Mark Twain on Adolescence

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

Mark Twain

What Web 2.0 Says About Human Beings

What strikes me about web 2.0 is that traditional economic models wouldn’t have predicted it. Why would people, for instance, work really hard writing blogs with no monetary compensation?

Turns out that people have a much stronger drive toward self-expression and connection that the “rational self-interest” models would have predicted. And I think that is a wonderful thing to have the latest technology reveal about human beings in our face paced information era.

Hamsterbilities: Preparing Kids for Responsibilty

My daughter Hannah is 8 years old and wants a hamster, bad-like. I've posted before about Bargaining on the Front End. This is about a specific version of that.

There are few areas around the house that need some improvement before we're ready to add a hamster to the mix. A couple of them involve taking care of the dog we already have. Another is Hannah cleaning up after herself when grabbing a snack or doing an art project. One other example is eating what she decides to from dinner without complaining about what is served.

We could go ahead and get the hamster, and ask her to promise to improve these areas, and then just hope she does. She's on the cusp of being ready. But if we did we'd rob Hannah of an opportunity to demonstrate that she's capable of taking care of her responsibilities. We'd also be modeling that in life you get the things you want first, and then work out the responsibilities later—that's certainly not how we will be doing things with driving. So why not be consistent and start now.

If we did get her the hamster and just hoped it went well, and it turned out not to, we'd likely feel some resentment. Another option I can think of would be to get tough and say, "If you don't start taking care of your responsibilities around here, you're not getting a hamster!" But phrasing it that way verges on an embedded You're Not Capable Message.

What can we do instead? We phrase it along the lines of "We're looking forward to seeing you enjoy having your own hamster as soon as you've shown us you're ready...and you're getting pretty close. " We collaboratively came up with a list of the responsibilities around the house that will demonstrate that she's ready for having her own pet to take care of, which together we decided to call Hamsterbilities. A term I don't think I'll ever be able to forget.

Now when she says, "How long until I get my hamster?" We can say, "Let's check out your Hamsterbilities chart and see how it's going." We then get out the chart and look at each of the agreed upon areas. We decided to rate them from 0 to 3. Zero being not taking care of a responsibility at all on up to three where she's really got it down. We decided together that she's going to need twos or above. Now she's getting accurate feedback on how she's doing. And the decision for when she gets the hamster becomes less arbitrary, and more associated with how she's handling her responsibilities around the house. Also by looking at a chart together side by side, it doesn't feel to her like it is us "just deciding". Kids tend to view things like this Hamsterbilities chart as a relatively objective, third party source of information. I can guarantee that is not how she'd view it if we just told her why we thought she wasn't there yet. There's some magic in that side by side evaluating of something together.

How's it going? Well she's closing in on her fuzzy little prize. And when she makes it, which looks to be soon, she's going to experience a real sense of accomplishment and she'll definitely be set for the ups and downs of hamster ownership. And the downs as well as the ups are all part of the learning and are part of what make a child taking responsibility for a pet meaningful.

If you enjoyed this article please vote for it on Digg, above, or Netscape or one of the other options below. You can also bookmark the site to the right. I appreciate your support.

Reference: The Attention Principle

I had to define this for another post, and it deserves its own post at minimum for now.

The Attention Principle:

Any behaviors which we react to with energy, attention or emotion, we tend to see more of.

This principle explains why yelling, reminders, and even excessive "helpful" explaining yield the counter intuitive result of more of the same problematic behavior.

This principle is worth several posts in the future, but I wanted it up here for reference in the meantime. If you want a longer description of it for now, you can find that on p. 3 of this handout from my practice website.

The Preschool Whisperer

I've had more than one client spontaneously refer to Caesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer on National Geographic in reference to staying calm when interacting with preschool aged children. Both of these parents, and I as well, are clear that working with dogs is not the same as working with kids. But there is a powerful metaphor available in thinking about Caesar. On his show he frequently refers to the idea of Calm, Assertive Energy, as way of being around dogs that helps them to calm down and follow his lead. In very brief interactions with a problem, aggressive dog, you can often see the change in the dog's body language seconds after he enters the scene. The dog is in tune with the way he carries himself.

This Caesar metaphor nicely captures a concept that I've had a clear image in my mind about how it looks, but have some trouble communicating. I think the folks at Love and Logic have had the same challenge. It is much easier to describe the techniques than it is to capture the subtle way of being with kids, yet I think the idea is essential.

After reading some of Wayne Dyer's older books I adopted for some time his phrase of "quietly effective" practices. You'll notice one of the pdf handouts on the Enjoy Parenting Again site is titled Quietly Effective Techniques for Working with Preschoolers and Toddlers. 

This idea of calm-assertiveness is a state of mind in which you are responsive, but not reactive. Where you hold yourself in a way that communicates to the child that "I can handle the situation and help you, and I can even handle you if needed." This way of holding one's self helps kids to be calmer and to feel safer, especially when they are melting down. Often instead we can become reactive or aggressive sounding. But this "I've had it" stance communicates something very different, along the lines of "I'm not really in control here. I'm powerful, but just barely managing myself." When kids are around this they often feel unsafe and act out even more. Or the attention principle comes into play.

More on this in future posts. For now I'll just say that my clients have been the source of many powerful ideas I've come across. This is one I'll be hanging onto. 

David Allen Stopped By...

I am experiencing a "Holy Smokes" moment right now. I just stopped by at the comments section of my latest article at the GTDtimes, which is about how...

...the smartest people are the ones that realize that they have a big, powerful, dumb part of themselves that has a whole lot to do with what they do. They structure their lives in a very intelligent way that manages the dumb and powerful part. The dumb people think they're smart all the time.

I was just checking in to see if any new comments had popped up. I do this from time to time as the notification system for whatever reason only works inconsistently. And sure enough there is a new comment there...but it is by...get ready for it...David Allen. Really.

For anyone who is not a GTDer (I won't be mean and say, who lives in a cave), this would be a bit like having a Mac zealot write a blog entry about some thoughts on the Mac OS. And suddenly Steve Jobs drops by to say, "Hey, nice write up. I enjoyed your ideas. Let's touch base sometime." And you rub your eyes, and it's actually still Steve Jobs.

So have a peek at the Big Kahuna's comment and enjoy my moment with me. And by the way, the part in italics is not my summary of my article. That is David Allen's thumbnail of it from the comment he left. It's always nice to get a reader who gets the gist of your article. But you don't really expect to have the guy whose extraordinarily successful system you're writing about stop by to say hello, much less to have clearly read your piece. That's not to say I didn't have a very distant hope for it...but I certainly didn't expect it.

And it's nice when life drops these unexpected moments in your lap from time to time.

Merlin Mann and the 90 second GTD Primer

I don't usually just provide a link to a posting, but this one by Merlin Mann on GTD contexts was stellar for its brevity, wit and usefulness. It includes a 90 second GTD overview—very handy in and of itself, an exploration of why GTD contexts are so damn useful, and a quip that made me actually laugh out loud. If that isn't enough to warrant a link to another post, I don't know what would be.