Morning drive
As Benabar's jaunty "Mots d'Amour" careens from the car stereo, Ben Thu says: "I see a cowboy! And he's eating a taco!""God bless cowboys," I say, "and God bless tacos."
We're on our way to day care and the office, and in a moment my head is lost in the logistics of a lunch appointment, an e-mail I need to send, the timing of this afternoon's meeting, the agenda for tonight. Driving goes on auto-pilot.
But Ben jolts me back to the present. "I see a school bus taking people to school!"
"God bless school buses," I say, "and God bless everyone going to school."
Now it's my turn. "I see two police cars," I say. "God bless police," we say together.
It's a variation, of course, on the old childhood game "I Spy." It started weeks ago as a playful (if not desperate) way to redirect Ben from a tantrum.
But it's evolved into something larger. Now it has a sacred purpose: It reminds us where we are, and through prayer it links us to the people and events around us.
Attention and presence are mainstays of the spiritual life, ways of training ourselves to be aware of the moment and of God's sustaining presence here and now. Stability--being rooted in a particular time and place--is a key virture of Benedictine spirituality.
Through our play, Ben is learning to pay attention to where he's at. He's learning to speak a blessing on the unknown people in his life and to invoke God's presence in the midst of the everyday. He's learning to be present to the world around him.
I'm learning--and relearning--those things, too. When Ben initiates the game, I'm often surprised to find that I'm not paying attention to the present moment.
My day goes differently when we spend our commute noticing and praying. I'm more focused, and I have a gentler approach to the people and events that fill my day.
And on the drive I model something other than my usual stressful response (and colorful language) toward other drivers. Surely that's a good thing. :)
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Hurt me
Does this story from BBC strike anyone else as bizarre?Volunteers are to be 'burnt' by scientists to see if faith eases pain.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Thursday, January 13, 2005
Self esteem and starting school
The later a child begins school, the higher self-esteem will be later in life.That's one implication of a University of Alberta study of the effect of enrolling children in Grade 1 as early as age 5.5 years or as late as 6.5 years.
Of course, the report in Science Daily doesn't say how the researchers defined or measured self-esteem, a notoriously difficult concept to operationalize (see Dec. 21 blog entry below). And one of the researchers himself concedes that other studies suggest "direct efforts to boost children's self-esteem are largely fruitless."
The "relative age effect," to which the study results are attributed, seems intuitively correct.
Studying resilience--kids who overcome negative odds, as reported in the Jan. 17 issue of Time--just seems much more fruitful to me.
But I still wonder if intentionally teaching the cognitive skills involved in hoping--goal setting, agency thinking ("I can reach that goal"), pathways thinking ("Here are some different ways I can reach that goal") and goal-adaptation ("If I can't reach that goal, I could modify it or try for these goals instead")--wouldn't prove more fruitful in the long run than attempting to influence how children "feel" about themselves or delaying the start of school.
.: Posted by Duane Bidwell on Thursday, January 13, 2005