Posted on May 7th, 2012 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – 3 Comments
For thousands of years, heroic stories have been used to inspire, motivate, and transfer cultural values to children. The stories have a common pattern. They begin with a likeable hero who encounters a challenge or roadblock in life. And then, with the help of others, the hero emerges from the difficult situation transformed by his or her experiences.
Heroic stories are found everywhere in modern media.
Beautiful Snow White is protected from the wicked queen by the seven dwarfs. Her life is threatened when the queen, disguised as a peddler, finds Snow White and poisons her with an apple. Rescued by the Prince, she is transformed by true love.
In Avatar, Jake Sully is a paralyzed ex-Marine who has an opportunity to walk again through a proxy Na’vi body in the world of Pandora. But he encounters an unexpected challenge. He falls in love with a Na’vi woman, Neytin, and is forced to choose sides in an epic battle between the humans and the Na’vi people. With the help of many, Jake’s leadership prevails and the humans are defeated. Jake is permanently transformed in a Na’vi body where he lives the rest of his life with Neytin.
We Are the Heroes
Years ago, I had the privilege of studying with Joseph Campbell, renowned mythologist and author of The Hero with a Thousand Faces. He believed people created heroes and myths out of their own human experiences. Why? To constantly remind us that anything is possible! When we face difficult life challenges, we draw on heroic stories for inspiration and to help us persevere through obstacles. read more »
Posted on April 9th, 2012 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – Be the first to comment
It’s easy to think that parents of smart kids have it easy. After all, their kids have the potential to achieve their dreams. Right? Well, not so fast. Fostering true potential in bright children isn’t as stress-free as it may look from the outside.
If you are parenting a bright or even gifted child, you know the journey can be challenging. Sometimes our definition of potential is limited by a narrow vision — a notion that success can be measured by impressive accomplishments like school grades or test scores. In our eagerness to support children’s achievement, we sometimes forget that potential is not a lofty end goal but the capacity to grow, learn, and adapt to change throughout life. It is about discovering a fulfilling and meaningful life, one that cannot be measured by numbers.
Reinforcing this broad view of potential, Smart Parenting for Smart Kids is an excellent book by Eileen Kennedy-Moore, PhD, and Mark Lowenthal, PsyD, that provides well-researched guidance for parents of bright children. Suggesting that it takes more than school smarts to create fulfilling lives, they highlight some of the special challenges facing smart kids and provide helpful parenting strategies to support children’s positive growth and development. The following describe three common challenges some smart kids face.
Driven by Perfectionism
Many bright children are perfectionists. Because they are capable of doing well, they come to believe they must execute all tasks perfectly. They become distraught over minor mistakes, focusing on what’s wrong rather than on what’s right. When learning doesn’t come easy, they make excuses or give up at the first sign of difficulty — often with tears or anger. read more »
Posted on March 12th, 2012 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – Be the first to comment
I recently met Steve Reifman, author of a wonderful new book that should be owned by every teacher and parent, particularly those who guide elementary and middle-school-age children. Developing character in children is complex. So much so, we don’t often think of easy, everyday actions that make a difference in children’s lives. Steve’s book, Changing Kids’ Lives One Quote at a Time, provides a simple framework that helps kids talk about meaningful concepts.
What I most like about Reifman’s book is that it doesn’t teach kids what to think, it teaches them how to think! His approach helps adults become good facilitators — inviting kids into conversations where they discover gems of meaning for themselves. All of this is accomplished through the power of quotes!
Steve Reifman, a National Board Certified elementary school teacher, author, and speaker was kind enough to answer my questions about his book and his approach to teaching kids what he calls “habits of character” in our interview below.
Q. Steve, you’ve compiled 121 inspirational quotes to help parents and teachers develop character strengths in children. As a teacher, how did you become a passionate advocate for using these quotes with your students?
A. Early in my career I found a few quotes that I was excited to share and discuss with my students. My former teaching partner and I even posted a couple on the classroom walls for the entire year. I realized that quotes had the power to inspire and to help me in my efforts to build character in children. I then searched for more quotes, and over the course of a few years I built a nice list of over 100 of them. I liked that the quotes came from a variety of sources. Some came from well-known public figures, some from song lyrics, and some from books I read. read more »
Posted on February 13th, 2012 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – 4 Comments
In 1970, the average age at which children watched television was four years old. Today, the average age is four months. The typical child before the age of five is watching 4 ½ hours of television per day, 40% of their waking hours!
Recent studies have linked television to the over-stimulation of an infant’s brain, leading to the development of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) in young children.
Dr. Dimitri Christakis, a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington, says that in the first two years of life, the brain triples in size. Connections that form in the brain, or synapses, are based on early life experiences. Prolonged exposure to rapid image changes during these first years of critical brain development preconditions the mind to expect high levels of stimulation. This, in turn, leads to inattention in later years. Studies have shown that the more kids watch TV before the age of three, the more likely they are to have attention problems in school.
The Good News
While studies found exposure to rapid image changes harmful to young children, they also found cognitive stimulation to be helpful. What is cognitive stimulation? When we read to children, sing with them, and take them to museums, we increase their abilities to think and process information. This type of stimulation makes children less likely to develop inattention difficulties later in their school lives. read more »
Posted on January 20th, 2012 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – 4 Comments
When President Obama gave his annual “Back-to-School” address in 2011, he praised three extraordinary high school students for giving back to their communities. One was Jake Bernstein, age 17, [pictured at left] who volunteers with Autism Speaks and co-launched StLouisVolunteen.com with his sister Simone. He is also on the Youth Advisory Board of generationOn, a national effort to inspire, equip, and mobilize youth to change the world and themselves through service. The President urged students to become engaged in their communities, saying “America needs your passion, your ideas, and your energy….Nothing inspires me more than knowing that young people all across the country are already making their marks.”
What the President did not say should come as no surprise to educators. Teachers play a significant role in fostering the passion, ideas, and energy that motivates students to become engaged in their communities. This meaningful and important work happens every day in and outside of K-12 classrooms.
The power that young people have to make a difference in the world cannot be measured through standardized testing. In my recent qualitative study, Civic Learning at the Edge: Transformative Stories of Highly Engaged Youth, college students recalled the powerful influence of educators in their lives. Memories included the elementary and middle school teachers who taught the importance of positive values like cooperation, compassion, teamwork, and getting along with classmates. They recalled simple service projects that made them aware of people in need. When students reached high school, the values they developed in younger years helped shape their civic identities. read more »
Posted on December 20th, 2011 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – Be the first to comment
Whew! I wrote over fifty articles this year, bringing evidence-based research to parents, educators, and community leaders on the topic of positive youth development! My articles were accessed by over 50,000 unique readers, tweeted thousands of times, reprinted in more than 20 online publications, and even translated into several languages! I am honored by your support. Thank you!
In addition to my articles at Roots of Action, I started writing a regular online column in June for Psychology Today entitled “The Moment of Youth,” about helping teens believe in themselves. And yes, this increased my readership dramatically! I also write for A Hopeful Sign, a new online magazine dedicated to spreading hope through positive living, learning, and leading. My column, “Impassion Youth,” discusses how adults support kids of all ages to become their best selves.
One of the terrific things about being a writer in today’s online environment is the instant feedback from and connection with readers. Statistics on website visitors as well as the numbers of people sharing on Facebook and Twitter show exactly what articles are most popular and relevant. As I absorb your comments and chat with you online, I continue to learn about young people, how they thrive, and how we adults provide the scaffolding for their development.
If you missed these articles or are a new reader, below are links to my three most popular positive youth development posts of 2011 and a few of my most favorite reader comments.
Best wishes for a peaceful holiday season
and a New Year filled with positive possibilities! read more »
Posted on November 21st, 2011 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – Be the first to comment
The holidays are here — with sparkling lights, glittering trees, and magical store displays. But as we look beyond the external, the research on child and adolescent development tells us something very important about what happens in children’s internal worlds. It’s a season that shapes their lifelong identities about giving. What are you doing this year to help children and teens internalize the gift of giving?
Of course, children associate the holidays with being receivers of gifts. But according to studies in human development, it is the giving of gifts that reaps the biggest psychological rewards. Parents can help children and teens realize these rewards by teaching them how to give back during the holiday season and throughout the year. There are many ways to give back, including through the excellent projects listed below.
Six Ways for Families & Children to Internalize the Gift of Giving
PLEDGE TO VOLUNTEER
To mark the season of giving, from November 29 through December 13, each time a child or teen makes a pledge to volunteer through generationOn, its partners at Hasbro will donate a toy to a child in need. As part of their Holiday Gift Campaign, generationOn encourages kids, parents, teachers and nonprofit organizations to explore its many online resources, including holiday service projects that help kids turn pledges into projects. Also through pledging, children become engaged in a youth community that brings the gift of giving into young people’s lives throughout the year. What better time than the holidays to get your kids to take a volunteer pledge! read more »
Posted on November 8th, 2011 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – 2 Comments
Years of academic studies have shown that parent engagement is linked to children’s academic, social, and emotional development. But what is parent engagement? And how must it shift to meet the increasing demands of 21st century learners?
Many equate parent engagement to volunteering, school governance, and fundraising. While these activities are vitally important to schools, the kind of parent engagement that affects student success is vastly different. This type of engagement involves parents as teachers and learners. It means building parent-school partnerships that not only increase student learning but expand learning for everyone in a child’s support system.
We know that learning is dependent on an interconnected system of relationships and support. Yet despite extensive research, we are failing to create healthy partnerships between parents, teachers, and students that encourage learning and innovation. To understand how parent engagement must change, a quick history lesson is helpful.
Brief History of Parent Engagement
When we look at schools historically, their structure and organization goes back to the Industrial Revolution when they were founded to resemble well-oiled machines. They were envisioned and created as closed, self-sufficient systems. Responsibilities within the schools were fragmented between principals, teachers, counselors, and administrators, each performing specialized tasks. Parents had no roles. read more »
Posted on October 10th, 2011 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – 1 Comment
How do children learn to feel connected to their communities and know they can make a difference in the world? The answer isn’t as complex as it might seem. Like many college students who became committed to social and environmental causes, Danielle talked about developing compassion at a young age. When her father took her to visit nursing homes as a child, Danielle said, “I could see how much people were hurting there and how they appreciated our presence. Learning compassion for people I didn’t know is something that’s stuck with me.”
Developing compassion in elementary and middle school-aged children is akin to developing muscle strength. The more you use your muscles, the stronger they get. Children who participate in programs that teach kindness, respect, empathy, and compassion and who have families that reinforce those strengths at home develop the muscles they need to become civically-engaged adolescents and adults. During the teen years, they reach deep within themselves, access these muscles, and develop social and civic identities that last a lifetime.
Regarded as one of the greatest human virtues by all major religious traditions, compassion is an emotional response and attitude toward others that is deeply empathetic. It enables us to connect to human suffering with care and understanding, acting in ways that brings comfort to those around us. Compassion causes us to remain charitable, even if others behave negatively. Research shows that compassion plays a key role in helping children develop into engaged, caring, and optimistic adults. read more »
Posted on September 10th, 2011 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – 1 Comment
Thousands of parents just returned from colleges near and far, leaving a beloved child in an unfamiliar place. For college freshman and their families, September is usually a time of excitement and trepidation – an honored American rite of passage. But what has changed for you and your child? And how will your son or daughter continue to need your support?
It has been ten years since we traveled from Seattle to Washington D.C. to take our daughter to college. I clearly remember the buzz of freshman making their way through orientation, parents lining up at hardware stores to buy extra picture hangers, and the churning in my stomach as we said our goodbyes. What laid ahead for our daughter? Developmental growth and maturation facilitated by unpredictable life experiences and lots of parental love, guidance, and support!
Three weeks after her college orientation, America was attacked by terrorists. It was September 11, 2001. We heard the news that a second plane was headed for Washington D.C. – our daughter was just a few miles from the Pentagon. We were numb with fear until we knew she was safe. It was the first in a series of unpredictable events, relationships, and experiences that would shape her life and the life of other freshman. Like students everywhere, our daughter was about to face and overcome new challenges. She was beginning her journey into late adolescence and young adulthood. read more »
Posted on August 22nd, 2011 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – 10 Comments
Before my daughter entered elementary school, I knew she learned differently from other kid’s. But I always imagined that no matter how she learned, her future teachers would create an environment where she would thrive and we would work as partners to support her learning. My view of education was broad and I saw learning as a life-long process involving many levels of knowledge. I expected a flexible system that would place my child at the center and where her teachers, school administrators, after-school program leaders, and family would work together to benefit her development.
Needless to say, the way I viewed education was not the way our system worked. After all, today’s school system was built on mechanistic ideas from the Industrial Revolution, designed to produce graduates like machines produce widgets. Like an assembly line, children enter at kindergarten and progress grade by grade until they graduate around the age of eighteen. Its sole purpose is to produce “well-educated children” who go on to adulthood and the world of work. When children move at a pace that is different from the machine, they are often labeled as having deficits. This creates a big problem for the system. Schools try to help these kids by suggesting drugs to help them focus or by tutoring them to stay on track.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggested that learning deficits and disabilities do not exist. Like Sir Ken Robinson’s views expressed in the video below, I believe the modern epidemic of ADHD and other diagnosis are given to kids who do not fit into our inflexible, mechanistic school system. My daughter had many labels during her school years, none of which truly captured the unique and capable child she was. One year she would be diagnosed with an auditory processing weakness, the next year a different specialist would suggest she had attention deficit disorder, and yet another would label her with high-functioning Asperger’s Syndrome. She probably had more than ten different diagnoses throughout high school and college. read more »
Posted on August 9th, 2011 by Marilyn Price-Mitchell – 2 Comments
Eden Eskaros is a 10-year-old who had an eye-opening experience on her first visit to Mexico last year. She was struck by the fact that children lived in dismal situations, using cardboard boxes as beds and walking on the harsh earth with no shoes. Eden was moved to help these children by making a commitment to bring back 100 pair of shoes on her next trip. She returned home to New Jersey and enlisted the aid of a local shoe store and her church. As a result, she’s prepared to send over 1,000 pair of shoes to her new friends in Mexico.
Eden’s story is a great example of how children are often transformed by face-to-face interactions with people living in poverty. Clearly, Eden has developed the ability to empathize, to put herself in the place of another. Most children develop this capacity by the age of six and are capable of taking action to help people in need. They particularly benefit from seeing the direct benefits of their actions.
Close to the age where she will ask deeper questions about poverty, Eden Eskaros is on her way to becoming an engaged, compassionate citizen. During adolescence, children’s brains develop the capacity to understand the systemic issues involved in helping those in need. For example, Eden may begin to ask “Why are children living in poverty?” or “What are the root causes of poverty?”
In my recent research study, Civic Learning at the Edge: Transformative Stories of Highly Engaged Youth, I studied how young people adopt passionate causes, most often between the ages of 14 and 18. Developmentally, this is the age when kids form civic identities that often stay with them for the rest of their lives. read more »
