A New Holiday Tradition—Better Than Giving Gifts

by Tim Elmore of growingleaders.com

Just a brief post to wish you a very, merry Christmas holiday season and to challenge you to consider doing something new this year.

For centuries, Christmas has been a time for giving gifts, spending time with loved ones and taking time off. Regardless of your background, most of you perpetuate the ritual of cherishing the people nearest you by giving a present or two…or five.

This year, why not start a new tradition?

During the years my kids were growing up, I would try to come up with a new ritual or experience on Christmas morning. In other words, just to mix things up, I’d try to get my kids to think about something more than merely “what they were going to get”—what was under the tree. I don’t consider myself the most creative person on earth, but I would consider what I had to offer and think of how I could use it. For instance:

  • Since I was a commercial art minor in college, one year I drew a picture that represented what each of my kids had accomplished that year.
  • More than once, I wrote out clues as to where their gifts were hidden around the house and had them hunt for them.
  • For several years, the first gift opened was to someone other than a family member. We’d select a disadvantaged child and give them some gifts.

An Idea for This Year

This year, I invited you to join me in creating a new tradition. I plan to write a poem for each family member who’ll be with us on Christmas day. (I’ve been doing this for our staff since I launched Growing Leaders). It will be short (just a couple of stanzas) but in it, I will communicate the “gift” they each represent to our family and our community. It’s been satisfying to watch my children become their own person over the years, and I felt this holiday season would be an excellent time to express to them that I not only want to give them gifts—but to say they are a gift to my wife and me. I plan for it to take no more than a few extra minutes, but I am hopeful this time becomes even more important than the present they’ll unwrap.

Now, you may not feel like a poet, so I am not challenging you to do something outside of what is natural for you. I am, however, challenging you to identify your natural strengths, and use them to express affirmation and honor to your loved ones. Perhaps you simply select a word that best describes their value to you. Maybe you select a picture. Or, maybe you identify a term or phrase that does the job. I just believe this time of year should be a time to affirm what we see in others.

Regardless of your faith or background, let me remind you that this holiday should center around ingredients that don’t occur without intentionality:

  • Relaxation—not just frantic activity.
  • Celebration—not just meeting everyone’s expectations.
  • Refreshment—not anxiety over the details.
  • Family and friends—not merchandise and marketing.
  • Offer encouragement—not merely material gifts.

Here’s wishing you a meaningful holiday season!


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- See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/new-holiday-tradition-better-giving-gifts/#sthash.1DRIGO7D.dpuf

A Missing Step in Today’s Parenting Path

by Tim Elmore of growingleaders.com

Last month I spent several hours with groups of parents, faculty, coaches and youth workers. It was eye opening, to say the least. Each conversation became a candid disclosure of the fears, the struggles and the preoccupation adults have with today’s youth. I made some observations along the way that may prove helpful to you. It became clear that over the course of a kids’ childhood, parents experience various stages as they lead their child. In each stage, their focus shifts. While the shifts are natural, they can lead to challenges in the relationship. If you are a parent, these may prove to be helpful to your own self-awareness. If you’re a teacher, coach, youth worker or employer, these stages might explain why your young people think and act the way they do.

Six Stages of Parenting

Stage One: Inspecting

This initial stage in the parenting journey begins at day one. Parents examine their new baby, bring her home and begin sizing up her features, traits and apparent strengths. It’s normal for moms and dads to do this. After all, they started the whole thing nine months earlier. Sometimes, however, parents can go nuts, over-analyzing every cough, quirk, twist and turn. Parents must work to remain balanced.

Too much inspecting can push parents to compare and compete with other families, feeling deficits or advantages in their findings. This can lead to unhealthy distraction from the goal of simply loving and raising a child.

Stage Two: Correcting

Stage two is all about parents’ natural bent to remedy any problems that arise in the first year or two. In fact, this stage doesn’t end for years, maybe decades. Out of love and concern for their child, parents can get preoccupied with rectifying all wrongs and improving traits so their child will experience the advantages he or she deserves. Moms and dads just want the best for their kids, right?

Too much correcting can make a young child feel as though they don’t measure up to parent’s standards. They can feel inadequate or disapproved and sink into mild cases of depression or melancholy withdrawal from others.

Stage Three: Protecting

At stage three, the child has usually begun school and parents begin focusing on keeping their child safe and secure. They’re protecting the investment. This is the first time children are apart for significant lengths of time without parents around. While it’s normal for us to safeguard our kids from harm—we can go overboard with helmets, kneepads, safety belts, cell phones and background checks.

Too much protecting can stunt a child’s growth. Kids need to experience appropriate levels of risk and failure in order to mature in a healthy way. Too often we prepare the path for the child instead of the child for the path.

Stage Four: Neglecting

By this stage, the child has entered their “tween” or even teen years and begins to feel like aliens around the house. When parents don’t quite know what to do with their “new” kid, they often back off or back down from offering clear leadership. They fear the unknown. And while they never want to appear “uncool”, failing to be hip to culture can cause parents to neglect asking questions and misunderstand.

Too much neglecting communicates parents aren’t engaged. Kids can misunderstand this as both ignorance and apathy. Funny. It was easy to raise the kids when they were young; now parents hardly recognize them. This stage calls for a new kind of leader.

Stage Five: Suspecting

Parents enter stage five as their kids experience adolescence. Their child may have pushed to enter adolescence at eight, but now their hormones have caught up. Moms and dads get suspicious over the secrecy or strange new habits and styles in their kids. Innocence is replaced by savvy lifestyles and vocabulary. Without a plan, parents and kids divide and separate in this stage of estrangement.

This kind of suspicion can breed distrust. The distrust may be well deserved but communication is key during the teen years. Even over-communication. Parents must create safe environments to converse and explore a new stage of relationship.

Stage Six: Resurrecting

Finally, as the child enters college or shows signs of wanting to separate from mom and dad’s leadership, parents seek to resurrect the relationship, at any cost. They want to stay close. They fear losing touch. The distancing is natural for a youth and the clinging may feel natural for an adult, but parents must navigate this stage with wisdom. We must not compromise values or identity just to keep life happy.

This is a crucial stage for parents to journey successfully. Just like teaching them to ride a bike, parents must blend support and letting go. It’s important to relate to kids in a new way, and still act as a mentor during their young adult years.

So, What is Missing?

No doubt, every adult-child relationship is unique. The stages above, however, are remarkably common, for caring adults in the home, classroom or athletic field. For many, there’s an important ingredient missing from these stages. It is conspicuously absent and it’s absence explains why lots of teens fail to mature into healthy adults.

What have we left out as we help them become adults? In a word:

Expecting

I believe we have under-challenged kids with meaningful work to accomplish (click here to tweet). We have overwhelmed them with tests, recitals and practices—and kids report being “stressed out” by these activities. But they are virtual. Adults often don’t give work to students that is relevant to life and could actually improve the world if they rose to the challenge. We just don’t expect much of our kids today. Evidently, we assume they’re incapable. So they fill their day with video games, texts and Facebook. And potential goes untapped. One hundred years ago—seventeen year olds were leading armies, working farms, learning a trade as apprentices. Today—this is rare.

Here’s a thought. Why not talk with your kids and determine what it is they care about in life. Then—offer them a challenge. Whatever their age, expect them to come through and produce something significant. Invite them into a story that matters.

Donald Miller once shared how a friend came to him, grieving that his teenage daughter was dating a guy who was a complete rebel. The kid was a “Goth” whose lifestyle didn’t reflect any of the family’s values and, in fact, was both immoral and illegal. Dad didn’t know what to do. Miller simply asked if his friend had considered that his daughter may simply be choosing a better “story” than the one he was creating as a father in his home.

When the man looked puzzled, Miller continued–-everyone wants to be part of a story that is interesting and compelling. They want their life to solve a problem. This man’s daughter had simply decided her life at home was boring—and her “Goth” boyfriend wasn’t.

This got his friend to think. Over the next few months, he did some research and came up with an idea. Over dinner, this father shared about an orphanage in Mexico that desperately needed help. They needed a building, some supplies and some workers from the U.S. to accomplish their goals. Dad said that he planned to get involved. In a matter of weeks, his kids were intrigued. His son suggested they visit this orphanage in Mexico, and later, his daughter figured out a way to raise money for it online. Over the next year, this family’s story became compelling. Eventually, the teenage daughter approached her father and told him she’d broken up with her boyfriend. She couldn’t believe she was even attracted to him in the first place. Needless to say, dad was elated. Hmmm. I think I know why she didn’t need the guy anymore. I think she found a better story at home.

Here’s to expecting something significant from life and from the kids we lead!

How can you add expecting to the parenting path as you lead the next generation?

- See more at: http://growingleaders.com/blog/missing-step-in-todays-parenting-path/#sthash.37uS8SJy.dpuf

6 Bad Pieces of Advice Parents Give Kids

Do this instead, and they’ll be happier and more successful.

Emma M. Seppälä Ph.D.

Most parents want their kids to be successful in life , so we teach them attitudes we believe will help them achieve their goals. But as I learned while researching my book, many widely-held theories about what it takes to be successful are proving to be counterproductive: They may produce results in the short term, but eventually they lead to burnout and — get this — less success. Here are a few of the most damaging things many of us may be teaching our children about success, and what we should tell them instead.

1. We tell our kids: Focus on the future. Keep your eyes on the prize.

We should tell them: Live (or work) in the moment.

It’s hard to stay tightly focused. Research shows that our minds tend to wander 50 percent of the time we’re awake. And when our minds wander, we can start to brood over the past or worry about the future — thereby leading to negative emotions like anger, regret, and stress.

A mind that is constantly trying to focus on the future — from getting good grades to applying to college — will be prone to greater anxiety and fear. While a little bit of stress can serve as a motivator, long-term chronic stress impairs our health as well as our intellectual faculties, such as attention and memory. As a consequence, focusing too hard on the future can actually impair our performance.

Children do better, and feel happier, if they learn how to stay in the present moment. And when people feel happy, they’re able to learn faster, think more creatively, and problem-solve more easily. Studies even suggest that happiness makes you 12 percent more productive. Positive emotions also make you more resilient to stress , helping you overcome challenges and setbacks more quickly so you can get back on track.

It’s certainly good for children to have goals they’re working toward. But instead of encouraging them always to focus on what’s next on their to-do list, help them stay focused on the task or conversation at hand.

2. We tell our kids: Stress is inevitable; keep pushing yourself.

We should tell them: Learn to chill out.

Children are feeling anxious at younger and younger ages, worrying about grades and feeling pressure to do better at school. Most distressingly, we’re even seeing stress-induced suicides in children — especially in high-achieving areas, like Palo Alto in Silicon Valley.

The way we conduct our lives as adults often communicates to children that stress is an unavoidable part of leading a successful life. We down caffeine and over-schedule ourselves during the day, living in a constant state of overdrive,  and at night, we’re so wired that we use alcohol, sleep medication, or Xanax to calm down. This is not a good lifestyle to model for children. It’s no surprise that research shows that children whose parents are dealing with burnout at work are more likely than their peers to experience burnout at school.

I recommend that parents teach children the skills they will need to be more resilient in the face of stressful events. While we can’t change the work and life demands that we face, we can use techniques such as meditation, yoga, and breathing to better deal with the pressure. These tools help children learn to tap into their parasympathetic “rest and digest” nervous system, as opposed to the “fight or flight” stress response.

3. We tell our kids: Stay busy.

We should tell them: Have fun doing nothing.

Even in our leisure time, people in Western societies tend to value high-intensity positive emotions like excitement, as opposed to low-intensity emotions like calm. (The opposite tends to be true in East Asian countries.) This means that our kids’ schedules are often packed to the brim with extracurricular activities and family outings, leaving little downtime.

There’s nothing wrong with excitement, fun, and seeking new experiences. But excitement, like stress, exhausts our physiology by tapping into our “fight or flight” system — so we can unwittingly prompt our children to burn through their energy after school or on weekends, leaving them with fewer resources for the times they need it most.

Moreover, research shows that our brains are more likely to come up with brilliant ideas when we are not focusing; thus, the proverbial a-ha moment in the shower. So instead of over-scheduling kids, we should be blocking out time when they can be left to their own devices. Children can turn any situation — whether sitting in a waiting room or walking to school — into an opportunity for play. They may also choose calming activities like reading a book, taking the dog for a walk, or simply lying under a tree and staring up at the clouds — all of which will allow them to approach the rest of their lives from a more centered, peaceful place. Giving your kids downtime will help them to be more creative and innovative. Just as important, it will help them learn to relax.

The point is not that we should never challenge them or that we should deprive them of opportunities for learning. The point is not to overschedule and overcommit them to the point where they don't have opportunities to learn independent play, to be with themselves and daydream, to learn to be happy just being rather than always doing.

4. We tell our kids: Play to your strengths.

We should tell them: Make mistakes and learn to fail.

Parents tend to identify their children by their strengths and the activities that come naturally to them. They say their child is a “a math person,” a “people person,” or “an artist.” But research by Stanford University’s Carol Dweck shows that this mindset actually boxes your child into a persona and makes them less likely to want to try new things they may not be good at. When a kid receives praise primarily for being athletic, for example, they’re less likely to want to leave their comfort zone and try out for drama club. This can make them more anxious and depressed when faced with failure or challenges. Why? Because they believe that, if they encounter obstacles in a given area, that makes them “not good at” the activity.

But our brains are wired to learn new things. And it can only be a good thing to learn from our mistakes while we’re young. So instead of identifying your child’s strengths, teach them that they actually can learn anything — as long as they try. Research by Dweck, author of Mindset, shows that children will be more optimistic and even enthusiastic in the face of challenges, knowing that they just need to give it another go to improve. And they will be less likely to feel down about themselves and their talents.

5. We tell our kids: Know your weaknesses, and don’t be soft.

We should tell them: Treat yourself well.

We also tend to think that criticism is important for self-improvement. But while self-awareness is important, parents often inadvertently teach their children to be too self-critical. If a parent tells a child that she should try to be more outgoing, for example, the child may internalize that as a criticism of her naturally introverted personality.

But research on self-criticism shows that it is basically self-sabotage. It keeps you focused on what’s wrong with you, thereby decreasing your confidence. It makes you afraid of failure, which hurts your performance, makes you give up more easily, and leads to poor decision-making. And self-criticism makes you more likely to be anxious and depressed when faced with a challenge.

Instead, parents should encourage children to develop attitudes of self-compassion —  treating yourself as you would a friend in times of failure or pain. This doesn’t mean that your children should be self-indulgent or let themselves off the hook when they mess up. It simply means that they learn not to beat themselves up. A shy child with self-compassion, for example, will tell herself that it’s okay to feel shy sometimes and that her personality simply isn’t as outgoing as others — and that she can set small, manageable goals to come out of her shell. This mindset will allow her to excel in the face of challenge, develop new social skills, and learn from mistakes.

6. We tell our kids: It’s a dog-eat-dog world , so look out for Number One.

We should tell them: Show compassion to others.

Research shows that from childhood onward, our social connections are our most important predictor of health, happiness, and even longevity. Having positive relationships with other people is essential for well-being, which in turn influences our intellectual abilities and ultimate success.

Moreover, likability is one of the strongest predictors of success — regardless of one's actual skills. Adam Grant’s book Give & Take reports that if you express compassion to those around you and create supportive relationships instead of remaining focused on yourself, you will actually be more successful in the long term — as long as you don’t let people take advantage of you.

Children are naturally compassionate and kind. But as psychologist Jean Twenge writes in her book Generation Me, young people are also becoming increasingly self-involved. So it’s important to encourage their natural instincts to care about other people’s feelings and to put themselves in other people’s shoes.

It’s true that it’s a tough world. But it would be a lot less tough if we emphasized cutthroat competition less and put a higher premium on learning to get along.


Read my book, The Happiness Track

Emma M. Seppälä Ph.D.

Emma Seppala, Ph.D, is the Associate Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University.

In Print:

The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success

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