I haven't written in here in ten years. Unbelievable to me. It's time to start writing again. Recently I began writing for my church newsletter, "Steeplesounds." My thoughts are on the subject of what it means to be kind. I suppose this is the subject of my thinking in part because I'm worried about the direction our country is going. If you're reading this and don't already know, I live in the United States of America. If you don't live under a rock I guess you must know American (North American to be precise) politics right now is awful. Politics has always been a morally foggy endeavor from what I've seen in the past, but now politicians don't even try to hide how immoral they are anymore. Politicians can be racist, greedy, dishonest, disrespectful, crude, rude, and generally socially unacceptable. They act in ways most people discourage their children from acting like. The other issue I have is that not only are politicians of late devoid of morality and not hiding it any more, but the American public appears to be okay with that. Many people refuse to acknowledge their favorite politician's flaws even when presented with cold hard facts demonstrating how morally bankrupt they are. The United States of America has been a "shining city on a hill" for many years, some would have called it a beacon of hope. Many have come here from afar in pursuit of a better life, but things are changing. I'm not fully convinced anymore that one can obtain a "better life" in the United States of America simply by living here and working hard. For the first time in United States' history, our children's generation is the first generation that will NOT have a better standard of living than their parents did. Housing prices, whether rented or purchased, are outrageous (my daughter's rent cost more than my mortgage!). No longer does even a dual income guarantee home ownership. The cost of a college education, once the standard pursuit of your average high school graduate to secure a meaningful career and income, has become prohibitively expensive. Even if you do secure a degree that can lead to the sought-after career, you will need to spend exhorbitant amounts of money to get transportation to bring you to said career. Assuming you are able to obtain transportation to your job, you will be going to that job for a long time to pay off your student loans and potentially a car loan. Many young people find that they need several roommates to afford a place to live. Don't even start talking about the price of food these days. I went to buy a carton of eggs recently and the store wanted $7.00! If you suggest that the political machine in this country be used to alleviate some of the burden on its citizens, many will call you a socialist, which is considered derogatory by many. Having the crazy idea in your head that the taxes collected from the citizenry of this nation be used to fund more than the American war machine and the propoganda that we are rescuing the oppressed and not trying to hoarde resources like oil is unfathomable. Corporations are now viewed legally as though they are individuals with rights (Citizens United anyone?). Somehow, though they are afforded the status of being legally recognized as people, the biggest corporations manage to avoid being taxed as individuals. They reap all of the benefits of their status as individuals and have none of the responsibilities. How are our children supposed to thrive in this environment? It seems that corporations have more rights than our children do. When our children go to work for these corporations upon graduating from the colleges and universities that are presumably preparing them with degrees, they are being trained to work in ethical and moral environments that only exist on paper, in theory. If you doubt the veracity of what I am saying you need only turn on the news to get a glimpse of what I am referring to. When you see our country picking sides in an unwinnable war between Palestinians amd Israelis, one can only shake one's head in sadness and acknowledge that there are no good guys in this war (or really ANY war). Bombing hospitals, taking civilians hostage and killing them shows that no one has the moral high ground here.

    So how do our children learn to successfully function in this environment? Do they just chuck out all the morals and ethics you worked diligently during their formative years to teach them? Is that the only way? Or is there another way?

    I would argue that indeed there is another way. When we see the kinds of behaviors we have been seeing from our politicians, our wealthy, our celebrities, that we are observing, THAT is the time to reinforce a different way of doing things. Our children need to see that not only do we value a different way, but we LIVE a different way. Maybe we don't have the best material stuff, but maybe that is not what we value. If we don't value material things, not having them is no big loss. 

    Now there is nothing wrong with liking nice things. I like nice things. Would I like a few nice things? Sure. But am I willing to sacrifice my values for them? No. What I value more than nice things are nice people. People who will go the extra mile to be kind when someone needs it, someone who will put their needs aside to help another. 

        The problem I have now is that politicians, the wealthy and celebrities often like to portay themselves as underdogs who clawed their way to the top without anyone's help. If they can do it, they say, anyone can if they are willing to work for it.  It's usually baloney.  The reality is that no one is an island Getting to "the top," however you define it, usually requires the assistance of another. Someone that has gone before you and can guide you in some way. For some, that means loving and supportive parents. Other people benefitted from a coach, a mentor, a minister, or a friend. Still others have siblings, a teacher, or an instructor who helped them along the way. 

    There is nothing wrong with needing a little help. Whether it's "a small loan of a million dollars," a shoulder to cry on at the right time, a place to stay while you get on your feet, a meal, help with writing a paper that's due or advice about a complicated situation, all of us need a hand at times. 

    So whenever the currently favored famous person presents themselves as better and stronger than your average person, I cry bullshit. When someone claims to have got "there" on their own, I am very skeptical. Look at the current situation with immigrants crossing the borders to get in to the United States.  Whether you feel stronger control is needed at the border or not largely depends on your ability and willingness to have compassion and empathy (Yes, I'm going there. This is my blog so if you don't like it feel free to express yourself in the comments and/or leave). Have you never feared for the lives of those you love? For yourself? Haven't you ever wanted a better life? Haven't you ever felt you needed to cut through the red tape to address your concerns? Have you ever felt desperate? That you would do anything to escape dire circumstances? If you have never felt any of these things, consider yourself very lucky.  If you do indeed feel empathy and compassion for your fellow man in such circumstances, feel free to visit places like borderaidsandiego.org to see what you can do to help.

    Needing help is not "weak" or "lazy." It's built into the human condition. We are beings that require community to survive. The anthropologist Margaret Meade is often credited with saying that the first signs of a civil society she knows of is a healed broken femur. There is debate about whether or not she actually said that, but the point that the observation makes is clear: In order to heal from an injury, we need community. We are designed to look out for one another. A broken bone, such as a femur would put a person at a distinct disadvantage as one would be unable to walk, run or evade predators. Gathering sustenance even if said sustenance was of vegetation, would be near impossible. The only way a person could survive would be with protection and assistance.

So are you going to live in this world in a civilized way where you are part of a community or is it every man for themselves?

Tears and Success

What is it about watching your child succeed that is so darned satisfying? Is it that we see a piece of ourselves succeeding right along with them? Sometimes succeeding at things that we could never in our wildest dreams hope to be good at? I had the pleasure recently of seeing all three of my children succeed at things that they were striving so hard for and my reaction every time surprises me. Christopher’s baseball team won a very hard game and kept their playoff hopes alive for a while, Daniel managed to finally hit the baseball and get a base hit and Allison was successful in obtaining a volunteer position that she had interviewed for. All three successes brought me to tears. Not full-on bawling mind you, but choked-up-ready-to-bawl-like-a-baby waterworks.

My question is why? Why when it wasn’t me achieving those things do I become so invested in what happens? Let’s take baseball for a good example. Normally, I have exactly zero interest in baseball. I don’t play it, I don’t watch it and I certainly don’t talk statistics about it or belong to any fantasy leagues. I don’t begrudge anyone who does do those things, I just don’t find them interesting. Pro baseball is a slow-moving sport in my humble, admittedly uninformed opinion. Every time I have tried to watch a game on television I find myself drifting off to sleep.

Everything changes when my son Christopher is playing. Suddenly I want to watch every minute of every game he has. The same is true of Daniel’s games. In fact, whenever they both have games scheduled for the same time-slot it really stresses me out. I don’t want to miss anything at either game. I love watching Christopher knock one out of the park so to speak. He has a lot of power in his batting for a kid his size and age. The added bonus? In case I haven’t said so before I love to watch him run. He is so lithe. The words “poetry in motion” come to mind whenever I have the chance to see him run. Running for him seems so effortless and natural.

When Daniel is playing baseball true, it is a little different. He doesn’t have the coordination that Christopher does, but he does have his own style. He manages to run pretty fast and despite those curls of his obstructing his view he sees well enough to play the game well. He’s in an instructional league so playing well does not mean he is headed for the playoffs, but that doesn’t really make a difference here, does it? What matters is the smile of pleasure on his face when he finally connects with the ball, sending it into the field. What matters is the look of satisfaction as he makes it to first base. What matters is that he is having fun as he makes the out at second base, and he is leaning the value of team work.

Allison’s successes tend to be successes of the mind. She loves the intellect. She’s well-read, she has diverse intellectual interests and can intelligently discuss almost anything. So when she obtained the volunteer position she wanted I was so thrilled for her. She will get to put her formidable intellect to good use and meet new people in the process. This is a big win for her in my opinion. It will be her job to help people play with the materials that are provided. What a wonderful job. It’s a unique way for not only her to help other people, but for her to develop social skills that she will need as she goes forward toward adulthood.

So am I proud? Certainly. It makes me feel that I have succeeded in what I wanted most to do…be a mother. Do I obtain a certain amount of satisfaction in seeing my kids grab hold of some of the stars they are reaching for? Why not? Their successful lives are my reward for being a mother.

Things could change in the next few years. There could and perhaps are going to be some negative things happening while my children plod along the road to adulthood. There are some difficult things to navigate between where they are and successful lives as adults. I would be a fool to say I don’t worry about them. What if one of them decides to experiment with drugs? What if they find a mate who is abusive or so needy they can’t have a life separate from them? What if they don’t get into the schools they want to get into? What if they have children before they are ready to?

I could sit and worry about all these things. I really could. Sometimes I do worry about them if I’m to be honest. Things could get ugly for them if they make bad choices. But so far they are making good choices and I think I have to trust that they will continue to do so. While I know that their successes now do not necessarily prove that they will be successful adults, I am hopeful that they are getting a taste of success and will hunger for more. That hunger will make them pursue success as they grow toward adulthood, no matter what success means to them.

That’s why I think I cry when they have a small success in their lives. It’s a foreshadowing of the success that is to come.

Embrace the Chaos

Embrace the chaos. That seems to be what the universe is telling me these days. See, I planned a nice, relaxing vacation camping. If you don’t remember (or weren’t reading my blog until recently) check my August 10, 2013 post, I did this last year. It was great. I went “off the grid” somewhat for a week or so. I cooked over an open fire, I walked my dogs, we had s’mores and slept out in tents. It was great. Really. So great that I planned on doing it again. I even have a campsite already reserved.

This time will be slightly different though. We have a pop-up camper we bought from our friends Debbie and John. I’m really looking forward to trying it out. Sure, we had an extremely icky time clearing out the ants that took up residence during the winter. There were hundreds of them. It makes me cringe just thinking about them (Are there any in my hair? I sure hope not). We got past that though I think. I plan to set up tents too, but having the pop-up will be nice. Especially if there is any rain. We’ll be able to sleep in the camper if we like and use the tents too – but if the weather is bad there is a table inside that we can play cards and board games at.

The spot we have reserved is right above a pond or lake (not sure which it is). There’s swimming, boating and fishing just a few steps away. This will be great. We’ll have fun and relax under the stars. My wonderful husband and kids bought me a screen tent for my birthday. We’ll be able to eat dinner without being bothered by bugs. We have a propane stove for those times we don’t want to cook over the fire. It’s going to be excellent. Except…

Except my daughter got a volunteer position at the Museum of Science. I am so proud of her that they offered her the position. It seemed pretty competitive during the interview process so I think it’s pretty great that she landed the position. The only issue? She will have to come home and go to Boston a few times during our vacation. Boo!

Except….my son got picked for the All-Star baseball team! I am equally proud of him for that accomplishment. He had to try out against approximately 80 other children and only about ½ or less were selected to be on teams. The issue? Players must commit to games until August and there are 2-4 games a week, plus perhaps practices. Boo!

Between those two things and the surrounding summer camps and various other activities my summer is booked! You might even suggest I overbooked. Boo! I have to figure out rides to and from camp and coordinate schedules. I also need to make sure uniforms are clean, work clothes that are appropriate are available and my younger son is being watched. Good thing I have a wonderful husband that will pitch in and help (see last week’s blog entry to see who I’m referring to).

But that’s the life of a mother with three children. A life that I am more than happy with and I suppose we will figure it out. That’s how I embrace the chaos. I try not to worry about how it will get done. I want my children to have these experiences so I do what I can to make it happen. Notice I said I will TRY not to worry about how it will get done. TRY. That is the main verb here.

Will there be some worry? Probably. Will I let it get me down? I hope not. The main thing is that my children are having important experiences that are helping them to figure out who they are in relation to the world around them. They are developing talents, interests and skills that will help them become part of a larger community and to make worthwhile contributions to that community.

If the price of developing those talents is some chaos, I’m in.

Marry Your Best Friend...I Did

It’s been twenty years as of today. Twenty years since I married the man of my dreams. We met because of Adam Ant. Not many people may remember this musician, but wherever he is I thank him for his part in making sure I met Steve. Mr. Ant doesn’t even know he had anything to do with it but that’s okay.

See, I met Steve in high school. A close friend of mine used to like to call cute boys on the phone after school. She and I were hanging out and watching MTV back in the days when MTV actually played music and not stupid things like “The Real World.” (I always felt that in the “real world” you paid your own rent, but MTV and I have different definitions apparently of the word “real,” but I digress). This friend had called Steve and was talking to him when one of her favorite videos came on T.V. Ironically it was “Desperate, But Not Serious,” by Adam Ant. Teenage girls, desperate? Never…heh heh heh. Definitely not serious.

Well, anyway, when this video came on television my friend, who absolutely ADORED Adam Ant, just HAD to go watch. She hastily stuffed the phone in my hands and dashed off to oogle the war-paint-clad wonder that was Adam Ant. While she was dancing and clapping along with the song, I was left to chat with a young, apparently cute (I had never seen Steve at this point) 17-year-old. For someone who was under-confident and introverted like I was, this was like being thrown from the frying pan into the fire. I stumbled around for a few minutes while we tried to figure out what to talk about. My job, given to me by my friend, was to keep said cute boy on the phone until her video was over.

I don’t remember what we talked about for 45 minutes while my friend watched even more videos of musicians she liked (Billy Idol, Prince, etc.), but by the time she came back to take the phone, it was too late. Steve and I had discovered we enjoyed talking to each other and were laughing and chatting away. When my friend asked for the phone back, she was told in no uncertain terms that we were in the middle of something and she would have to check back later.

So began the beginning of a great friendship with my future husband. He made me laugh. A lot. He still does. He was always respectful of me. He still is. He was always a gentleman. He still is. He had a great family who treated me like one of their own. He obviously still has that family and they still treat me like a member of the family. The only difference? Now I actually AM a member of the family.

We have had some very tough times during our marriage. When we moved in together we had a twin mattress on the floor of our apartment. That was all we could afford. We used an American Red Cross back board for a coffee table. It was held up by concrete blocks. For months all we ate was Ramen Noodles, Macaroni and Cheese and hot dogs. That was our food budget. We had this truly UGLY red and orange floral couch, given to us by a friend.

That difficulty paled in comparison to what happened in 1997. Just three years after being married we had our first child, Thomas William Turner. He was an 8lb 9 oz beautiful baby. Unfortunately, that beautiful boy was not destined to live a long life. He had a serious heart defect and died after a surgery that attempted to correct his many problems. He was 10 days old.

I have never recovered from that pain. The pain of losing a child is incredible. You just don’t know how to keep going once something like that happens. This beautiful baby that you are allowed to love for nine months is suddenly ripped away from you, never to return. If I hadn’t had Steve to lean on during that time I think I would have gone crazy. I was pretty close a number of times. I hope that I was as supportive of him as he was of me. My gut says no…I tried to be supportive, but he was the rock, the steady one, during our darkest times.

When we miscarried our last child he was there as well. He held me as I cried and was there while I met with the doctor who told me about the D&C procedure I needed when the baby was dead. He never left my side. He was there both before and after the procedure and I never felt alone.

He was also there for the really good times too. He was there as my number one support during the birth of each and every child. Allison, Christopher and Daniel saw Daddy before they ever saw me, that’s how involved he was in their births. He was truly amazing. I honestly couldn’t have made it through the unmedicated, natural child births I had without him. He made it so much easier for me than it could have been.

As I look back on the years we have been together, I realize that he has always been there. He brings flowers home on random occasions just to say I love you. He does laundry (which sometimes is more romantic than the flowers) and he is a FANTASTIC father. He works hard at his job and does all he can to support us AND he manages to arrange his schedule so he can be at baseball games, bring kids to karate, take days off when I’m sick and help with dinner.

Have there been times that I have been upset with him? Of course. You don’t live with someone for twenty-plus years and not get upset sometimes. Has he been upset with me? Sure. I’m not the easiest person to live with at times. Despite these difficulties, I am glad we are together. I don’t think we have a perfect marriage (who does?), but it’s perfectly ours.

Our marriage has been hard work. There have been tears, arguments, and pain. But our marriage has been fun too. We laugh, we cuddle and we talk. We hopefully show our children that you need to put more effort into your marriage than your wedding. I hope they come away with the knowledge that marriage to the right person is SOOOOO worth the work.

I know mine is.

Hypocrisy and Physical Fitness

I have always prided myself on my parenting, but recently realized that I am not quite as good as I thought I was. See, kids learn more by what you do than what you say. I have been a total hypocrite in one area of my life with them. I have told them over and over again how important it is to have balance in their lives. Yes, academics are important, but so are friends. Yes, you can enjoy life, but you must work hard too. Yes you are kids, but you are learning to be adults. I think that I have done okay with those things, but there is one area that I have really literally fallen down on the job.

What area is that you ask? I can feel you preparing to defend me by saying, “Now Sheri, you can’t be that bad, calling yourself a hypocrite is a little harsh, don’t you think?” My answer to you on that particular question is no. I am not being too harsh. The area that I am talking about is physical fitness. If you don’t take care of your body everything else suffers. You can develop everything from obesity to depression, heart disease to general malaise and everything in between. Studies about physical activity have been linked to better sleep, better thinking, better moods, better appetites and better sex.

I have always thought the life of the mind is very important. Reading books, figuring out problems, asking questions, exploring different ways of being. I am happiest in the classroom, particularly a classroom set up using a Socratic method of teaching. Questions being answered, open discussion. I love it. Equally important however, is the life of the body. If you take care of your body you are rewarded with a clear mind that is well rested and prepared to take on the tasks you and others present it with.

Being remiss in my duties to take care of my body is tantamount to being completely unbalanced in my life. I see the results of not taking care of myself and so do my kids. There is a history in my family of obesity, diabetes, depression, heart disease and high blood pressure. So far the only issues I have had to deal with is depression and obesity (as if that’s not bad enough).
I have tried to motivate myself to address the problem and so far have failed miserably. I have tried jogging, swimming, walking, calisthenics, yoga and some hiking. It’s incredible to me that at one time in my life I was an aerobics instructor. True it was many, many years ago, but still. I was in good shape at one time in my life. And I wish I could blame my current lack of physical fitness on having babies but I cannot. I was out of shape before I had them and lost all the baby weight I gained during pregnancy within six months. I credit breastfeeding my children with that as there was nothing else significantly different in my life at the time.

I tell my children all the time that it is easier to stay in shape than it is to get into shape. This is what I say to them when they want to quit karate or some other sport that they are involved with. I want them to stay physically fit and not have the uphill battle I have. I have used the current state of my body as an object lesson for them on numerous occasions.

As my children grow they have begun to ask me why I am not doing the physical things that they are. I don’t really have a good reason to give them. I could tell them that it is just so gosh darned hard to keep going when one has the weight on that I do, but so what? Shouldn’t I power through the tough part to get into shape? Of course I should. My kids’ karate instructor tells them all the time that it’s supposed to hurt. If it doesn’t hurt a little then you aren’t doing anything meaningful to improve your body. I agree with him. I’m just not so good at applying the knowledge. Why is that? I suppose “pain compliance” is one answer. I don’t like pain, plain and simple. Trying to get into shape from the condition I am in hurts…and I don’t want to hurt…therefore, I avoid it.

I’m soft. Too soft. For a while I was doing karate with my daughter’s class. I had an incident where I got dizzy and almost passed out. I haven’t been back since. She keeps asking me when I will be back to class. I have taken to telling her when I lose 20 lbs. I want to take off some weight first before trying the karate class again. I do too. I want to take off a bit of weight before I go back. I think that I am not prepared for some of the workouts that we do in class and it’s embarrassing to not be able to keep up.

But worse than being embarrassed is watching my daughter lose her confidence in herself. I feel that my example is a strong lesson in giving up and that is definitely NOT a lesson I want my daughter to learn. When the going gets tough you give up? I don’t think so. She has been talking lately about how she doesn’t really like class and she isn’t really that good anyway. I think that it is a direct result of my example. Sure, there are other factors, but my example of giving up has green-lighted her to give up as well.

I don’t want that for her or any of my children. So how can I walk the walk and not just talk the talk? How can I overcome my desire to avoid pain, my embarrassment and the number of other things that get in my way when it comes to being physically fit? I wish I could say that I was going to, as the Nike commercials say “Just Do It.” That is not realistic for me. I think I will have to take it at the one-class-at-a-time approach. Maybe I can “Just Do It” one time and build on that. You know, like they always say in sports interviews, “I’m going to take this one workout class at a time, I’m not going to look forward. I am just going to focus on this one work out.” Maybe then I can give my kids an example I will be proud of.

Can You Be Tough AND Tender?

Three days ago my youngest child Daniel got a bloody nose while sparring at karate. He happened to be sparring with his older brother Christopher. Christopher threw a roundhouse kick that was supposed to land on Daniel’s helmet. Unfortunately for Daniel Christopher’s aim was a bit off and it landed instead on Daniel’s nose. I didn’t see it happen so I was unsure of how hard Daniel had been hit. What I saw was one little boy whose face had crumpled in tears and a lot of blood. It was the first time this has happened to him so it was a bit dramatic. There were tears both shed and unshed (shed by him, not shed by me) and some blood. At first I thought his mouth was bleeding – his mouth guard (which he was wearing thank goodness) was filled with blood, but there turned out to be no injury to his mouth.

While I was cleaning him up his karate instructor John ran over with a camera and took some snapshots. He said something like, “Excellent. Rite of passage. Now you belong here!” After briefly looking for an ice pack that turned out not to be available, John was back in class. Before he re-entered the dojo he said, “Make sure Daniel leans forward while pinching his nose. You don’t want him to choke on it.”

At first my reaction inside was, “What the hell? Didn’t he belong before?” I was on the cusp of losing my temper, overprotective Mama Bear that I am. But I thought about what John was saying, I looked at my son. I thought, “Daniel seems to be okay. He definitely had his bell rung, but there don’t seem to be a lot of injuries.” While I was definitely absorbed in making sure my little boy was okay, I began to think about how he would be affected by my reaction to what happened. If I overreacted to what happened he would never get back in class.
It was important that he go back to class. We can’t let the things that hurt us and try to tear us down stop us from accomplishing our goals. I had an opportunity to teach Daniel something about resiliency and I wasn’t going to miss it.

With all of the wonderful lessons to be learned by this teachable moment you would think that both Daniel and I left Friday’s karate class feeling on top of the world. The truth is, I feel very conflicted by what happened. Part of me is so proud of my boy because he was able to pull himself together. After stopping the bleeding and cleaning up his face and neck, Daniel re-entered class and continued on business as usual.

What bothers me is that there were no life lessons learned by my other son, Christopher, about empathy and caring for those you love. Not once did he come over to see if Daniel was alright. There were no questions about Daniel and his well-being. Was that because he didn’t care or because he knew we (myself, John and a couple of mothers there) were already taking care of things?

Mental toughness and physical toughness are important things to cultivate in our children. Our children need to learn that adversity will not crush them and that they can choose to learn from life’s bumps and bruises. Christopher impressed me this morning by making the observation that losing is sometimes better than winning because you learn more from losing than you do from winning. This is something that his karate instructors have discussed in the past and it was nice to see that Christopher had internalized that learning.

But what about being kind? Tender? Sensitive? These are things that should be equally valuable in the world. Unfortunately we do not seem to value these characteristics in our children. We tell them to “Man up” or “stop being a baby” when they cry. What about recognizing that there are things that are going to make us cry or bring us to our knees? What about honoring these tender places in our children and teaching them that tenderness or sensitivity doesn’t have to equal defeat?

On Strong Personalities and the Value of Self-Defense

“Chamber that kick Daniel or I’m going to throw you out the window!” A shocking sentence if taken out of context. This (or something similar) is the kind of thing my children frequently hear when they are in karate class. Their instructor has a strong personality, to put it mildly, and he demands the best from them.

My kids are benefitting greatly from that strong personality. Kids need strong adult role models who will tell it to them straight. John, their instructor, does not let them get away with anything. If they are fooling around or not giving 100% effort, he is not afraid to let them know it. He demands they try their hardest in class, that they care, and that they are honest about what they are doing.

The class my children take is difficult. They are expected to do a rigorous program of calisthenics, stretching, sparring and practicing of their forms. There are other things expected of them in class as well. They are expected to bow in to the dojo and bow out. They need to pay close attention when they are being taught a skill – their sensei hates to reteach something that he feels that they would know if they paid close attention when he initially taught them. They need to kneel when their sensei is kneeling, and they must, above all else, show respect for not only their sensei, but any rank that is higher than they are.

I promise that I am not trying to sound like a commercial for the karate studio that my children go to (although if you live in the area and are looking for one let me know. John’s studio IS terrific). What I AM trying to do is to convey how important it is to involve your children in activities that teach them important life lessons. My children are learning about the importance of character, honesty, hard work and commitment. When you work hard at something, you can achieve wonderful things.

Since beginning their karate class I have seen some wonderful things happen for my children. All three of my children are in much better shape physically than they would have been without the class. To varying degrees (depending on their ages and ability to appreciate it) they are more disciplined about their lives and focused when they do things.

Notice that I haven’t said much of anything about trophies or winning tournaments or competitions? That’s not because they haven’t. My children have each won their share of competitions, but they have learned that winning isn’t the most important thing. Learning is. Learning how to handle disappointment when you don’t win, learning how to be graceful whether you win or lose. Paying attention to your opponent and learning from them when you are bested. Learning to be a role model for others. Learning to respect your elders and those who have more skill than you. Learning to put effort and passion into what you do. All of these things are important to learn as you go through life as a person with character and honor.

Let’s face it folks. With all of these wonderful things at the core of what karate is teaching them, my children will be as well-prepared to handle all that life has to offer them as they can be, right? Aside from all the character building that karate has done for them, they are also learning self-defense skills. In a world where we need to create bullying task forces and have anti-bullying campaigns as a staple of our children’s educations, it’s not a bad idea to teach our progeny to defend themselves if necessary. In a world that contains fist fights over what kind of sneakers you wear and date rape, I want my children to be prepared should they be faced with these dangers.

While having the ability to fight if necessary is certainly part of the reason our children are taking karate, the confidence that having these skills instills is equally important. Karate, when taught properly, teaches you to think about the possibilities. When you can do that effectively you often (though not necessarily always) avoid fighting altogether. There is something about carrying yourself with confidence and security that takes you out of a bully’s crosshairs. You can relax and be less defensive. When you are less defensive there are fewer conflicts to worry about.

So if my child’s instructor needs to occasionally yell at them to wake them up and get them participating fully, I’m okay with that.