Connection is Universal! What is Its Language?

My wife, Jennifer, and I direct a summer camp about 30 minutes from our home called The Swamp (www.campswamp.com).  We have been working with this camp since its inception under the leadership and guidance of dear friends Sonny & Carolyn Sessions who have trained and taught us so much about families and children.

One of the delights of this position is that we get to travel around the world and work with children from 9-18 years of age from many different cultural backgrounds, languages, traditions, and races.  We have traveled to Jamaica, Barbados, South Africa, Brazil, India, and Bahamas; this December we will be in Kenya, Zimbabwe and Nicaragua.  (See map to the right.)  We do this because the locations have invited us to train them on how to run a camp that helps children; the training process is three years. So needless to say we have seen a few places and observed children world-wide from varying socioeconomic, religious, political, and demographic backgrounds.

AND ONE THING IS UNIVERSAL:  Children want and need connection!

To quote John & Karen Louis from their book, Good Enough Parenting:

"The Core Emotional Need for Connection and Acceptance can be defined as the state our children live in when they feel completely attached to their parents in a healthy way, that they belong, and that they are accepted and loved unconditionally.  When this need is being met to a satisfactory degree, children will consistently and on an emotional level hear and believe the following messages about their parents:

• They are playful with me and spend time with me.
• They miss me when I am not around.
• They care about deep feelings, both mine and theirs.
• They are proud of me even with my flaws.
• They think I am special.
• They talk to me in a respectful way.
• They are honest with me.
• They believe in me and guide me."

Me (in center) with orphans in India

Kids everywhere want to feel all of these...more importantly they need to think with great confidence that each of these are true, especially with their parents and care-takers.  Connection is the beginning of acceptance...and everyone wants to be accepted.  (More on that in the next post).

Connection is about a deep emotional bond and is communicated in many forms, not just through words.  In fact, much of our communication to our kids happens without any words at all; this is called non-verbal communication.  In the late 1960's, Albert Mehrabian created the much touted 7%-38%-55% rule.  Stemming from his research, this rule states: words constitute only 7% of what we communicate, tone of voice accounts for 38%, and body language accounts for the remaining 55%.

Words are for concepts.  Tone of Voice & Body Language is for Connection.  Albeit words can hurt too.  They are more easily corrected than tone of voice or body language, as these elements come from deeper within.

This happens with me and my wife, Jennifer, quite often and she will say to me, "I hear your tone, not your words."  Hmmm....wonder what my kids have picked up.

Take some time and see if your words match your tone and body language and vice versa.  You may be harming your connection and not realizing it.

Happy Connecting!
Jeff

Me with boys from Diepsloot, South Africa

Connecting in Jamaica

Do you Need a License to be a Parent?

After a few more weeks of discussions, it is becoming very evident that training is a must for all types of parents; whether you are a father, mother, foster parent, adoptive parent, single parent, divorced parent, new parent, mature parent, have one child or multiple or planning-to-be-parents.  I have been in several discussions this week regarding the need for parent training.  Isn't it interesting that we get a license or a certification in almost anything else: real estate, to drive a car, be a counselor, teach karate, practice law, or even to be a professional dog-walker.

Why is it, that for the most important job of all, parenting, we just allow it to go on from one generation to the next without a lick of training except for the informal apprenticeship while we are young?  In fact, the only real parent training we get is what we learned from our parents or caregivers.  I will leave it to you to judge the effectiveness of that training...or better yet, leave it to your kids; they are the real test of your training.

Anyway, back to the last couple of weeks:  I met with two wonderful people who have been social workers for many years in the Athens-Clarke County area, David & Dawn Meyers, and was sadly amazed to hear that there are only 15 foster homes for 230 children; many of whom are fostered out to Augusta or surrounding areas.  I was equally encouraged to hear there are plans to booster the number of foster homes and help these kids...maybe even get teachers involved.  I sure hope so.  The discussion quickly became the answer to the question of why.  "Why aren't there more foster homes?"   Lack of desire?  Can needy take care of the needy?  Are we training them properly?  Then we expounded on the issue of retention and wondered what could we do to encourage them to continue fostering once they decide to help.  Again, one answer was training.

How rewarding would it be if they were trained beyond the required levels on the subtle and intentional ways to strengthen their connections in the home and classroom.  Imagine, if just by awareness, these kindhearted people could make more of an impact just with a little bit of training.  I know we could "license" them in the practical art of connection and acceptance via an understanding of issue domains and the tension that comes from misplaced standards or perhaps understanding their own maladaptive schema (fancy words for trouble-causing lifetraps learned as a child), which can cause exasperation in a relationship.  Now that would be helpful especially if it created a peaceful home.



Albert Einstein, said

"Peace cannot be kept by force, it only comes with understanding."

I think this applies to families as well as nations; to relationships as well as politics.  The more we understand ourselves, i.e. awareness and training, the more we are at peace with those around us; the better we can serve and love the members of our family.

The farther down the road I get towards understanding the needs in my own community, the more I am convinced that training is necessary for all of us who are parents.  I especially think this is true of our fostering heroes.  I indeed applaud them for their heart and efforts and want them to foster for many years to come, for there are many kids who need them.

Until next time, send some happy thoughts as we continue to wind our way down the grant-applying path.  Met with the Mayor of Athens, Georgia, Nancy Denson, and got some valuable support and help.  Also talking with the Athens Industrial Council via a former manager and mentor, Steve Hollis of Power Partners, Inc.  Come on resources!  There are needs to meet.

Have a safe and productive day.
Jeff

Seems We Have a Good Idea Here!

Hi.  This past spring we taught a class to a group of parents in our local church, the Athens Church of Christ, and two of participants sung its praise so much that they started talking about it at work.  The one mom is an advocate lawyer for the state of Georgia and was so inspired at what she was learning that she wanted me to meet with some county officials to see how this could be used to help families.  Since then we have several meetings with more to come.  Can't wait to see what happens as we roll this out.  This training was created in Singapore by John & Karen Louis, by whom we were trained.  It has been very affective in many places across the country and world.  Can't wait to see the good it's going to do here in the Athens-Clarke County area and across Georgia.

In the meantime, we have gotten our business license and two of our trainers are in the process of moving to the area.  Just about finished with our website and working on obtaining some grants.  Wahoo!  Let's get our training on and help some families.  I hope in the next couple of weeks we can meet with someone from the school system and nail down our fall classes.  Until next time, Jeff