How to teach children to see life from a different perspective.

"What does it mean to think like a Frog?"  My 7 year old daughter recently asked this question while reading a book where a Zen master was trying to teach his student how to think like a Frog.

I explained that the exercise was designed to consider life a from a different point of view.  I asked her where a frog would like to live, in a desert or in a lake?  She said lake. Then I asked her what kind of animals would the frog like to have around, eventually we identified that flys would be good because frogs eat flys and fish would be bad because fish eat frogs.  She caught on and then we moved to other animals, such as a mouse that would like cheese and no cats and a giraffe that would like trees with high leaves.

Recently we were crossing the Golden Gate Bridge where they stopped taking a bridge toll and instead read an electronic sensor called a Fast Track or take a picture of your license plate and send you a ticket.  My kids asked how they collect the toll if you do not have a Fast Track Sensor. I explained how they took a picture of your license plate and sent you a ticket to your house.  Then they started to ask what happens if you don't pay the ticket and I was starting to make up the escalation process.




Then I remembered the lesson about thinking like a frog and I asked my daughter what she would do if she ran a bridge and people did not pay their tolls when a ticket was mailed.  She came up with different ideas for escalating the fine and then taking away people's driving license for a while until they paid.  While writing this article, I discovered that if you don't pay the toll within 21 days, a fine of $25 is added to the ticket.  If you don't pay the first overdue notice, another note is sent out and the fee is increased.  Finally,if you don't pay that fine, the matter is referred to the DMV and they withhold vehicle registration.  It turns out, that our assumptions were fairly close to the actual penalties.

 What penalties would you set if people didn't pay their toll?

Source Marin IJ

In another example, my daughter said that her teacher was kind of strict sometimes. I asked my daughter how she would act if she was a teacher with 30 first graders.  My daughter quickly realized that with that many people in the room, it was important to maintain discipline and she then had a little more sympathy for her teacher.

Next time your child does understand why someone is acting the way they do, teach them how to think like a frog and then ask them to try and think like the other person.  From the simple example of the frog, they should be able to make the leap to understanding why people behave the way they do fostering empathy, as well as ability to predict others behavior.

Which of your kids do you love the most?

My daughter asked me which of our two children I loved the most.  I asked her, "When you walk, which of your feet are more important?" She said they are both important.  She then understood and said, "Oh, so you love both of us equally".  

When children come to their own conclusions, they are more likely to remember the lesson.

How to make kids behave

My wife was dropping our son off at school yesterday.  While she was talking to the teacher, our son picked up a large handful of play-dough and started banging it against a window.  Before my wife could escape out of the classroom, the teacher immediately took control.  She said to our son, "John, I see that you like to play with play-dough, do you want to play with it at the table?"  Our son took one look at the teacher, and then immediately went to the table and started to play.  No confrontation, no running across the room, no yelling.

Lets break that down.  First, she used our child's name to get his attention rather than out of anger.  Second, she acknowledge what our kid was doing without judgement.  Now she has his interest.  Third, she redirected him and gave him a positive action that he could follow.

Time and time again, I have read that the only way to get people to do the thing that you want them to do is to find out what they like to do.  My wife and I just got a lesson from a preschool teacher.

Stop Copying Me!

Every now and then my kids want to play the copying game.  Whatever you say they say right back.  Here is how it normally goes:

Parent, "I want more mashed potatoes."
Child. "I want more mashed potatoes."
Parent, "Are you copying me?"
Child, "Are you copying me?"
Parent, "Stop that."
Child, "Stop that."
Parent, “Quit copying me.”
Child, “Quit copying me.”
And so on….

Here is how to break the cycle.  As soon as you see they are copying you, do the same thing back to them.

Parent, "I want more mashed potatoes."
Child. "I want more mashed potatoes."
Parent, “I want more mashed potatoes.”
Child, “I want more mashed potatoes.”
Parent, “I want more mashed potatoes.”
Child, “I want more mashed potatoes.”

After a couple of rounds, the child will slip up and add some minor change such as a sigh or leave a word out such as, “I want more potatoes.”  Whatever the little change is, add it to your response.  Now you are copying them.

After they see that they are no longer driving the game, they will give up and you can move onto something different.

Dinner is crazy with kids.

Dinner time is usually pretty crazy in the house.  The kids are hungry and tired, and so are mom and dad.  One of the things that we are starting to do is involve the kids.  The first thing to do is give the kids a snack.  This quiets them down, keeps them busy and if done right minimizes dinner friction. The best snack is something healthy like carrots or berries.  When kids are hungry they will eat almost anything.  By giving them healthy food first, they eat that and then they still have room for the meat or starch when you serve the meal.  This way you are not fighting with them to eat veggies that they do not like after their stomach is full of things that they do like.

The next thing is to start to involve kids in the kitchen making food.  This takes more time in the beginning but eventually will save time and teach them self sufficiency.  You can give them busy jobs like washing carrots or you can have them mix ingredients.  One trick is to pre measure the ingredients and then have the kids add the ingredients to a pot before putting it on the stove.  Example: if you are making rice, measure a cup of rice and cut off a little butter and leave it on the counter.  When the kid comes in, tell them to get a pot and add the rice and butter to the pot.  Also have some water pre measured.  As they get older, they can start to take more steps.

Involving the kids or giving them a healthy snack before dinner cuts down on the pre-meal tension, teaches them confidence in the kitchen and encourages an activity that you can do together.

Talk about fire engines

My son asks this questions every day.  "Talk about fire engines".  I ask what do you want to know?  He says, "Just talk about them."  I have gone over the ladders and the sirens, the purpose of a dalmatian and the pumps and I am running out of things to say.  Now I have introduced a new fire engine character: Sparky.  Sparky has many adventures which usually relate to what I want Matt to do.  Here is a story that I told when Matt would not go to bed early but would complain that he did not have time to sit in our bed in the morning before school.

One time after a long day of fighting fires, Sparky came back to the fire station with the other engines and wanted to stay up late while the other engines went to bed.  The next morning the fire alarm rang and all the other engines got up and went to the fire.  Sparky was too tired to wake up.  When Sparky finally woke up, the other engines were returning to the fire, Sparky was upset that he could not go to the fire.  That night Sparky went to bed early and was able to go the fire the next day.

Positive Parenting

Went to a great talk by Jim Wiltens about positive parenting.  The idea is that you need to focus on the the things that kids do correctly to let them know that they are making progress.  You do this by catching them in the act of being good kids.  "I saw that you helped your sister put the blocks away."  This is not comfortable at first. My daughter called me on it, she said, "How come you always tell me things that I am doing?"  My answer was "because I want you to know that I recognize when you do things well".