DEAR TEACHER

Photo © Lightzoom | Dreamstime.com

HANDLING FRUSTRATION FRUSTRATION WITH HOMEWORK WITH HOMEWORK

At times, my seventh grader totally loses her cool when frustrated with a di cult homework assignment. Telling her to calm down just doesn’t work. What should I do?

— Frustrated Too

Trying to calm a child when she is in the middle of a meltdown does not work. She is just too worked up to listen. She should walk away from working on the assignment to calm herself. When the child begins to calm down, you can be empathetic, expressing that you know how frustrated she must feel, and also o er to help. Or hopefully, once the child is over the meltdown, she may just tackle what has frustrated her on her own. To avoid future homework assignment meltdowns, you need to sit down with your child and show her how she can learn how to do a di cult assignment. The first thing to have her do is to consult her textbook (this works best for math and English) to look at similar work to what she is being asked to do. Also, studying class notes is

another way to find examples of the work that she is attempting to do. At times, she can find online help by searching for similar work. There are tutorials on a wide range of subjects, so she should be fairly specific in her search. If the above approaches do not work, you could do some teaching so she understands the assignment. You should never do the work for her. If you are unable to help her, have her worked up to listen. She should walk away from move onto work she can do. The next day when working on the assignment to calm herself. the homework is discussed, she should get the When the child begins to calm down, you answers she needs. Or she can request special can be empathetic, expressing that you know help from the teacher. how frustrated she must feel, and also o er Should meltdowns continue to occur on a to help. Or hopefully, once the child is over regular basis, it is time to consult her teacher to the meltdown, she may just tackle what has see what special help your daughter may need to frustrated her on her own. handle her homework. To avoid future homework assignment meltdowns, you need to sit down with your child and show her how she can learn how

LACKING SLEEP

Illustration © Chayapollz77 | Dreamstime.com

You may be surprised to learn that your children could be sleep-deprived. Elementary school children should have from nine to 10 hours of sleep per night. Furthermore, the e ects of not getting enough sleep night after night accumulate and can even cause children to have problems in school. Teachers see this as a problem when children doze o in class. Plus, the Association of Elementary School Principals reports that sleep-deprived children can’t concentrate on their schoolwork, have trouble remembering things, may become irritable and fidgety, and may be vulnerable to colds and flu. Today, a major reason for children staying up too late is increased demands on their time. Your children may be involved in too many activities. Also, you should determine if they are being assigned too much homework. Children in elementary school should usually have about 10 minutes of homework for every year in school. There is also the possibility of spending too much time on electronic media. Parents need to realize that part of the reason your children are staying up later may be physiological. As children move through elementary school, they will naturally fall asleep later, even if they have the same bedtimes. This is especially true when they enter puberty.

Parents should send questions and comments to dearteacher@dearteacher.com. To learn more about helping children succeed in school, visit the Dear Teacher website.

HELP DREAMS TAKE FLIGHT

It takes a community support system to allow individuals the security to fl ourish.

When I started working at what is now Kindred Place, one of the fi rst items on my to-do list was planning and executing the annual fundraising event, known at the time as the Hands of Hope auction. Since we were writing the next chapter of a 35-year-old organization, refi ning the strategy and messaging, we spent some time looking in the archives, carefully sorting through what had and hadn’t worked well in the past as we prepared for the future.

One of the ideas we unearthed in the dig was the “Box of Hopes and Dreams” component of past auctions. Many years prior, artists had hand-painted wooden boxes, and in the boxes were notes from our clients — both children and adults — about their hopes and dreams.

One member of our board, who’d been around long enough to have seen many of our annual events, showed us the Box of Hopes and Dreams on his credenza and talked about how he felt every time he saw it. In that one, simple item he had a tangible reminder of how his support for our work helped make hopes and dreams come true for people he would probably never meet. It inspired him to keep working, keep helping, keep dreaming of a better future for all people.

The ability to imagine a future and better version of oneself is, according to several research studies, an asset that can contribute to moving from poverty to economic self-su ciency. Dreams, paired with more practical things like food, housing, and safety, are fuel. Dreams feed momentum.

We brought back the idea, albeit in a slightly di erent format. Volunteers handpainted wooden birdhouses, and the theme of that section of the auction was “Help Dreams Take Flight.” In the little round opening of each birdhouse we planned to insert a rolled-up note from a client (child or adult) about their dreams.

As the auction date drew near, we had far more birdhouses than notes. I knew it wasn’t likely or even appropriate to get a note from every client, but I was surprised by how few there were. I asked about it during our weekly sta meeting, wanting to know more about how people were approaching the conversation and asking for the notes. How had we done it in the past? What was di erent now?

“The people I’m working with don’t have dreams,” one therapist fi nally o ered. “They don’t know how to dream, can’t imagine beyond the basic, practical needs of right now. That’s always been true for some people, but now it’s true for so many more.”

That’s the e ect of trauma, stress, and unmet basic needs, including — and possibly most importantly — lack of loving support and human connection.

But before you go thinking that this situation describes only “other people,” people you drive by at freeway intersections or see behind dumpsters at the co ee shop, consider another story.

Earlier this year, I was working with a group of highly educated, well-resourced professionals on a change management process. They were stuck, and I wasn’t making much progress. With a colleague’s help I decided to try a loosely structured Appreciative Inquiry exercise, starting

Jennifer Balink is the executive director of Kindred Place, a counseling, coaching, and education center for confi dent parenting and healthy behaviors.

by asking each member of the group to identify one cherished memory from the past that they dreamed of repeating in the future.

At first, I was met with silence. Then someone said: “Honestly, thinking about the things I enjoyed in the past just makes me overwhelmingly sad. I don’t have any dreams for the future. I’m just trying to get by one day at a time, and that’s hard enough.”

We’re dealing with trauma, stress, and unmet needs, particularly the lack of loving support and human connection. And “dreams” as a word is a long-inequitable and complicated term — dreams deferred, and dreams denied.

It is easy, perhaps, to think of dreams, and dreaming, as an individual activity, something each one of us does, or doesn’t, do, all in the privacy of our own individual minds.

But dreams aren’t solo work. They’re too risky, require too much vulnerability for anyone to dare have one without the companion belief that something — or someone — will be there to soften the fall if the dream doesn’t come true. Loving, supportive human relationships are the safety nets that allow the risk of dreaming.

Each of us has the power to be that safety net for the people in our lives, our intimate partners, our children, our family members, our colleagues, and our friends. Harnessing that power sometimes requires self-compassion and healing first. We have to be present for ourselves before we can be present for others.

Love begins at home, metaphorically and literally. If we are truly to “reimagine” Memphis, then we must ensure every child, every parent, every person has what they need to make dreaming possible in the first place.

summer at St. George s s‘

Athletics | Gymnastics | STEM | Woods & Water | Robotics | ACT Prep Music | Video Game Design | Sewing | Chess | BattleBots | Cooking | and more! Full-day & half-day camps Mix and match for full day coverage Before and aftercare available

June 6–July 29 Grades PK–12 sgis.org/summer