When I was a sophomore in high school, my parents sat the family down in the living room, opened up an enormous binder and asked my younger brother and me to pick a sister, any sister, from any country around the world.

We chose an eighteen-year-old, trumpet-playing, tall and strong-minded Finnish student who did, indeed, become a real sister to me over the course of the following year.

My parents had made rumblings in the past about hosting a foreign exchange student. We lived in a tiny, rural town in Central California, so they saw the exchange experience as a double-blessing: My parents could share the wealth of our small-town lives and the beauty of our diverse state while culturally enriching their own children’s lives. We had previously hosted a German teacher for a summer, and my brother’s baseball team had provided temporary housing for players from Russia — the USSR at that time. We were no strangers to strangers in our home.

But when the day finally came to choose the exchange student, I was nervous about the change. My life was filled with academics, sports and other extracurriculars, and my parents both had busy jobs in addition to being key participants in their children’s activities.

This experience was going to put me outside my comfort zone, and I wasn’t sure I would like it. Would there be enough room for another sister?  Would my parents have enough love to go around?  What would we gain by shaking up our seemingly comfortable lives?

As it turned out, quite a lot! While that year certainly came with ups and downs—as they do in any family—the lifelong friendship, the bond of sisterhood and the cultural experience I gained from having Karo in my life outshone all the extra squabbles over the shared curling iron.

It was such a worthwhile experience, that here we are, over 30 years later, preparing to choose another sister. Only this time, it’s my own family—my husband, myself and our three daughters. And this time, there will be no binder, no leafing through pages of possibilities, since we have already chosen our sister-for-a-year: Karo’s daughter from Finland. [Read more…]

Going to school for many kids is like going to war each and every day. It is a battleground where they are faced with the responsibility of making all kinds of decisions and having to deal with the consequences of their actions.

You see, making decisions independently is hard enough for a child. However, when faced with pressure from their peers to make a decision one way or the other, it becomes a whole new ball game.

There are so many more pressures that kids face today than ever before in history. The traditional pressures of smoking, drinking and drugs continue to pervade our society. But these days children have to engage on two different fronts: making wise decisions in person, and while using technology in the cyberworld, in particular on social media.

As a middle school teacher of 20 years, I have seen the evolution of challenges and the social pressures and expectations that kids face. Peer pressure to look and act a certain way, say the right things to be accepted into the “in-crowd,” play the “cool” games everyone else is playing, wear the latest designer clothing brands everyone else is wearing, and — nowadays — partake in the social media forums everyone else is taking part in. [Read more…]

When my first born was a toddler and started testing limits, I didn’t have my parenting and discipline strategy completely sorted out.

My sweet and calm child had learned to shake his head no, stomp his foot when something wasn’t to his liking and throw his dinner down to feed the dog instead of eating it himself.

My friends and even complete strangers often complimented me on what a well behaved toddler my son was. But as a new mother, I found some of his behaviors pushed my buttons.

Can I confess something to you? 

I was convinced that some of my toddler’s behavior was bad and needed to be stopped right away. Especially because I had another baby on the way and didn’t want to have out of control kids.

Thinking the problem was my discipline style, I started counting, using warnings and time outs when behaviors didn’t  meet my expectations.

That turned out to be a really bad choice for us.

Instead of better behavior from my son and a calmer home, we ended up with more tears for all of us.

Counting and control didn’t help my son learn new and better behaviors. My attention was always focused on what was going wrong instead of on all the wonderful things my son was capable of doing.

Our strong bond had been disrupted and I knew in my heart I needed to repair it.

Special Time was just what we needed.  
[Read more…]