I have been thinking about you guys a lot lately. My life has taken a very interesting new direction over the past few weeks, and while I have been occupied with that, I have also been eager to get another post up. So what’s new? My kids and I have joined the Awake Project, a program that Reverend John Crestwell of the UUCA has started to mentor a group of adolescent boys living in a housing project in Annapolis. In addition, I also go with him to the High School once a week and try to help a few boys stay out of jail who did not receive the benefits of said mentoring. My primary role, besides being a person who shows up and keeps her word to these kids, is to help nourish them and teach them something about how to feed themselves as a part of learning to be successful in Life. A tall order for ghetto kids. We stared out by having a family-style dinner for 18. I had to figure out how to feed us all for under $60, keeping in mind the pickiness of boys I don’t yet know. I have to say, it worked out pretty well: I made scrambled eggs with cheese, homemade wheat bread, raw almonds, carrots and cucumbers, and apples and Clementines for dessert. We drank water. They did a great job with the meal: I instituted the “No thank you bite” rule, and rewarded them with a certificate saying they tried something new plus their commentary about it. For some of these little dudes, this food was odd. My favorite quote of the evening was:
Kid: “Miss Ashley, the Mac and cheese is not very good.”
Me: “That’s because they are eggs.”
I thought that my bread was going to be the hardest thing for them, and they devoured 3 loaves, telling me it was the best bread ever (well, duh! my daughter said…) So, I relearned a lesson I repeat over and over in life which is to not assume anything about anyone.
Our purpose in bringing these boys together with mentors each week is to provide consistent relationships with successful people, who will teach them how to play the game of life and find success, even if that means simply staying out of jail. Revered John feels, and I wholeheartedly agree, that food is the foundation of this program, which may come as a surprise to some people. For me, Nutrition is not a piece of the puzzle: it is the table that it rests on. Without the proper fuel running through your veins, nothing will work right. How people can bring groups of kids together, and fill their brains with high fructose corn syrup and food dye, and then expect them to behave, is ludicrous. My 3rd grader started her state standardized testing last week. Every day her teacher handed out a different piece of candy to reward them, and luckily, she said no 1 out of 4 days on her own accord. (We’re still working on it…) I can recall countless days taking the bus to work in West Philadelphia, watching all of the kids eat their breakfast at the bus stop, which most often consisted of a coke and either a Little Debbie snack cake (only $0.25!) or a bag of Doritos. If I ate that, I would be comatose for the rest of the day. It’s not only athletes who need to think about this issue as it reflects on their performance. No matter who you are, and what you wish to accomplish in Life, Nutrition will either help you succeed, or become an obstacle in the way of failing energy, frequent illness, long-term body-image issues (my polite way of saying making a bad impression and/or losing self-confidence because you are overweight), or chronic illness and early death. I realize that I am prone to embellish, but I am dead serious about how extreme that may sound.
Another key facet to the Awake Project is good discipline, which these children lack. Good discipline should always have the eventual goal of self-discipline. Just as my daughter has been held on a tight leash by me for the past 9 years, when she is out in the world on her own, she is learning to just say no to the Tootsie pops. And that is why I chose to write about this, for we are not going to be able to move forward on our journey until we shed some light on this subject. If you wish to make healthier choices for you and your family (and I assume you do if you have stuck with me so far), you need to understand that without good discipline and self-discipline, no change will last. That is the bad news. The good news is that I believe that anyone can attain these things, and that mastering this skill will make almost anything possible for you and for them. More on that later. What separates the average American from the most successful people in the world is impeccable self-discipline, not “natural talent.” Natural talent in lazy people becomes a wasted gift. And Andrew Carnegie knew nothing about steel…I know a lot of people who are awesome at starting things, and very much less awesome at continuing them long-term. It’s practically the National pastime to join a gym in January and stop going by March. It is not hard to understand why this happens. We are a culture of immediate gratification. We like to be excited and entertained, and new things are usually both of those. But the cold hard truth is that success at anything “is determined not by how you start, but by how you continue over long periods of time” (-Darren Hardy, editor of Success Magazine). If this subject interests you, please read The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy and The Slight Edge by Jeff Olsen. So what kind of a person are you? Do you never start anything because you know you won’t finish? Or are you a serial starter-stopper? Perhaps you are one of the rare individuals who practices consistent behavior over time (and no, getting really good at Angry Birds does not count). It is important that you know this, because it very much impacts your ability to discipline your family.
Your kids are watching you. “What you do speaks so loud, I cannot hear what you say” (-Ralph Waldo Emerson). Telling them to make healthy choices that you yourself do not make is absolutely pointless, because they will leave your house and have to govern themselves. I cannot tell you how many parents tell me that they feed their kids better than they feed themselves. The message that you send to your children when you eat differently than they do (not including dietary restrictions due to allergy and or meat preference like Vegetarianism) is either one of the following:
When I eat healthier than I make you eat, then you are not as important as me.
When I make you eat healthier than I myself eat, then 1. I am not important and/or 2. Good Nutrition is something painful that adults no longer have to do.
Since my days of educating newly diagnosed diabetic children in the hospital, I have implored the parents to feed the whole family the diabetic way, since it would make them all incredibly healthy long-term. When I help my clients detox for 28 days, I give them the same advice, telling them to make the foods they cannot consume an optional side dish for everyone else.
Family dinners are an absolutely essential component of long-term success in kids: they have done numerous studies on it. This is why we have made it a part of the Awake Project. If you regularly have a sit down meal, then pat yourself on the back. If you do not, start yesterday. It doesn’t have to be dinner: it can be breakfast if that is the only time you have. When you sit down as a family for healthy meals, you teach them how to eat right, how to converse, your values, manners…you teach them that unplugged family time is important (for God’s sake, don’t answer the phone!), and therefore that they are important. I love what Chris Rock’s Mom said about family dinner: “it is a fact-finding mission.” This is where your kids talk to you about the most important influences on their lives: their friends. It is your chance to maintain a modicum of influence over the choices they make when they are not with you. If you do not do the right things, they will not listen to what you say.
Discipline…To Be Continued!
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