Simple ways to help kids learn the power of giving and and grow into caring individuals

It’s no secret that kids learn best by doing. But they’re also keen observers as well as little copycats. I constantly hear from parents that they want their kids to grow up to be caring and giving individuals. But it’s not enough to merely get the kids involved in giving back opportunities, it’s essential that you (as the parent) lead by example.

In fact, one of the easiest ways to boost our children’s character development is by providing them with the example or model you hope they copy.  Our kids arrive with a huge built-in advantage: research shows children are hard-wired at birth to become empathic. All we need to do is provide the right opportunities and examples to help them “catch” the spirit of giving.

What I mean is, if your kids show an interest in a volunteer opportunity, make sure you go with them. They need to see you participating in the act of giving itself. By seeing you and the joy you get in giving back, you help them grow into caring individuals.

Make sure you also share your experience: “I worked at the soup kitchen. I can’t tell you how great it made me feel to give out meals. The people were so grateful!” It’s amazing to see kids catch that joy. My husband and I raised our three boys this way and we’re quite proud of how they’ve turned out.

Sometimes taking the first step is the hardest part, so start simple. Look for local opportunities, which might be as close as next door. If you have an elderly neighbor, propose that one Saturday morning you all go over as a family and help clean up the yard. Or around the holidays, volunteer your family to serve food at a local food shelter. What counts is the moment when the recipient states his appreciation. Your child suddenly recognizes he or she made a difference on someone’s life, the hero within awakens and the joy of giving begins.

Another option is to find opportunities linked to your kids’ passions. If your son or daughter loves animals, get involved as a family at your local animal shelter by playing with the animals on a monthly basis.  If your child likes to perform, have them go read or play an instrument at a senior center. The secret is to follow your child’s lead. That way your child will be more motivated to volunteer and you just may find him or her taking charge.

If you’d like, you can ask the parents of your child’s classmates to volunteer along with your family. Or even invite their family. My husband and I started the tradition of delivering presents to needy families in our community during the holidays with our three boys and their best friends and parents. To this day all of our kids – and their friends – say it was one of their fondest holiday memories. (One of my son’s friends even wrote about the experience on his college essay describing it as “transforming” and even thanked his dad for the opportunity of learning how it felt to give back. You just never know!)

Photo: A Pack n’ Ship event at General Mills headquarters in Minneapolis, MN. At the event, employees and their families packed backpacks with school supplies and treats including a handwritten note. These items were donated along with laptops to school children in Kigali, Rwanda. The event was sponsored by Betty Crocker® Fruit Flavored Snacks and their “Win & Give” promotion. I had the joy of helping to deliver those backpacks to kids in Rwanda and what they appreciated most were the handwritten notes from the American kids! They touched, read, reread, held those notes and cherished them! Little things can make such a big difference in children’s lives. 

Children learn by watching and they watch their parents more closely than anyone. You don’t have to be extremely creative (although that can never hurt). Just be engaged with your kids. What’s important is that:

1)     You’re recognizing the giving potential in your child

2)     You’re showing your child that you too care about the world around you

Those are sure-fire ways to boost the odds that your kids are going to grow up to be altruistic.

It sounds a little cliché, but clichés exist for a reason, I guess. Truly, in addition to talking the talk as a parent and getting your kids excited about giving back, you need to walk the walk and volunteer with them .

So here’s my challenge to you. Ask yourself, “If my kids had only my example to watch would they be catching a “giving spirit”?

If not, it may be time to tune up your own behavior. After all, the kids are watching!

Let’s make sure what they watch is what you hope they copy.

By  Character Education Partnership

“Teachers matter,” said President Obama last week in his State of the Union address. “Instead of bashing them, or defending the status quo let’s offer schools a deal. Give them the resources to keep good teachers on the job, and reward the best ones. In return, grant schools flexibility: To teach with creativity and passion; to stop teaching to the test; and to replace teachers who just aren’t helping kids learn.”

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ – The following is a statement by Mark Hyatt, President & CEO, Character Education Partnership and used with his permission.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110721/MM39451LOGO)

We at the nonprofit Character Education Partnership (CEP) share this concern because “teaching to the test” can deceive stakeholders into thinking students are doing better than they really are. But in the current environment, we are even more alarmed by how the testing status quo seems to be adversely affecting the integrity of our education system, itself.

Recent revelations of widespread testing fraud in Atlanta’s public schools are just the latest examples of a disturbing national trend that should finally force all of us who care about education to ask some uncomfortable but unavoidable questions. Chief among them: Has a national over-emphasis on standardized testing actually created a monster that is eroding the character of K-12 education?

In just the last year, institutional efforts to artificially inflate student performance—mostly for the benefit of teachers or administrators—seem to have reached epidemic proportions. Incredibly and ironically, cheating nationally among educators now seems even more pervasive than it was a decade ago (when federal ‘No Child Left Behind’ [NCLB] legislation was enacted for the purpose of elevating K-12 testing standards nationwide). Unfortunately, it seems that placing more emphasis on standardized tests to measure the effectiveness of teachers and schools has led some good educators to do bad things. In fact, as we later learned, even the signature success of the NCLB education model—the public schools system in Houston TX—apparently had succumbed to the temptation to shape scores to reflect desired outcomes.

Despite all of its noble intentions, this emphasis on high stakes/standardized testing seems to have done more harm than good and yielded troubling unintended consequences. So, why exactly are these good people cheating?  I suggest that we are now getting what we inspect, not what we expect. Perhaps placing less emphasis on standardized tests and more on multiple measures of a teacher’s effectiveness and an individual student’s growth relative to his/her peers is now in order.

With that in mind, I believe it is time to step back and reassess our current national testing strategy. Our concern is that those unintended consequences are overtaking good intentions and instead creating pressures that frankly promote cheating. An educator secretly putting on plastic gloves and changing students test scores after hours only hurts students in order to benefit adults.  Yes, we can make it harder for educators to cheat with stronger audits, “air-tight” tests that make it harder to cheat, or even civil penalties for those who do this. But really shouldn’t we change the system that tempts this bad behavior?  Some say “we won’t have ethical people until we have ethical institutions.”  I’ve heard others say just the opposite, we won’t have ethical intuitions until we have ethical individuals.” I think the answer is in between.  At the end of the day, this dilemma undermines what should be the parallel (if not paramount) mission of every school: to graduate people of good character.

This month, after nearly a decade “in the trenches” in the role of K-12 public school superintendent, I have signed on to lead CEP in hopes of promoting this vital mission. Our goal is to create an environment of integrity both inside and outside the classroom that exposes students everywhere to people who are committed to enhancing their character. And we hope to promote examples not just in classrooms, but in sports, media, at home, and beyond.

Indeed, it is time for all of us to stand up and demand honesty and accountability from all of our students, teachers and school administrators. After all, our nation’s ability to compete internationally in virtually any arena now depends on it.

Based in Washington, D.C., the nonprofit Character Education Partnership is the leading national advocate for character education. Our goal is to strengthen our communities, nation, and democracy by empowering schools—teachers, administrators, students and community members. Our membership includes some of the nation’s leading education organizations, and our board of directors is made up of corporate leaders and experts in the field of character education. For more information, go to www.character.org.

Mr. Hyatt can be reached via e-mail at mhyatt@character.org.

Available Topic Expert(s): For information on the listed expert(s), click appropriate link. Mark Hyatt https://profnet.prnewswire.com/Subscriber/ExpertProfile.aspx?ei=106704

SOURCE: Character Education Partnership. Used with permission by Mark Hyatt and CEP.

My TODAY show report: 7 items parents should check-up on now to improve kids’ learning success mid-year.

That crucial second school semester is in full bloom. Mid-year is when parents alike have a good idea about how their kids are doing in school – which subjects are hard or easy and how they like their teachers.

This is also a time of year when parents often overlook a few important aspects of their children’s school experience that can greatly impact learning success.

That’s why now is the ideal time to do a mid-year check up with your child’s progress, identify potential problems and resolve them so you make the remainder of your child’s school year go far smoother and not be caught off-guard. Here are a few items to check and solutions if you see a problem.

Academic Progress Dip

Classes often get harder now. Older kids may have switched classes or teachers. High stakes testing is approaching. Teachers will decide if your child will be promoted, retained or recommended for special placement. And all of those issues can greatly impact your child’s learning success.

Parent Check-In: Make sure you recheck the teacher’s website for your child’s current grades and test scores.If notice a downslide in your child’s academic progress…

Solutions:

Set a conference with teacher. Review test scores, grades, as well as achievement test results, which should now be available.

Find out what would improve school performance: a tutor, a class change, or hitting those books harder, then develop a plan together before you leave that meeting.

If your child needs a tutor consider hiring a retired teacher or even a high school student if cost is an issue.

Check upcoming class projects with your child like the science fair, extended book report, that social studies project and mark due dates on a calendar so your child can allow time and effort to complete those tasks. .

Attendance and Tardies

Next to grades, the highest correlation to school success is showing up in class on time ready to learn. Many parents are shocked to discover their kids are “missing” classes and marked absent even though you thought you sent your child to school on time.

Parent Check-In: Don’t overlook reviewing your child’s attendance and tardies which are posted on the school’s website. If there is a discrepancy:

Solutions: Find out what’s going on why and find a simple solution.

If your child is chronically late waking up, get him an alarm clock.

Communicate with the teacher on a daily or weekly basis until the problem is resolved.

Don’t overlook another cause: could his tardiness have anything due to your own behavior like you can’t find those car keys for the carpool or you’re always scheduling his doctor’s appointments during his crucial AP science class? Revamp your own behavior if needed.

Lacks Friends or Rejected

Friends play an enormous part of not only our children’s self-esteem but also school success. A lack of friends or rejection makes concentrating on those school assignments a lot harder. While your child doesn’t need many friends he does need one loyal buddy and hanging around the kind of friends who value education does impact his learning..

Parent Check-in: To see if your child has peer support is to ask him to draw a map of school locations where kids most likely to be excluded: school cafeteria or playground. Where are other kids in relation to your child? If no friends or rejected frequently:

Solutions:

Contact the teacher for friendship-making ideas.

Find group activity to support your child’s passion. School-aged children choose friends based on similar interests so identify your child’s passion or interests and then find a group activity with same-aged peers that support it. For instance, if he loves guitar, find him a group class where he’ll be more likely to make a new buddy.

Activity Overload

Many students are on activity overload taking on more activities after the holidays, which may contribute to stress and cut into energy and time needed to devote to school-work.

Parent Check-in: Assess if your child’s weekly activity schedule is balanced and allows downtime to relax or be with friends.Are you noticing that your child is having trouble this semester concentrating or focusing? If the schedule is on overload…

Solutions:

Sit down with your child and cut one thing to free up time and give him a chance to decompress. Cutting just one thing can make a difference.

Sleep Deprived

A lack of sleep can have a serious impact on children’s to learn and perform at school. Missing one hour of sleep can affect as much as one grade on the test the following morning. Make sure your child is getting enough sleep!

Parent Check: Take time to assess how your child handles the day (irritability and acting out can mean a lack of sleep). If she wakes up in the morning droggy and unrefreshed….

Solutions:

Restore a routine bedtime schedule. Often after the holiday break that routine decreases and many kids are on jet lag. Research finds sticking to a routine bed time is the best way for a good night sleep.

Watch that your teen doesn’t stay out too late on those weekends. Monday mornings can be deadly for those first period teachers if kids are asleep on their desks.

Turn computer and TV off at least 30 minutes prior to bedtime –flickering lights affect sleep.

Remove cell phones after lights out. Sixty-two percent of kids admit they use it after the lights go out and their parents are clueless.

Skipped Meals

A healthy breakfast is important for concentrating and keeping up with the stamina.

Parent Check: Are mornings rushed and your kid is missing that crucial first meal? If so…

Solutions: 

Find healthy options to grab on the run like ready-to-go bottles of orange juice or milk, low-fat yogurt, apples and whole-grain English muffins.

Set up a basket of multi-grain snackbars right by the door or toss in one or two bars inside your child’s backpack to make it through the day.

Watch for coffee, caffeinated sodas or energy drinks consumption -a growing teen trend for energy and can rob sleep and cause. Restock your fridge with easy to grab bottles of water for backpacks.

Too Stressed

Eighty-five percent of teens say they are stressed and many say it is affecting their school performance.

Parent Check: Have you seen a marked change since the holidays began from your child’s “normal” behavior that lasts everyday for at least two weeks? Is he more irritable or withdrawn lately? Does she have trouble concentrating or have more headaches? Is he quicker to frustrate? Don’t overlook stress. If so:

Solutions: Look further to assess if it is stress-related. Identify what’s triggering the stress, reduce those triggers that you can (like that difficult of a math class).

Consider yoga, exercise or healthy ways to help your child learn to decompress

Final Thoughts: The secret is to identify simple things you may overlook that can affect your child’s learning success. Then find a solution that works for your family and commit to implementing it until you reap positive change.

Dr. Michele Borba

6 proven stress busters I shared on TODAY for the sake of our health and our kids’ well-being

Let’s face it, “Mommying” has always been stressful, so it should be no surprise that 70 percent of U.S. moms admit mothering is “incredibly stressful.” (A whooping 96 percent also feel that we are far more stressed than our own mothers).

A few factors seem to be triggering Mommy Angst including financial insecurities, a more intensive parenting style where we do more-more more, higher (and sometimes unrealistic) expectations for our kids’ success, a lack of support, time famine, relationship demands, and concern that the world is more perilous for kid raising.

But more significant than the cause is the negative impact unchecked stress has on our health and family’s well being as well as our children emotional health and our parenting competencies. Moms who face ongoing stress are prone to be more insensitive and harsh as well as more likely to make derogatory comments in an angry tone to their kids. Studies also should that a parent’s ability to manage stress is a strong predictor of the quality of her relationship with her children and how happy their children were!

Two Quick “Mommy Stress” Tests

Stress buildup can ruin family harmony and destroy physical health. So how do you know if your stress is harming your kids? Here are two quick tests to find out (and I dare you to take them). Ask your kids tonight:

Your Home Climate Test

Is your home a place where you and your kids can de-stress?

Are there laughs and time to enjoy each other’s company in a relaxed mode?

Your Kids’ Memory of YOU Test

If you asked your kids to describe you would they say you are usually calm, take time to listen and are enjoyable to be around?

If your home climate is generally tense and your kids typify you as usually “tense, wiped-out and irritable,” it’s time to get your stress in check.

Education has always been a passion of mine. Moral development and nurturing children’s compassion and empathy are the essence of my work. So when General Mills asked me if I’d like to be a spokesperson for its Betty Crocker Fruit Flavored Snacks “Win & Give” campaign, I jumped at the opportunity. This campaign gives kids in the U.S. the opportunity to win a XO laptop from the non-profit One Laptop per Child (OLPC) and triggers a donation of the same laptop to kids in Africa. Through this program, it’s easy to get kids involved in giving back and recognize they can be heroes and make a difference.

The most amazing part of working with Betty Crocker Fruit Flavored Snacks was that I would be able to travel to Rwanda with several General Mills employees and employees of OLPC to help deliver XO laptops and backpacks filled with much-needed school supplies. I was excited to have the opportunity to witness the incredible impact these computers have on the lives of kids in Africa and the power of giving back.

In case you’re not familiar, Rwanda is a small landlocked East African nation (sometimes considered part of central Africa) slightly larger than Vermont and the most densely populated African country. This beautiful country also experienced the unspeakable horrors of genocide in 1994. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed in just one hundred days.  Imagine!

A UNICEF study found that five out of six children who had been in Rwanda during the slaughter had, at very least, witnessed bloodshed. My heart hurt for the Rwandan children, the same Rwandan children who so captured my heart.

I was in Rwanda for a week and during that time, visited hundreds of children at several local schools both giving laptops and also checking in on schools that had already received them. I also helped give out backpacks that were packed with goodies by kids in the U.S. The backpacks included a notebook, a pencil, gum, a ruler and a note from the student in the U.S. that filled the backpack at an event in August. But more on that note a little later.

It’s important for you to understand how different the Rwandan school experience is than that of children in the US. When we got to the schools, I noticed while their classrooms do have electricity, they were bare –no books, school supplies, paper, just old wooden desks, one blackboard, cement floors and a teacher. Recess was outside on the red clay dirt. Their play equipment consisted of tattered jump ropes and maybe a few cans or balls to kick.

I noticed immediately, however, that everywhere-everywhere-the kids met me with smiles and hugs. These extraordinary children were friendly, open, affectionate and so appreciative. The minute they saw us coming, they would come running to greet us.

Once utilizing the XO laptop, I saw the classroom come alive with children working, engaged in their own education. They were sharing and creating together. Each click of the mouse was helping them become more connected both to the world and to a brighter future.

I had an experience at the Murambi School in Kigali for deaf and mute children that literally altered my life. As elsewhere, the kids came running to greet us that day. I visited classrooms and was mesmerized as they did lessons on their XO computers.

I saw the pride in their eyes as they discovered the right answers and demonstrated their programming skills. There was such excitement as the students received their backpacks and opened them to find the small items. By and large, the thing they were most grateful for was the personal note written by a child from the U.S. that I mentioned before. The students savored those cards-holding them as if they were golden. As one boy read his note, he looked up at me with tears, and held his card to his chest while pointing to his heart as a sign to let me know how much that note meant. In broken English he said, “thank you” as he stood up and hugged me with such gratitude. I just hugged him right back and cried.

I wished that American students could have seen the impact their simple, caring gesture had on the lives of the children in that classroom (you may visit www.winonegiveone.com to see images and footage from the trip).

The Betty Crocker “Win & Give” campaign is all about helping moms and kids realize that even the smallest of acts of giving can make a big difference. I’m so committed to this program and the power it has to change lives.

Giving back is part of my beliefs as I’m convinced it mobilizes children’s hearts and activates compassion. It’s a simple secret that opens up our children’s hearts.

As a mom, giving back to others is part of our family mantra and played a large role in how my husband and I raised our three boys. I’ve seen first-hand that when children see the incredible impact they can have on someone’s life, it empowers them to continue to give back and get involved. Best yet, the experience nurtures empathy and altruism-the seeds of humanity. Instilling altruistic values in kids helps them grow into kind, empathetic and respectful adults. Let’s make sure we adults give our kids the opportunity.

I will never forget the experience I had in Rwanda nor the children I met there.

Our kids-all children-deserve to know they can be heroes.