In my last blog, Road Trip to the Olympics: The Dream of a Lifetime, I told the story of our ill-fated attempt to go to the Olympics, which was thwarted by a flu bug.  But after a 48 hour recovery period, we were ready to go!

At 7:30 AM on Thursday, February 25, we headed up I-5 toward the Peace Arch border crossing at Blaine, Washington.  Our Olympic mobile contained 2 moms, 4 kids and lots of happy anticipation, especially mine.

We arrived at the Bridgeport Sky Train Station where we planned to park and ride into the city.  The garage was already full, however we noticed many people parking in a mud lot underneath the train tracks.

“Can you park here?”  I asked a man and his wife who were heading into the station. “I don’t know.  We walked from our hotel.  We are from Holland,” the man replied in his Euro accent.  Wow!   We were having what I envisioned in my Olympic experience and we hadn’t even parked the car yet!

After parking, we purchased our $9 all day train tickets and boarded the Sky Train. We rode to the Waterfront stop, several blocks from the Olympic flame Cauldron and the Pacific Coliseum where the figure and speed skating events were taking place.

Along the quarter mile walk to the Cauldron past the Coliseum, we saw vendors selling Olympic pins.  Each Olympic venue and sport had a collectible pin.  Volunteers carried some in their pockets.  If you were lucky, they had one to give to you when you asked.   The kids loved this giant treasure hunt taking place all over the city.  They collected four pins each and bought two more.

We picniced fifty feet from the impressive Olympic Cauldron. After taking pictures, we headed toward Robson Square, one of several “Celebration Sites.” On the way, we stood in line to receive a free ball cap at the Omega Plaza behind the Art Gallery.  The kids got their picture taken in a real, cherry red bobsled.

At Robson Square, a zip line was strung between two towers at a breathtaking height and distance. A juggler entertained a crowd next to an ice skating rink where the public could skate for a $2 skate rental fee.  We scored two Olympic pins there and rested our feet watching Finland beat Switzerland in hockey on the live Jumbotron outdoor screen.

Next we walked to BC Place, where the women’s gold medal hockey match was soon to begin. Streams of fans in red maple leaf Canadian jerseys flowed toward the rink.  The band and cheering crowds could be heard from outside. We were looking for one of many pavilions offering free activities. The line snaking around the Ontario house indicated a two-hour wait to enter, which was typical of the indoor venues.  We contented ourselves with the outdoor ambiance and headed off to find our souvenirs at a quaint section of town called Gastown.

As afternoon edged toward evening, our Olympic adventure wound down with the waning stamina of six-year-old legs.  We meandered back to the Sky Train for the trip home.

Though we hadn’t seen a single athlete or attended an athletic event, our expectations for our road trip had been fulfilled.  We’d been to the Olympics!  We’d seen the flame.  We met people from other countries. We experienced outstanding Canadian hospitality.  We had Olympic pins and souvenirs to treasure.  Our kids had a unique experience that would enhance their Olympic enjoyment for years to come.

I’m still smiling.  We pulled off a spontaneous, nearly cancelled, very affordable, fabulous Olympic road trip. I’ve had a dream come true. And to think I almost missed it!

-posted by Donna Detweiler, who suggests you take a road trip to Vancouver for the Paralympics coming up in March.

Having grown up in the snowy Midwest on the tip of Lake Michigan, I learned to ice skate at a young age. We drove up to the Iron Mountains of Northern Michigan to ski regularly during the winter and eventually out in Colorado a few times. My parents lived near a golf course, which was perfect for cross country skiing.

So when the winter Olympics rolled around every four years, our family was as happy as a teenage boy at an all-you-can-eat buffet.  We were allowed to watch TV on school nights (a rare privilege) and during dinner (a very rare privilege.) Like many families, our talk was dominated by one subject during those two weeks.  I swear our skiing and skating improved after watching too.  My ski posters were my prize possessions along with the book, How to Ski with the Big Boys.

Decades later, married and living in Seattle, you can imagine my delight when the Winter Olympics were to be held in Vancouver, BC in 2010.  I vowed to go up, even if I could only get tickets to the curling event, which I’ve since discovered is a cool sport.  But when the time for the Olympics came around, I somehow lost perspective. To go up to Vancouver seemed too expensive for the budget and impractical with all the unknowns of traveling in an unfamiliar big city with young kids in tow.

Just in the nick of time, my innate Olympic passion shook me out of my passive sensibilities.  On Sunday night of the final week, I was having coffee with a friend. I said to her and myself:  “I’ve always said that I would go to the Olympics if I ever had a chance.  I think I’ll regret it the rest of my life if I don’t at least go up there—even if I just see the Olympic Cauldron and take in the ambiance.  I don’t care if we don’t have tickets. We’ve gotta go!”

Having chosen the right friend to go to coffee with that evening, she replied, “Of course we have to go!”  We planned our Olympic road trip for the coming Tuesday.  My desire was coming true!

The picnic was packed, maps printed off the internet, and excitement was running high.   One child was tucked into bed in preparation for our early trek to the border when the second child came to me with those ill-fated words, “Mom, I don’t feel so good.”  Eight hours later, my Olympic dream had gone down the toilet, replaced by an all night vigil in the bathroom and a trip to the store for Ginger Ale and Gator Aid. By morning, both kids had been bitten by the flu bug.  We weren’t going anywhere.

All through the sleepless night and into the next day, I had a positive attitude that surprised even me.  Was I drawing strength from all the perseverance I’d been watching nightly on the Olympic coverage?  Somehow, I held onto hope for a quick recover throughout the whole flu ordeal. And by the grace of God, our delayed, but not destroyed Olympic Road trip began 48 hours later!

Tomorrow’s post:  The Dream Comes True!

-posted by Donna Detweiler, who watched lots of Olympic coverage with her kids during those sick days.

In my last blog, “I Like Me! – part 1,” I discussed how important healthy self-esteem is to a child’s development.  Good self-esteem is an essential component of their future success and satisfaction in life.  As parents, we can intentionally contribute to the positive development of their self-esteem.

Laura Beck, author of Development through the Lifespan, suggests five ways to foster healthy self-esteem in children: 

1. Build a positive relationship–Put aside your agenda at times to give 100% of your attention to your child. Listen.  Share some of your thoughts and feelings. When an adult listens to a child, (s)he feels valued.

2.  Nurture success—Try to have appropriate expectations for your child’s performance and assist them when a task is beyond their capability.  Praise the child for specific accomplishments and display their artwork and other projects, pointing out increasing skill.

3. Foster freedom to choose—Kids love to have a say. Give them appropriate opportunities to make decisions, but be careful.  Too many choices easily overwhelm a young child.  Our current parenting culture actually errs more on the side of giving children too many choices.  Strive for balance here.

4. Acknowledge the child’s emotions—Boy, did I blow this one last week when my son was mad that his team lost in basketball. Instead of affirming his good effort and giving him sympathy and comfort, allowing him to feel the disappointment, I essentially scolded him for expressing his negative feeling. If I could do it over, I would “teach” on handling negative emotions after allowing him to experience my acceptance.

5.  Use a rational approach to discipline–Yelling or unpredictable outbursts in response to problematic behavior in our children is a problematic behavior in itself.  Unpleasant emotional behavior in the parent causes the child to experience fear or anger instead of being able to deal with the situation.  Reasonable discipline keeps the focus on the behavior and promotes self-control and self-confidence in the child.  This happens when the parent uses self-control and self-confidence in the dealing with the problem.  This is easier said than done when our emotions get involved.  I’m always seeking to improve in this area.

Children with good self-esteem are on the road to a productive, satisfying life.  Self-esteem provides them with a valuable resource to handle inevitable difficulties that come along.  They believe they can handle the challenges that life brings. They don’t turn in on themselves in insecurity and self-condemnation, but depend on themselves and others in a healthy way as they function in a fulfilling social context.

-posted by Donna Detweiler who is grateful for parents who modeled a healthy self-esteem.  As the saying goes, “more is caught than taught!”

Of all the traits we long to see in our children, such as athleticism, poise or smarts, good self-esteem would likely fall near or at the top of our lists. Why?  Because we all recognize that good self-esteem goes a long way, even making up for lacks in other areas. 

In addition, positive self-esteem paves the way for other characteristics to develop, while low self-esteem can act like a road block. Who among us hasn’t known some incredibly gifted person who never achieved his or her potential because while everyone else believed in them, they didn’t believe in themselves?

In my last blog, I talked about how a preschooler’s self-concept begins to develop. Self-esteem is a special aspect of self-concept that begins or shows up in early childhood. Not surprisingly, young children’s self-esteem develops over time. Early on, children have uncalled for confidence. They tend to believe they can do just about anything they try—and do it well.

This trait is important as they must learn so many new skills at this stage of life. It’s not uncommon to hear a preschooler boasting, “I’m a good climber. Watch me.” or, “I can make the tallest tower.” Children tend to “believe in their own capacity,” which is a God-given nudge toward success.

Researchers note that some children are “non-persisters.” They give up when faced with difficult tasks such as cutting out a picture or working on a hard puzzle. Two studies done by Cain & Dweck and Smiley & Dweck showed that these children “conclude they can’t do the task and are discouraged after failure.”  No doubt some children and adults are more prone to harsh self-evaluation and discouragement. 

However, another study by Burhan & Dweck concluded that “non-persisting” children more often expressed fear of a parent’s punishment or negative reaction, such as “Daddy’s gonna be mad.” 

While the sensitive parent might conclude they are to blame for their child’s fearful or quitting behavior, this would be an overgeneralization because of the complexity of personality development. 

What we can learn from the above research is the certainty that parents can contribute positively to the development of a child’s self-esteem and that it is worth being intentional about doing. Through their verbal messages and response to failure, parents can give their children a boost toward good self-esteem.

In my next blog, I will give you five practical ways to foster healthy self-esteem in your children.  As you practice affirming your child’s self-esteem, you will be putting in a solid foundation for their future development. 

-posted by Donna Detweiler, who would describe herself as a “sensitive parent,” which is why she is cautioning you to take a balanced approach to this topic!

During the preschool years, physical growth occurs at an amazing rate. Equally impressive is the growth of an invisible aspect of the child; his or her self-concept.

Self-Concept is defined by Laura Beck, author of Development through the Lifespan, as the attributes, abilities, attitudes and values that an individual believes define who he or she is.  At age 3-5, a preschooler’s budding self-concept is very concrete, which is consistent with most aspects of their thinking.  In other words, because the part of the brain responsible for abstract thinking is not yet fully developed, a child only has capacity to deal with what can be experienced with their senses.

Try this experiment:  Ask a 3-5 year old to tell you about himself or herself. According to researchers, the child will tell you about “observable characteristics” such as:

Name:  “I’m Sarah.”
Appearance:  “I have a pink dress with a flower on it.  See?”
Possessions:  “I got Pretty Pony for Christmas!”
Everyday Behaviors:  “I can help wash the car with Daddy.”

As a matter of fact, the preschooler’s self-concept is so intertwined with concrete possessions that defending territory is paramount to defending life. The familiar cry, “Mine!” flows from this developmental stage in which the child feels I-am-my-stuff.

It is interesting to note that that the stronger the child’s self-definition, the more possessive he or she appears to be.  It can be postulated that a child that appears less selfish has not yet developed as strong a sense of self as the “grabber.”

It is a healthy and normal state of affairs when a preschool child begins to clarify the boundary between self and others. Think about this: only when there is a sense of self can children begin to cooperate in playing games.  “I’ll be the mommy.  You be the brother.”  “I’ll drive the truck. You drive the train.” They begin to solve problems together and figure out rules for enjoyable play that requires sharing and compromise. When the inevitable war of the wills arises, the wise parent will affirm the developing self-concept while resolving conflict:

“Yes, that’s your toy, but in a little while, you can give someone else a turn.”

Next time you watch preschoolers at play, have fun looking for these markers of a developing self-concept:

• Concrete descriptions related to self
• Asserting rights to objects
• The beginning of social organization in make-believe play

-posted by Donna Detweiler, who thinks learning to decode children’s behavior makes parenting more interesting!

Math Anxiety.  Do you have it?  Or are you a numbers whizz?  Perhaps you somewhere in between like me. Math came easily until it required complex computation, not just memorization.  When I had to really understand what was going on on, not merely follow a formula, I began to struggle.

For many of us, a great teacher made all the difference. The gifted guide made the complex simple and therefore we made it up to the next rung on the math ladder.  I wish I’d had a few more of those teachers to keep me going because as we mature, we discover that the math we snubbed really does have a lot to do with our real, everyday lives.

If you scratch below the surface of most any subject you find math.  Music is based on math. 8 notes in a scale.  If you flat the 3^rd, you get a minor key—every time. The first, third and fifth notes make a major chord and so on.  Basic cooking is all about fractions.  Sewing has measurement at the core.  Knitting is for those who love to count. Knit one, perl two…  Math is about relationships between things:  Hot/cold, Long/Short, Big/Little.

Why all this philosophizing about math? This winter, I’m teaching a unit on math for K-4^th graders.  My goal is to help the kids up that ladder a rung or two. 

Peggy Kaye, a seasoned educator, wrote a classic book on math games called Games for Math that I’ve used for my class. Games are a great way to make the complex more simple. I think it worked.  The kids proclaimed it the best class ever. I successfully tricked them into thinking that they were just playing games, not having learning about math!

Although she wrote the book for her work with Kindergartners through 3rd graders, many of them are easily adjusted for fun with the preschool crowd.

Here are a few games from Peggy’s book that you might like to try today:

The How Many Game: 
While “doing life” you can play this game anywhere.  Ask your child to count all the people who are standing up, or sitting down, wearing hats, walking dogs, carrying purses, etc.  At the park, in the mall, or on a bus, or in a lobby waiting for sister’s gym class to get out, this game can fill in the spaces. It teaches your child to scan a group and sort categories, make distinctions and count.  Let them tell you what to count too.

Number Collage:
This activity is designed to clear up confusion young children often have regarding one-to-one relationships between numbers and the objects being counted.  First, the child chooses a number and writes it in the middle of a 14” by 17” sheet of paper.  Then with the parents help, the child searches through magazines for pictures that she likes. If she chose a number 5, then she picks out 5 magazine pictures and cuts them out to paste on her page.  Finally, alongside each picture a number is written:  1-2-3-4-5.  The concept of 1 number per picture is reinforced as well as giving her fine motor practice in cutting and pasting. 

Kitchen Calculus:
Sorting is a skill that can be reinforced while having fun when you work with your child to put away the groceries. The child makes the decision as to where the food should be put away. You help by asking clarifying questions as needed, “Is it hot or cold? Is it in a box or a can?  Is it a vegetable or meat?”  They feel so grown up as you let them decide what goes where and allow them to put the things away independently. 

Number Ladder:
In this easy game, the parent draws a ladder with 10 rungs on a piece of paper with one number on each rung, not in order:  For example 4,7,2,8,1,9,3,5,6,10.  The child rolls a die and climbs the ladder by adding the number on the face of the die to number on the ladder.  If he rolls a 6, he adds 4 + 6.  If he gets the correct answer, he has “climbed” that rung and may go again—7 + 6. If he misses, he “tumbles down” to the bottom and rolls again.  As the parent takes a turn, it is the child’s job to catch the parent making a mistake.  If he does, the parent “tumbles down.” Kids love the success of climbing to the top, and are thrilled to catch a parent making a mistake.

Peggy Kaye concludes the introduction of her book with some good advice on teaching our kids math. 

“The best advice on how you should play (math) games is…relax.  Relaxing might mean changing the rules at the spur of the moment to better suit your child’s personality. It might mean forgetting about a game halfway through because it stopped being fun. Relaxing means not worrying if your child seems to have trouble playing a particular game. Give the child a chance. Don’t worry about the stumbles. Your child will learn to add and subtract and do all the other procedures in good time. Relax—all will be well.”

Playing math games was certainly the most relaxed teaching I’ve done in awhile.  We all had fun and came through it smiling.  What a great strategy for learning math!  I want my kids to make friends with math early in life and enjoy all the various expressions of it they’ll undoubtedly encounter throughout their lives.

-posted by Donna Detweiler, who has a secret desire to study physics someday.