Every day for a week, I sold snacks and drinks in front of my house. First I sold homemade lollipops, then chocolate chip cookies, then popcorn, and then muffins. I sold lemonade and limeade too. My friends who live on my street came and helped me. It is fun to work with others. I raised over $50, and I am giving all of the money to a charity called First Book. First Book gives new books to children who don’t have any. I think that First Book is good because they help children learn.
Learning how to think and talk to ourselves is a key factor in teaching our children optimism. If we can develop the habit of looking at the good things that have happened to us, or the new things that we have learned, we have knowledge that we can reflect on when the going gets tough. Recently I posted a TED talk on smiling. Learning to think about the good things that happen to us and taking a moment to be thankful and smile will help us and our family to be optimistic.
This is like a muscle though in that if we want that ability in the difficult times, we must practice it and work it in the good times. The practice and habit of being thankful for what we have, focusing on the good both in ourselves and others, will create a good mood for ourselves. When we smile at another person it has an affect on them and on us. Our mood will pick up and we can naturally be more optimistic.
If it seems that we are in a cycle of being in a bad mood, depressed, or negative about many things, how can we break that cycle? I would suggest that we think about things in our life where we succeeded in a situation that seemed impossible. Use that as a starting point where we can see we have had success and can be sure of our ability to duplicate that success. Look for the silver – lining. If we make a mistake, what can we learn from it and where can we apply our new knowledge? What are some other possible outcomes? What is the good that we can be focused on? My third suggestion is to adopt the attitude of gratitude. Pause and be mindful of the ‘little things’ that we may have taken for granted in the past. Being thankful and taking the moment to express that gratitude either to another or to ourselves, will build on itself into not just gratitude but also optimism.
There is so much happening in the world at this time, including right here in the United States. I thought I would share with you a report done right on the ground in Japan, where there is still much work to be done to help the families there. What can we do to be of assistance?
I was so happy to see this TED talk on smiling. While some may question the power of the smile, from personal experience I know that when we reach a frustration level where we may act or react in a way that we really do not want to act, SMILING has the affect of reducing the frustration.
As a parent or teacher this is a valuable tool. Just when your child or student has pushed one of your buttons, take a deep breath, smile and then respond. This is much like counting to ten, or 3 deep breaths – but the addition of the smile, eliminates the possibility of being mean. It is impossible to be mean, frown or act in an unkind way – while smiling.
We can practice this on ourselves also. When we see our own anger rising, we can look at it, recognize it for what it is, smile at it and allow it to be. If we smile at our anger, we will see it subside. The power of the smile!
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Recently I have heard of situations where children who were very young were able to react to an emergency situation and were instrumental in the saving of a life. In a report on CNN they listed 5 actions that every child should know how to perform that may very well save a life. Here is a link to the entire article, and a list of five emergency situations that you can teach your child how to react and possibly save a life:
Choking
Bleeding
Fire
Drowning
Person is not breathing
Of course this is all in addition to every child knowing how and when to dial 911. This is a skill that we can practice with our child and tell them when it is appropriate to do so. During our summer classes we will be teaching as part of our regular classes the skills for the 5 emergencies and hope that all parents can reinforce the skills by practice at home.
On Monday May 16 at 11 AM, I will be in Boston to see our youngest son, Sean, graduate from Emerson College. Anyone who has children can imagine or know what it feels like to have put 4 children through college successfully.
Sean who had a slow start in school, needing speech therapy and an extra year in Kindergarten, went on to be the student chosen to give his 5th grade graduation speech, to high school being a part of the improv team, take part in plays and give monologue performance at the Kennedy Center, go to college and be on the #1 improv team at Emerson That’s Pathetic as a freshman, traveling around giving performances, and finally having a group of his short stories published with a book signing and reading in his junior year at Emerson.
Can you tell I am proud of him? But the real reason I am writing this comes from an article sent to me, unsolicited, about the Life Lessons that can be learned from being on an improv team.
I hope you enjoy the article and when your son or daughter says they want to try it out – allow them to do so. it will be a great experience. By the way, after 8 years of improv, Sean told me last night that he is not interested in continuing that part of his life, but what great lessons he learned being a part of those two teams.
Every day for a week, I sold snacks and drinks in front of my house. First I sold homemade lollipops, then chocolate chip cookies, then popcorn, and then muffins. I sold lemonade and limeade too. My friends who live on my street came and helped me. It is fun to work with others. I raised over $50, and I am giving all of the money to a charity called First Book. First Book gives new books to children who don’t have any. I think that First Book is good because they help children learn.
