejected and elated and hopeful and brave, act on those emotions, check out the consequences, and try again.  Emotions are not only okay in the theater, they are the fuel that makes it go.  And theater allows us to look at our natural, beautiful, hideous human emotions dead in the face and say “hi, I am glad you’re here.  What do we do now?”

The world needs this.  The world needs people and places and spaces that are not afraid of human emotions but are fueled by them.  And, it doesn’t just happen in the theater.  It is happening in laboratories too.  This is why I have brought the work of Christine Carter and the Greater Good Science Center into a theater space.  Because, I think it is SO COOL that science is catching up to art and PROVING that, when we can look our emotions dead in the face and say “hi, I am glad you’re here.  What do we do next?” THEN we are stronger in making the choices that connect us to each other rather than divide us.

Christine Carter joins us tomorrow when she reads from her book.  Halfway through the book, she proclaims that parents being able to act as “emotion coaches” for their kids – teaching kids how to cope with so-called negative emotions – is “one of the most important parenting practices in the history of the universe.”

What is cool is that, she not only gives step-by-step instructions on how to do this but she also, in her scientist (not artist) way, is saying the same thing that Ensler is saying.  We have to stop telling our children, our girls AND our boys, that their emotions are wrong, unreasonable, out of control.  Our emotions, no matter how old we are, are our fuel.  They are what make us go.  Instead of trying to control our kids’ emotions, we should help them learn how to identify them, celebrate them, use them for good instead of evil.

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>>>

By the way, this is not me. I am WAY more beautiful.

A number of years ago, Allison and I were visiting friends in Manhattan and Allison got into a great conversation with an old college friend of hers.  They hadn’t seen each other in awhile and they were catching up on their lives since college.  They had come to learn that the world is not necessarily set up to hand happiness over to you.  Happiness is not something we are owed.  Time and experience had revealed to these post-college young women that all of us must “fight to make ourselves happy.”

In reading the 3rd and 4th Chapters of Christine Carter’s Raising Happiness, I am even more convinced of the fact that happiness is not just taught and learned, it is also actively chosen. She writes, “I have learned that throughout my day I’ll have dozens of opportunities to change direction – choose between optimism and pessimism, for example, or forgiveness and anger.  Sometimes I cruise through the intersection, missing my turn.  There are lots of possible roads, but only some of them lead to happiness.”

She writes a lot about the choices we make – the things we choose to say, do, focus, and reflect on, that make a big difference in our life and our childrens’ lives.  This is why I love using the theatrical process to teach these kinds of social/emotional skills.  The craft of making theater is all about choices.  The great actor teacher, Sanford Meisner said, “Every little moment has a meaning all its own.” An actor’s job is to be aware of every moment and recognize that she has a choice to make in that moment and that that choice will bring about a response in her fellow actors and, ultimately, with the audience.  This constant attention to these choices is what distinguishes a great actor from an okay actor.

And I believe that this constant attention to the meaning in every moment – and then making an intentional choice towards gratitude, forgiveness, passion, learning. etc. – is what distinguishes happy people from the rest.

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>>>

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>>>

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>>>

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.

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.

“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.