Character

I'm participating in NaNoWriMo. Man, characters can be hard for me. It's hard to build a character in a novel. (Not as hard for me as plot, but that's another post!) Characters need depth, nuance, and color - not easy for a techie type!

It's even harder to build character in a real person. How do you teach integrity? What do you do with a kid who knows how to play the game but doesn't understand - it's so much more than a game? If a kid follows the letter of the law, but finds every loop hole and bend the rules when it's convenient and not observed, how do you respond?

I try to explain to my kids rules are just tiny specifics we come up with for immature minds. Principles are what grown ups try to live by. I posted a question on facebook recently.
(FB, from here on out known as TGTS "The Great Time Suck")

"What house rules do you have that you'd never thought you'd need?" I got some great responses. So, as an exercise, here's the rules and the principles they're based on.

What we said:
"No cleaning the white board with the cat"
"You may not throw the pet rat in the air to see how it lands"
"Don't hit your sister with a burrito"
What we meant:
Be Kind to Others


What we said:

"Don't lick... " the seat belt, your sister, your brother
"No kids with sledgehammers"
"No spoons in anyone's butt"
"No picking your brother's nose"
"No body slams on the baby"
"Never jump on a person holding a knife"
What we meant:
Be Safe, Stay Healthy

What we said:
"No sillybandz in your food"
"No lunch meat on the soccer ball"
"You may not paint the kitchen cabinets with lime jello"
What we meant:
Don't waste resources

Now obviously there's some over lap. One could argue that it's wasting the burrito to hit your sister with it. Certainly body slamming the baby isn't being kind to that baby. But you get the idea.

Youth and adults have rules too. We have too often ignored speed limits on the roads, ignored marriage vows, plagerized papers, cheating on tests.... Yes, there are rules that are limiting and don't always deserve to be adhered to, but most rules are something that someone saw a legitimate need for. Rules are applied principles.

I want to teach all my kids that we can see a person's character , not just through their rhetoric, but through their behavior, not just the behavior they have when their in the public view, but their private behavior.

Who do you want in your life, a person who follows the rules or a person who adheres to principles?

Who do you want to be?

Coaching

I first experienced coaching as an assistant coach to my then 10 year old's FLL team. That overlapped with co-coaching my then 7 year old's Primary Odyssey of the Mind team. I followed that up with being lead coach for the next FLL team.

Every time I've coached I've learned something new. There's so much. Just the logistics can be enough to send me over the edge. Then there's dealing with personalities, both kids and parents. And, of course, you still have to focus on the actual team project.

Luckily both FLL and Odyssey of the mind provide coach support. FLL has the Coaches Handbook, a deceptively slim spiral bound volume that is full of help both relational and technical. Colorado Odyssey of the Mind offers an all day coach training in the fall for the spring season and includes with that a coaching manual in 3 ring binder. Both also offer on-line support and forums.

The best advice I can give is to get involved. Just go for it. Sure, you'll make mistakes, but they're unlikely to be critical, and you'll learn from them. The gift you give the kids is tremendous, but the gifts they'll give you are even greater.

How to start with First LEGO League (LEGO robotics)

My oldest has been on an FLL team for the last 3 seasons (10 weeks, Sept. - Nov.). It's been a wonderful experience for him. I coached his team this last year, and was assistant coach the year before that. I can tell you that coaching is a lot of work, especially as a homeschooling parent with 2 kids too young to be on the team. With the help of the other parents on the team though, we were able to make it work.

It was so worth the effort! FLL teaches so much. I could rave on, but I'll save that for another post. :-) For now, here are some places to gather your own info.

First, just get some information about the First Lego League. Poke around their website.
Check out the "start a team" link.
Check out this year's challenge.
If it's tournament season, check out some local events.
If you have just a day to spare and want to see what a tournament is really about, volunteer to help at a local tournament.
If nothing else, check out some of the great FLL and LEGO robotic videos on youtube.

When a child despairs - it looks like misbehavior

When a child behaves in a way that is inappropriate, we need to ask ourselves, “Where did that come from?” Often the child just doesn't realize it's not appropriate. Sometimes they're just revealing behaviors they've seen at home or elsewhere. Sometimes they are deliberately doing the wrong thing just to see what you'll do about it, a little psychological experiment. No matter, it's us adults that are being tested. When we think we see a child failing, we need to remember. Children don't fail. It's us adults who are failing the children.

I've recently failed some children. I am "shoulding" myself, thinking of all the things I should have done better. Better, I am also thinking of how I'll manage next time.

Next time I'm going to make room for prayerful meditation. I need to create space and time to remember who I want to be, how I want to be. I need to focus on their unique worth and integrity. I want to help them focus on that too. I need to remember that they hurt others because they've been hurt. I need to remember that children need love first. And second. And last. I need to remember that when their cups are full, they won't knock over other's cups so often. I need to remember that children are resilient, my own included. I want to remember that I have enough love for all the children under my roof even, no, especially, for the ones who challenge me the most.

Odyssey of the Mind: what I learned, things I wish I'd done

Well, today was it. Our local Odyssey of the Mind tournament. (Also known as OotM, or OM, except we're not supposed to use "OM" since it's copyrighted somewhere.) Whew! We started meeting for practice way back in September. In retrospect that was WAY to early to start a primary team. Sigh. It seems liked a marathon, especially in the fall when I was also assistant coach for an FLL LEGO Robotics team.

I've learned a lot. The training the state OM (so sue me) organization provided was invaluable, both to coaching OM and to coaching Lego. I learned even more from working with the kids. Then we added yet another level of experience by actually going to the tournament and being judged.

I have to admit that there were times where if I hadn't made the commitment to the kids, I'd have quit. They were most often the times my kid wanted to quit and made it miserable to get to practice. He was the reason I got involved, but after about 6 weeks of practice he was done. Being the coach's kid, and me not having alternative child care, he had to keep going. That was hard on him.

The primary groups are kids age 5-7, very young, some very shy and others very .... right brained and active. :-) I'm not sure I'd recommend this for this age group unless each and every kids desperately wanted to do it.

If I had a team of eager kids, and had known then what I know now here's what I'd do different.

Make sure the kids want to be there, and give them an out if they don't. Practice somewhere with few distractions. (We were at a parents home w/ lots of toys, sibs, pets, and exercise equipment around.)

With this age group I'd worry less about OA (outside assistance) and more about improving skills and increasing confidance and courage. We were way too hesitant to make suggestions, give assignments, and explain our opinions.

We had two coaches. I'd work earlier to be very clear about what our roles and goals were. I'd have a project management schedule worked out so that we knew exactly what we needed to have done when. I'd also assign a parent to keeping up with all the paperwork and registration stuff. (It was distracting and took from my energy with the kids)

I should have worked with the kids more on drama stuff, projection of voice, setting up the set, cues, reminding each other of the cues. They needed more practice under pressure. We should have run more spontaneous as if it was being judged. We should have talked more about team work, but also worked more on individual issues.

All in all I think that for 4/6 of the kids it was a great experience. For the other 2 I think is was a good experience, but not one that they'll be wanting to repeat soon.

As for the coaches. Well, it's a little early to know if we'll be doing it again.