Parents–Don’t muzzle yourselves!

Think your kids don’t care about your opinions of them, their friends, their activities, or anything else?

As children become teenagers there is a common perception among parents that celebrities and peers replace parents as the most important sources of information and affirmation.

I don’t buy it.  What’s my evidence?  Sorry to disappoint you on this, but it is mostly anecdotal.  Years ago I read studies claiming that teens really do care what their parents think – even if they say otherwise to their parents or if they say nothing to their parents.  I’ve looked online again recently for information on the topic and have found a range of conflicting voices – teens insisting they don’t care what Mom and Dad think, brain scans purporting to show that teens respond to what their parents say about them, a study that says contemporary teens in Canada have better relationships with their parents than previous generations, and so on.  Then, of course, you have to interpret the data and that means you have to consider the source, reliability, and advocacy positions of the content providers.

I think teens care what their parents think because my kids obviously do.  We talk regularly about a wide range of issues and they ask advice or for our opinions.  Sometimes they laugh at us, roll their eyes, or respond as though we are brain dead.  Just today my teenage son said I should be proud of him because yesterday morning he left for band and, realizing it was in the low 30s, was wearing shorts with sweat pants, a T-shirt under a sweatshirt, hat, and gloves.  Later, as it warmed up – probably to the mid-50s, he stripped down to his shorts and T-shirt.  He was beaming with pride, his face asking me to affirm his choice, knowing that I would be impressed that he had the foresight to wear sweats, hat, and gloves.  I provided the affirmation he sought and didn’t make an issue out of his decision to wear shorts and a T-shirt in the 50s because I really was impressed that he had worn a hat and gloves.  Truth be told, I was shocked he knew where they were.

So, whatever your current relationship with your children, I urge you to engage regularly and sincerely.  Work from the assumption that they do care what you think, that your opinion matters, and that they are watching you to see what it means to be an adult.  When they look you in the face and say, “I don’t care what you think about me, in fact, I hate you,” you may be tempted to take them at their word, but I would urge you to take a deep breath and to reengage with love, remembering that you are raising a soon-to-be independent adult.  Just don’t cede your influence by self-muzzling.  Then it won’t matter if they care what you think because your lack of engagement will tell them all they need to know – they’re not worth your time or effort and that’s a message you’ll spend years trying to reverse.

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3 Keys to Success–in every area of life!

There are 3 keys to success in every area of life:

1. Natural ability
2. Training
3. Practice

The key is helping your child balance these three in each area of serious pursuit.

Natural ability can be a trap – your trajectory in that area is dramatically upward until you reach the pinnacle of what you can do unaided.  Then you plateau and others who receive effective training and engage in diligent practice pass you by.  Training and practice often outstrip natural ability.

The truly great performers in any area of life have all three – they have unusual natural ability, have received exceptional training, and have been passionately disciplined in practice.  Because of the time and resources involved, success in these cases is the payoff for tremendous investment.  Unaided natural ability is not sufficient for long-term success.

I’ll have more to say about this in future posts related to motivation and skill development because how you communicate with your child about success is key.

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Facebook–Download all account information

If your child has Facebook, then at the very least you need to 1) Be on Facebook yourself and be your child’s “friend” or 2) Have access to your child’s Facebook account by knowing his/her user name and password.

So far my wife and I have resisted all appeals to join Facebook, but our high school son has an account.  Part of the agreement was that he could have an account if I know his user name and password.  I check his account periodically.

Recently, Facebook has made it possible to download all of your account information in one file.  This is another way you can see what your child has been doing online.

It takes a while for the file containing all of the information to be compiled and then an e-mail is sent to your account letting you know it is ready.  If the Facebook account is in your child’s name, then presumably he/she will receive the notification about the summary file through his/her e-mail account.  So I’m not suggesting something you do behind your child’s back.  I’d rather be open about all of this so we can be talking about his online activity.

Here are the steps to download the account summary:

1. Sign on to Facebook
2. Select “Account” (upper right)
3. Select “Account Settings”
4. Find “Download your information” and click on “Learn More”
5. Click on “Download” and follow the instructions

Technorati Tags: e-mail,facebook,account,child,download

Thanksgiving comes early!

Just spent a week in Honduras with an organization that has been a client of mine – Heart to Honduras.  Here were some impressions from that trip.

1) I saw virtually all facets of HTH’s ministry in action – the churches, clinic, school, agriculture, provision of clothing and food, etc.

2) I was reminded that poverty is real and that I am rich beyond measure – not merely in material possessions, but in access to healthcare, education, and travel.  My life has options – not everyone’s does.

3) The Honduran team is a dedicated group of individuals who are gifted, committed, and making a difference in their communities.  They are led by a coffee grower and businessman, Jose, who is bringing a new level of organization and a vision for self-sustainability to the ministry.

4) Pastor Jaime lives with his wife and two sons in three small rooms attached to his church rather than living in his house – he allows others to live in his house.

5) Pastor Ricardo, 22 years old, is moving into a small room attached to his church so that the congregation can use his humble home for additional educational space.

6) Pastor Freddy is developing land for his congregants to grow crops, raise chickens, and farm Tilapia (fish).  He has cleared a soccer field for neighborhood teens to use – it is dirt with two goals comprised of metal frames with no nets.  Kids were playing happily on it as we visited.

7) I had a number of meaningful conversations with Honduran church leaders and leaders of Corazón para Honduras (“Heart to Honduras” in Spanish).  It was humbling to see the commitment these people have to their calling.

8) Power Chicken should consider franchising restaurants to the US – great food at a good price.

9) Toilet paper goes in a trashcan next to the toilet rather than in the toilet itself – ALL toilet paper, in every establishment throughout the country, including hotels.  That took some getting used to.

10) There are road conditions varying from excellent (like our interstates) to nearly impassable (think off-roading in the truest sense – I found out that there really is a reason for 4-wheel drive other than impressing your suburban neighbors with the possibility of an adventure you’ll never pursue).

Technorati Tags: neighborhood,school,agriculture,coffee,material possessions,educational,soccer,chickens,crops,sustainability,thanksgiving,heart to honduras

Guarantee your child’s educational success for less than $200!

On Feb 2, 2009, I bought the Livescribe Pulse pen at Target for $159.74.  That one purchase changed my life.

Basically the Pulse pen does two things: It allows me to write in a special notebook (more on that later) while, at the same time, recording sound through my pen – it then links the sound to my writing.  So if I am having a conversation with you and you say something I don’t want to forget, I can put an * on the paper and later, after our conversation has concluded, I can touch the paper at that point (at the *) and the recording of our conversation will pick up where you said what I didn’t want to forget.

Imagine a student taking notes in class.  He is listening to his math professor work through a problem.  The student could bring a voice recorder to class and tape the lecture.  He could also take notes.  But what if his notes were linked to the voice recording so that as he copied down the problem in his notebook, what he was writing was linked to what the teacher was saying at that moment.  Then when the student wanted to review he could simply touch the page at the point where he wanted to hear the explanation of a particular problem or portion of a problem and listen to it again.

Now imagine that the student’s notebook and recording were automatically copied to his computer so that he could look at a computer image of his notebook page, touch the page with his mouse, and hear the lecture through his computer speakers.

This is all possible with the Livescribe Pulse pen.

I was looking for a transcription service for my business. I am a communications consultant and take lots of notes.  I spend a lot of time typing them up.  I wasn’t sure, however, that I wanted to risk the confidentiality of my client conversations by hiring a transcription service.  Besides, sometimes I can’t read what I wrote or remember why I wrote what I did.  None of the digital pens I researched seemed like they had arrived, and then I found the Pulse pen.  It sounded too good to be true, but for my business it was easy to justify a $159.74 purchase to find out just how good it was.

What you need to know:

• The pen uses special ink refills that are easy to swap out – about $2.00-2.50 a refill with tax and shipping.
• The paper it uses is like a large map and the pen like a GPS; the special notebooks are all numbered, so when I write on Page 27 of Notebook #3, the pen knows that and when the page is recreated on my computer it shows up as Page 27 of Notebook #3.
• The spiral notebooks I use are about $5.00 each for 200 pages (100 double-sided).
• The pen is available online at www.livescribe.com, through eBay or other online stores; it is available in some brick and mortar stores as well.
• There is a newer version of the pen – the Echo – that I know very little about.

What you need to consider:

• If your child is going to let his teachers know he is using a recording device then you will have to see if your district, school, or particular teachers have policies about this usage.
• I do a lot of work with educators and have warned principals to watch out for “fat” pens – they may be being recorded without knowing it and need to be careful what they say.  The same would hold true for teachers and you can imagine why some of them might object to being recorded on a daily basis – I don’t think they should or even should be allowed to object, but you can imagine why they might.
• I have been told that in the State of Ohio it is legal to record a conversation as long as one party to the conversation knows that it is being recorded – that is, you can’t eavesdrop electronically where no one in the conversation knows it is being recorded.  You would need to check out your own state laws.
• I always alert prospects and clients to my recording pen because it isn’t worth the loss of trust if they were to find out later.  I also download the recordings and delete them from my pen on a daily basis to safeguard the conversations in case the pen were lost.  A student would want to leave the recordings on the pen so he could use them with the notebook during review sessions later in the course.

So now when I try to read my notes and can’t figure out what they mean, or when I have forgotten the context of a word or phrase, I simply listen to that part of the conversation again and can easily reconstruct what I have written and why.

Obviously neither I nor anyone else can guarantee your child’s educational success for any amount of money, but for less than $200 you can make an investment that pays both immediate and long-term dividends as your child is less focused on taking down every word that is said and more focused on learning and taking notes that will be helpful for later review.

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