Self-Teaching and Graphic Design

A week ago, my dad mentioned that he wanted a promotional flyer for the business novel we wrote together a couple of years ago. Neither of us has any graphic design background not any knowledge of promotional materials. But we were game for a challenge.

This led me to remember one of my favorite quotes about how to teach and learn. It's from Benjamin Franklin.

"I thought the writing (in the Spectator) excellent, and wished, if possible, to imitate it. With that view, I took some of the papers, and making short hints of the sentiment in each sentence, laid them by for a few days, and then, without looking at the book, tried to complete the papers again, by expressing each hinted sentiment at length and as fully as it had been expressed before, in any suitable words that should come to hand. I then compared my Spectator with the original."

Isn't that a wonderful way to learn to write? My favorite thing about it is that it's so versatile. It teaches how to learn to write, not just how to write.

I plan to use this method with my kids. (I hear that the Institute for Excellence in Writing uses the same concept, so I might use that, or do it myself.) My goal is that when they go to college, they can say, "I want to be published in this journal in my field, so I need to learn to write that way," and be able to do it on their own.

That's what I attempted to do Friday with the promotional flyer. I looked for good examples from the internet and tried to model mine on theirs. I'm not claiming it looks professional, but I'm pretty proud of the result. That's what I want for my kids.

Eat Your Leaves

I've been reading a variety of books on healthy eating lately, including a lot of raw food books and Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, and, since I already eat fairly well, my main takeaway was that I need to eat more leaves. We are excellent at eating fruit at our house, and my girls will eat most vegetables (given the daily vagaries of toddlers), but they don't like green leaves. I had been willing to let that pass, but no more. Bring on the leafy greens!

I got myself moving fast: green leaves in every meal. Green smoothies for breakfast, a bunch of greens in every dinner recipe, and my traditional reheated dinner leftovers for the next day's lunch. I've been pleasantly surprised at how good I feel. In particular, on one large green smoothie I can go without my morning snack. That's a pleasant surprise.

Unfortunately, my husband and children have not been so enamored of this idea. I haven't made them do green smoothies (my girls asked for bites of mine the first two days and then gave up), but they eat my green leafy dinners only under duress.

That's unfair to my husband. He wouldn't choose leafy greens, but he eats them just fine. My kids, on the other hand, are trying out hunger strikes.

I figured that chopping the leaves in the food processor and cooking them in tomato sauce was pretty safe. Pasta and red sauce is one of their favorite meals! But not last week.

So I tried Indian food, thinking that strong spices were what I needed. No such luck. I never follow a recipe exactly, and I don't think I have enough experience with Indian spices to guess them right. My husband and I like Indian food, but this wasn't great. And the kids hardly touched it.

Tonight I tried a Italian vegetable ragout from the cookbook "Wild About Greens." My husband liked it! I got my first really sincere compliment on my cooking since the leafy greening began. My children ... ate it with less fuss than other meals. That's progress, at least. Slowly I'll wear them down. Next year I'll grow stevia and put it in smoothies: See, the green leaves are good! I'm so sneaky.

Disagree Appropriately

Today I babysat for a friend's four children. With my three, that made seven kids 10 and under, and me. Whew!

Actually, it was great. I got a lot done because the kids took care of each other and my girls as well. This family is one of my homeschooling inspirations. So this seems like an opportune moment to discuss a wonderful resource they introduced me to: the principles of Teaching Self Government, from Nicholeen Peck.

My friend told me the four basic principles first, and they are great! So I got the book from the library. I'll admit that the writing isn't the best I've read, and the first half of the book is ideas that I've seen lots of places and was already using. But the end, where she teaches you how to teach the skills to your children, is great. I can't recommend that too highly.

The author argues that there are four basic skills that everyone needs to master for daily life. Look at the list and see if you agree:

1. Receive and follow instructions
2. Accept the consequences of your actions
3. Accept that the answer is no
4. Disagree appropriately

In my experience, most parenting books have you teach skills 1 and 2, and maybe a bit of 3. I haven't seen another source that teaches kids to disagree appropriately, which is the coolest thing I have taught my children. I'll give you some examples, but first, let me flesh out the skills.

All the skills start the same way: Look at the person with a calm face, voice, and body, and listen. If your child can't do that, he or she is "out of instructional control." I know, it's a crazy phrase, but it expresses the situation so well: the child does not have enough control to receive instructions at this time. Create a way for them to regain control; for my kids, that's usually being alone for a few minutes, or occasionally a hug. Then we start over.

So, the child listens calmly as you give instructions, explain the consequence of what they've done, or tell them that the answer is no. Then they can choose to say okay or disagree appropriately. Once they say okay, they follow your instruction or accept your answer without complaint. Otherwise, there is a consequence.

Basically, any number of parenting theories teach the same thing. (To me, that's often a sign that we have something good: people from different backgrounds came to the same conclusion.) The unique part of this one is where the kids have the opportunity to disagree - yes, even with their parents!

To disagree appropriately, one first states an understanding of the opponent's perspective, then calmly states his own opinion, and suggests a compromise. Again, I'm sure you've seen this in lessons on communication. But how many parents let their kids practice it on them?

This technique is golden. As a mom, it gives me a chance to change a poorly thought out statement without giving in to whining. For my girls, it gives them some power in the relationship; if they disagree appropriately, I will almost certainly find a compromise. And it is definitely a skill they will use their whole lives.

I even teach them to use it with each other. When fights break out between them, I walk them through an appropriate disagreement. Or, probably more often, I yell "Disagree appropriately!" from the other room and hope for the best.

My three year old quickly caught on to the pattern, if not the intent, and does her best: "I understand that you want me to eat my zucchini, but I don't like it, so I should just have to eat one bite." It usually gets her a compromise, so she keeps trying. And I like it much better than screaming or sulking at the dinner table (which, of course, never, ever happen in our house...).

The coolest thing was when they were fighting over a toy a few months after introducing these ideas and I yelled, "Disagree appropriately!" The then not-quite-two year old immediately said, "I understand you want (she didn't know the name of the toy, so she just paused), but ..." and held out her hand imperatively! So awesome! She got a very special toy for that.

Disagreeing appropriately has given me a great tool to replace arguments with something constructive. A big thank you to my friend for introducing me to this principle! I'll babysit for you anytime!