Breaking Through Barriers

This week I had one friend send me a list of “Presidential Responsibilities.” I had another friend send me an article, “Ten tips to enhance your Leadership Skills.” The mere fact that people are sending me tips should have, perhaps, bothered me; but, that wasn’t it. What worried me was that the tips and guidelines irked me. 

For work this week I was interviewing someone who has a PhD in Psychology. I asked him what book he would recommend to parents raising children today; because, there was a book that was invaluable to Jay and I when raising our children: “Children the Challenge,” by Dr. Rudolf Dreikurs. My interviewee said, “As soon as one theory is accepted, someone turns it around and all the theories go the other way.” He could not recommend one book. I have to admit, that irked me too.

Theories of health, theories of cooking, theories of gardening… they all change over time. When I look back at old cookbooks, I’m mystified that the ingredients they recommend are abhorred today. How could our preferences be so different? Maybe this ebb and flow is a good thing. Who wants to have just one cookbook to use time and time again? Who wants to have one standard book on raising children? We should have multiple opinions and be able to figure out what works for our own situation. 

The thing that I just couldn’t understand, back when we were struggling with our kids was, “Why did they use bad behavior to get my attention?” I could not, it seems, break through that barrier on my own. Perhaps I couldn’t get past seeing my children as bad. That’s why the book was so valuable to us. It opened our eyes to see a seemingly helpless situation in a new light. Our kids were not bad. They were acting out because we gave them attention when they did. Their whole motivation was to get our attention. Once I realized this and when we used encouragement techniques that Dreikurs recommended for good behavior, everything turned around. Our kids were human again and a joy to be around. 

The problem is, there is information overload today. With so much information to choose from, it’s hard to weed through all the recommendations coming your way. I just Googled, “My kids won’t listen!” The ideas are exhaustive. There are parenting sites and psychology sites and top ten lists for everything! Where does one turn? Sometimes you just need to go back to the basics and listen to common sense. You know it when you hear it. A bell rings in your head and you say to yourself, “Oh, duh… that’s why I didn’t have any luck!”

That’s, perhaps, what irked me about the recommendations I was seeing. They didn’t answer a need I had. Oh, I’m sure I can use advice on leadership. Maybe I’ll find that perfect book that answers my need. The real trick is, finding out what our barrier is. What is holding us back?

When I look on Amazon right now I notice Dreikur’s book has a new modern jacket and says he’s “one of America's foremost child psychiatrists.” People highly recommend the book. Maybe he’s back in vogue! It’s nice to know that his book is still out there helping parents break through their own barriers even today.

Shabbat Shalom,

Terri =]

Take the Time

Time is passing us by… tick-tock, tick-tock. We have people and projects and promises demanding our time. Where does time fly? Do we have time to spare or are we in a time crunch… tick-tock, tick-tock.

Time itself is not the problem, but it is the demands that we place on time. We try to come up with ingenious ways to keep track of time. Remember back when we used to use Day-Timer organizers, those spiral bound books where you could shove all your notes? Today everything is on our phones. You need something done – there’s an ‘App’ for that! I still like to see my time displayed on little boxes on a calendar. The problem is, did I write that on my work calendar, my Google calendar, my family calendar on the fridge or on my paper calendar that I carry around with me? 

Many of us on the board are trying to beat the clock, but time is running out. I hate to be marking time, but I remember when I had time to spare. Programs are in the works and setting dates isn’t easy because everyone else is stealing your time!

Then I notice that Women's League of Conservative Judaism is offering online classes, some which look like they could be useful. Where do I find the time?

Distance Workshop Schedule for 2015-2016

• August 19, 2015: “Planting your sisterhood’s vineyard” Programming
• September 17, 2015: Your Sisterhood’s Image Revamping mission, vision & look
• October 13, 2015: Building Your Board - How to get people to say “Yes”
• November 19, 2015: Navigating the Women’s League Data Base Using data to your advantage
  [for presidents, financial secretaries and data base managers]
• December 16, 2015: WLCJ.ORG: Finding and using the treasures on the website
• January 11, 2016: Z’havah: Going for the Gold with young leaders
• February 10, 2016: Torah Fund & Your Sisterhood
• March 16, 2016: Goal Setting and Strategic Planning
• April 4, 2016: Conflict Resolution
• May 18, 2016: Public Policy and Social Action
• June 6, 2016: What’s in your marketing toolbox?

We have to remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Why do we even say that, because didn’t Rome fall anyway? So, it took a lot of time to build a civilization and then it collapsed anyway. I diverge, and I don’t want to waste your time! 

I, seriously, wanted to take this time to thank all of the people spinning their wheels to help figure out programming for next year. Now, as Shabbat nears, we need to spend time thinking about what is really important. On this solemn weekend of Tisha B'Av, we remember times when we questioned our very existence. May you find meaning this weekend in whatever you decide to spend time doing.

Shabbat Shalom,

Terri =]

Accepting Change Gracefully

Is accepting change gracefully always about aging? Children don’t accept change gracefully, they long for it! At what point do we decide we don’t want change to happen anymore?

Jay and I were recently in discussions with our son, Neil, over his, I guess its graduate work now that he’s doing. He wanted someone to bounce off concepts he’d accumulated for his research on anti neutrino flux for his upcoming presentation to his colleagues. First I want to say that even though I had no idea what he was talking about, we could actually pick apart his presentation. But what was running through my head was, what will our conversations be like when he’s nearing the end of his PhD program? It struck me that we’re going to be the ones talked down to, like children. We’re the ones that will need to have simplified language, so we can be included in the conversation. We’re the ones that will gaze in awe at the grown-ups, trying to gleam a bit of information that we can understand.

With our daughter, Valery, I always feel ‘out of the loop’ when I try to talk about current culture… music and movies and the young stars in them. I can’t remember all of the names anymore! She has a tumbler page with people I’ve never seen talking about things I’ve never heard about. When Neil and Valery talk to each other, I rarely comprehend all of what their saying about this person and that.

When did this all happen? When did I suddenly become old news? I’ve always heard that roles reverse, that we start out training and educating our children and that they end up taking care of us. Lately I’ve been picturing us in diapers and being pushed around in a wheelchair… it’s not a pretty sight!

With technology advancing at alarming rates, I know it’s often hard to keep up with even the few programs that I use. And now there are apps for everything! I can appreciate that many of the tools in use today seem like a George Jetson cartoon (I’ve just aged myself again), something that seems like it belongs in the future. We can’t stop technology from advancing. We may not understand all of it; but, if we want to relate to our grandchildren, we need to have some kind of understanding.

Since we’re turning into the kids now, in a sense, maybe it’s time we started to play a bit. Look at technology as fun and experiment with it. I know I’m pushing some of the women on the board further than they want to go with technology, and they think I’m an expert! Maybe together we can muddle through all of this and have fun trying.

Shabbat Shalom,

Terri =]