How Stories & Storytelling Make for Healthier, Happier, More Resilient Kids

Once upon a time…

There’s good reason why these four simple words almost instantly capture our interest. As if by magic, they may transport us back to childhood and the fairy tales read to us by our parents or earliest school teachers. They also hit an even more primal note in us.

For thousands of years, stories have been our way of making sense of the world and investing it with meaning – from archetypal tales of gods and goddesses to modern narratives that give voice to the interior lives of individuals coping with a world in flux. Storytelling is, in fact, an essentially human activity – one of the few things that makes us different from our fellow inhabitants on this planet. Think about how easily we lapse into it, how often we find ourselves shifting conversational gears with a phrase like, “This reminds me of the time….”

Connecting Through Our Stories

Narrative is one of the most basic tools for both understanding ourselves and relating to others. And this is why we are so pleased to be having master storyteller and teacher Will Hornyak as one of our guest speakers at our June 17-23 Summer Intensive.

With his special session “Story-Crafting,” Will promises fun and experiential activities to show how we can find and create stories to help us connect with our students, clients and children. The techniques and tools he’ll share for adapting stories and developing your own unique voice and style will also help you to compete with electronic media by engaging and developing kids’ attention.

Who says you can’t have fun, too, while becoming a more effective educator and therapist?!

The Stories That Bind Us

The crucial socialization and mental health role storytelling can play in children’s lives was highlighted in a recent New York Times article on the importance of family stories.

The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. The “Do You Know?” scale [a tool for measuring familiarity with your family’s history] turned out to be the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness.

Simply, the stronger and more defined their family’s narrative – the story of their collective life across generations – the more children understand that they are part of something much bigger than themselves and the better they can handle the ups and downs of life.

Yet as children’s lives have become more scheduled, as our own schedules have become ever busier; and as technology and a rapidly expanding media landscape have given us more opportunity for distraction and less relaxed, unplugged time together, storytelling – especially within families – has become something of a lost art. Where we used to have many regular occasions for talking with our loved ones, they may be fewer and farther between. And the less frequent our conversations, the more utilitarian they can tend to be, focused on practical business, not nurturing relationships, reinforcing connections.

Building Memory Scaffolds

This has consequences – not only on mental/emotional health but, in fact, the very efficiency of the brain. For instance, as Dr. David Walsh notes in Smart Parenting, Smarter Kids, one longitudinal study

found that parents and caregivers increase their children’s learning potential when they talk with their children about past events. The more elaborate the scaffolding is in the preschool years – the more knowledge a child has – the more brain locations he has in the future to which he can link new memories. When it comes to memory, the rich get richer.

Storytelling, he says, is one of the most powerful and effective ways to build that scaffolding on which other memories can hang, improving memory, learning and our sense of self.

To learn more about how Yoga Calm activities like storytelling help us to learn better and become more emotionally resilient, join us at Oregon’s Still Meadow Retreat this June for our annual Summer Intensive. Full details and online registration are available here.

Family image by gelle.dk, via Flickr

Honoring our Children, Honoring Ourselves, Honoring our Elders

A guest post by Kimberly Carson, co-instructor for our new Yoga for Seniors Certification program.

Growing a beautiful, productive garden is more complex than just supplying water, appropriate sunlight and good soil. Among other things, you must consider the effects of neighboring plants.

Helping children grow is similarly complex. As teachers, counselors and therapists are intimately aware, working with children also requires consideration of the conditions of the community surrounding the child.

The health and balance of the family, as well as of the educators, all can influence how well the child thrives.

Yoga Calm aims to serve this community of familial and professional adults, as well the children. With this intention, Yoga Calm is committed to making its practices safe and effective for everyone across the lifespan.

Advances in healthcare and technology over the last century have created the possibility of enjoying many more years of this beautiful life. In fact, the average life expectancy in 1900 was around 47; now, it is around 77. However, with almost a quarter of us expected to live to 100 by the year 2050, we find ourselves with a historically unique challenge of learning how to best honor ourselves as we accrue even more years on the planet.

Not surprisingly, many activities quite appealing to us when we are younger may become less suitable for our maturing bodies and minds. In grade school, we may have adored cookies and juice as an afternoon snack. As adults, we may find we fare better with a more nutritious choice.

Our yoga practice can also benefit from important refinements as we change across the lifespan. Many practices that felt well suited to us in our 20s may not be as appropriate as we move through our 50s, 60s or 70s. Changes in our physiology as we age compel us to consider more carefully the choices we make for our bodies.

Teaching Yoga to Seniors – Essential Considerations

Introducing yoga to older adults is an inspiring process that helps clarify these choices. Maintaining strength, balance and a calm mental focus are critical life skills for maintaining optimal quality of life. The practices, however, must be considered in the context of aging bodies and minds to avoid the potential for considerable harm.

For example, the load on the vascular system and the heart with even mild inversions must be carefully considered in older bodies. Where osteoporosis or low bone mass are concerned, it is critical to consider how movements load the spine.

We recently published a paper in the Journal of Complimentary and Alternative Medicine which addresses some of the important issues to consider when introducing yoga to older adults. If you would like a PDF reprint of this article, click here.

Yoga Calm is committed to training educators in the most safe and effective methods for using yoga-based skills, regardless of one’s phase along the life span. Beginning with our Summer RYT Immersion, a new Yoga for Seniors Certification track will be introduced to our RYT-200 Adult Yoga Instructor Certification program.

The new Adult/Senior Instructor Certification track is for those planning on teaching adult classes only, with additional training in the needs of Seniors and Special Populations. This pioneering program combines the best of modern, evidenced based medicine with the ancient wisdom, experience and tradition of Yogic teachings, leading to a 200-hour Yoga Alliance registration, in addition to a Yoga for Seniors and Yoga for Special Populations Certificate.

Kimberly Carson, MPH, eRYT, and Carol Krucoff, eRYT, will bring their Yoga for Seniors Teacher Training to Portland on October 17-20. This training has been offered at Duke Integrative Medicine since 2007 and at Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health since 2010. The Portland training will be the first west coast offering of this pioneering program.

Interested in more information about teaching yoga to adults and seniors? Contact us: info@yogacalm.org.

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Kimberly Carson, MPH, eRYT, is a is a yoga therapist at Oregon Health Science University (OHSU) and Duke Integrative Medicine, where she teaches their Yoga for Seniors program. Kimberly has taught Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction as developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn at OHSU and the Knight Cancer Institute, Duke Medical Center, University of North Carolina Hospitals, and the University of Florida. Kimberly also coauthored studies at Duke University Medical Center using yoga and meditation for patients with chronic low-back pain, metastatic breast cancer pain, and menopausal symptoms. 

Take a Stand for Children’s Health…Literally!

At first glance, it’s a hard statistic to believe – that by the time they reach high school, 63% of kids are no longer physically active. But consider some of the barriers that either didn’t exist or were much less common for children just one or two generations ago:

• Perpetual distraction by a screen and media saturated environment
• Slashed education budgets leading to cuts in sports and PE classes
• Testing mandates that have made recess seem expendable for the sake of more classroom time
• Neighborhoods not designed with space for outdoor play – or unsafe for such play
• Limited adult supervision afterschool due to two-earner households or parents having to hold more than one job to get by financially
• The model of adults leading sedentary lives, sitting through most of their waking hours

Factors like these are often invoked to partially explain the obesity epidemic, now more than a decade old. If only obesity were the worst outcome of inactivity!

Truth be told, inactivity is implicated in a host of other health problems, particularly heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer. And surprisingly, simple exercise may not be the solution. As Dr. Len Kravitz notes in his overview of research on the physiological problems caused by too much sitting, it’s the sitting so much for so long that’s the hazard, “regardless if the person meets the minimal daily exercise guidelines.”

That truth was underscored a couple years ago by a study which found that sitting for long periods may be just as harmful as smoking!

It’s hard to quantify exactly how long someone has been sitting by asking them, so researchers substituted the activity of TV watching and analyzed data from a giant lifestyle survey with 11,247 participants over the age of 25. What they published in…the British Journal of Sports Medicine may be the push you need to type while standing: Every daily hour of watching TV was associated with an 8 percent higher risk of death. (This is after controlling for the effect of exercise, diet, obesity and other relevant factors.) “Watching one hour of TV above age 25 may be about as lethal as smoking one cigarette,” says J. Lennert Veerman, PhD, a senior research fellow at the University of Queensland, who led the study.

No one would even dream of encouraging children to pick up a nicotine habit. Yet most of us – wittingly or not, willingly or not – are to some degree guilty of encouraging inactivity.

We need to move and move more often – and to get our kids doing the same. As Professor Stuart Biddle has said of his own research in the matter, “As a rule of thumb, if you can break up sitting time by at least five minutes every half hour we think that will benefit you.” [emphasis added]

This is why we recommend teachers – and homeschooling parents, as well – integrate Yoga Calm with their curriculum, using it at intervals throughout the day. Its simple activities like Tree pose or the Top 10 flow can be done even in the most crowded classrooms. In this way, it becomes a tool for creating opportunities to stand, stretch and move. As research has shown – and as we routinely hear from teachers, counselors, parents and others – this activity supports academic performance while reducing behavior and attention issues, anxiety and stress. Being able to merge physical activity and academics is especially valuable in schools where PE or recess have been curtailed.

Fortunately, more schools are starting to realize just what they’ve lost by such curriculum cuts and are making efforts to get kids moving again – sometimes on their own, sometimes by law. And, of course, there’s Michelle Obama’s ongoing Let’s Move! initiative, which includes the Healthier US School Challenge (HUSSC), “a voluntary USDA-certification program to recognize schools that meet the highest national standards for nutrition and physical activity. According to The Root, participation has been strong enough to meet or exceed goals ahead of schedule.

To meet the requirement of regular physical activity for children, schools found a range of solutions. Washington, D.C.’s River Terrace Elementary School, for instance, has its students walk on a track for 10 minutes each day and started a school walking club. Chicago Public Schools decided to bring back recess for elementary schools next fall and resume physical education for high school juniors and seniors for the 2013-14 school year.

You’ll find more ideas and resources for schools here and here.

What are some ways you work more standing and moving into your daily routine? Share your tips in the comments.

Top image by K. Sawyer Photography,
lower image by Mish Mish, via Flickr

The Children You Save

A few years ago, after hearing news of another mass shooting, I sat with the principal of the rural elementary school where I worked as a counselor, feeling sad and discouraged. Then he said something I’ve never forgotten: “The children you save never make the headlines.”

His compassionate eyes helped me know his words were true.

I remembered the time a 12 year old boy came and told me about some boys who were packing a loaded handgun to take revenge on another. Because of the trusting relationship I had with the student, we were able to work with the police to confiscate the weapon.

I remembered the time some children decided to play with one of their father’s hunting rifles. Again, one child trusted me and told me about it. We were able to warn the parents and increase awareness of gun safety in that small town.

I thought of the many other times boys and girls had come into my room crying, yelling and releasing their sorrows and trauma. Because they had a place to be heard and understood, they didn’t need to act out.

The principal and I used to talk about the Native American idea that when a child is troubled, you don’t reject them; you draw them into the community. You love them more, give them more. They are in need.

We lived by that philosophy in our work. It was challenging, to be sure. There were times when the children in our care needed more than we could provide. We had to find services outside of our district.

And we couldn’t save them all. We lost some to drugs, suicide and mental illness. But we saved countless others, steering their lives away from trouble and towards health and wellness.

When tragedies like the Sandy Hook shooting occur, it’s easy to respond reactively. You start thinking, “How can we keep such a thing from ever happening again?” Yes, we could spend billions to put armed guards in the schools and hope to stop the next shooting.

Or we could proactively help all children – and our society – through things like supporting mental health services, passing common sense gun safety laws and challenging depersonalization and the culture of violence we’re sold through video games and mass media.

We can’t change what happened, but we can grow from it and evolve as a culture. As trauma expert Dr. David Berceli writes,

Once a trauma befalls us we are forced, whether we like it or not, whether we want to or not, to follow its life-altering path. At times, this process often leads us through episodes of helplessness and hopelessness. It can terrify us by unveiling the fragility, precariousness and vulnerability of our humanity. It exposes us to the rawness of life as a living species on this planet. It tears at the very fabric of our identity and radically redefines our view of life. However, it is precisely because this experience has burned the bridges of our past ways of thinking that we are forced into a new way of being in life. The old ways of thinking and relating no longer suffice and a new way of being begins to emerge. We discover that on the other side of this frightening journey we have the potential of emerging into a new life of maturity, compassion and wisdom.

With Love,
Lynea

Additional Resources to Help You in Your Work with Children

• Helping Your Child Deal with Traumatic Events
  Counselor and author Lynea Gillen shares her years of experience in helping parents, teachers and counselors support children in dealing with traumatic events.
• Tools for Grieving Children
  Children carry grief in their bodies, hearts and minds in the same way that adults do, but they process it in different ways depending on their age. In this powerful lecture, Lynea Gillen discusses how to create an environment for children that allows them to express their grief through movement, art and story. Yoga Calm activities and children’s books that help with loss are also explored.
• How Technology is Shaping our Brains, Relationships & Sense Self
  Technology is changing us – and affecting us at younger and younger ages. Not all of this change is bad, says Doreen Dodgen-McGee, Psy.D., but it’s important to be aware of how it is changing our brains, relationships and sense of self. Recorded at Yoga Calm’s 2012 Oregon Summer Intensive.
• Good People Everywhere Blog
  Share your stories of the good things people are doing to make the world a better place.
• Trauma Release Workshop with Dr. David Berceli, Portland (OR), Feb. 22-24, 2013
  For the past 22 years, Dr. David Berceli has worked in war-torn countries and disaster relief areas around the world. His simple methods of tension and trauma relief can effectively be used individually, for large scale relief operations and in private mental health practice. Join us for this unique gathering of innovative professionals and passionate community members who are working together to expand our approach to trauma.

New Hope for Dealing with Tension & Trauma, Part 2

Read Part One

Words Are Not Enough: Yoga & Meditation

As we discussed last time, recovery from trauma is both a mental/emotional process and a physical process. Key to the latter is deactivating the somatic cues that trigger the troubling emotions and autonomic memories.

In fact, this is something experienced by the millions who have benefited from yoga’s calming poses, breath techniques and mindfulness practice. Clearly, this works for dealing with everyday stress, but for severe trauma? Absolutely, says PTSD expert Dr. Bessel van der Kolk.

Yoga is one of the Asian traditions that clearly help reintegrate body and mind. For someone to heal from PTSD, one must learn how to control bodily reflexes. PTSD causes memory to be stored at a sensory level – in the body. Yoga offers a way to reprogram automatic physical responses. Mindfulness, learning to become a careful observer of the ebb and flow of internal experience, and noticing whatever thoughts, feelings, body sensations and impulses emerge are important components in healing PTSD.

We’ve observed as much when applying Yoga Calm in clinical settings such as Amplatz Children’s Hospital at the University of Minnesota and St. Mary’s Hospital of the Mayo Clinic. Creating safety, going slow and providing opportunities to reflect, process and integrate, Yoga Calm instructors help children and teens reconnect with their bodies, learn to modulate arousal and gain a sense of self-control.

Shake It Off

Which brings us back to the revolutionary work of Dr. Berceli, which evolved through his years as a trauma intervention and conflict resolution specialist in war-torn areas of the Middle East and Africa.

Currently used by military personnel, victims of war and natural disaster, as well as therapists, social workers and laypersons around the world, TRE uses six yoga-like exercises to evoke self-controlled muscular shaking that releases the deep chronic tension created in the body during stressful or traumatic experiences. The shaking originates deep in the core of the body, with gentle tremors that reverberate outward along the spine, releasing tension from the sacrum to the cranium.

Many who have tried the exercises report immediate benefits. TRE can be led by a Certified Level 1 trainer and is another tool for practitioners of other somatic techniques such as Hakomi, Somatic Experiencing and EMDR, as well as traditional psychotherapy, counseling and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). Preliminary research (2009) has shown it to reduce anxiety by statistically significant amounts.

Anecdotal accounts lend further support. Time and again, those who use TRE describe its effects as powerful, profound and, indeed, life-changing. As Dr. Berceli writes,

Resolving past traumas delivers us into the future. Through the unending cycle of trauma recovery, the human species learns how to adapt to life threatening situations. This process of adaptation makes the species stronger and wiser to protect it from future traumatic episodes. If we did not possess this natural evolutionary instinct, we would have died as a species shortly after we were born. Trauma recovery is as natural and common as trauma itself. Accepting this sometimes unpleasant fact of life allows us to see trauma in a new light… Only by letting go can we unlock ourselves from the past, be delivered into the future and prepare ourselves for our next evolutionary experience.

Once a trauma befalls us we are forced, whether we like it or not, whether we want to or not, to follow its life-altering path. At times, this process often leads us through episodes of helplessness and hopelessness. It can terrify us by unveiling the fragility, precariousness and vulnerability of our humanity. It exposes us to the rawness of life as a living species on this planet. It tears at the very fabric of our identity and radically redefines our view of life. However, it is precisely because this experience has burned the bridges of our past ways of thinking that we are forced into a new way of being in life. The old ways of thinking and relating no longer suffice and a new way of being begins to emerge. We discover that on the other side of this frightening journey we have the potential of emerging into a new life of maturity, compassion and wisdom.

 
Yoga Calm is proud to offer “TRE-Tension/Trauma Release,” a three day public workshop and Facilitator Certification Training with David Berceli. The workshop will be held at the beautiful Still Meadow Retreat just outside of metro Portland, Oregon, February 22-24, 2013. For details, download our flyer. To register, click here. Group and other discounts are available. Contact us for information.

Learn more about Dr. Bercelli and his work

New Hope for Dealing with Tension & Trauma

Have you ever been so nervous or scared, your body was literally shaking?

That shaking is called neurogenic tremoring – an innate release system that nearly all mammals are born with and seems to be a key component in how they handle stress.

Yes, just as our bodies have things like the immune system to defend against physical threats, they also have mechanisms for dealing with stress, tension and trauma. As Dr. David Berceli writes,

As a human species, we are biologically designed to experience, endure and survive trauma. No different from other living organisms on this planet, we are genetically encoded to let go of and recover from trauma as a way of ridding ourselves of any experience that obstructs or interferes with the natural evolutionary process of the human body.

If you’ve attended one of our past Yoga Calm workshops, you’ve probably heard us talk about the work of Dr. Peter Levine. He was one of the first scientists to document this form of natural release. Others, such as Dr. Robert Scaer, have observed how somatic techniques like this can help the body release stored trauma. One revolutionary technique is that developed by Dr. Berceli – a simple yet powerful method he will be teaching in depth at our TRE – Tension/Trauma Release workshop in Portland this coming February (public workshop/TRE Facilitator Level 1 training).

“A Gift to Us from the Wild”

Life’s challenges range from everyday stressors to monumental loss and profound trauma. Physically, these affect all of us in the same way along a continuum of physiological reaction: the stress response. This mechanism has been well researched through the half century plus that’s passed since Hans Selye published his groundbreaking work The Stress of Life. Yet, for years, most treatment approaches deriving from it have been cognitively based.

Enter Dr. Levine and his study of animal behavior.

In Waking the Tiger, Dr. Levine notes that reptiles and mammals have three “primary responses…when faced with an overwhelming threat.” Two are familiar: fight and flight. The other is immobility. “My work over the last twenty-five years,” he writes, “has led me to believe that it is the single most important factor in uncovering the mystery of human trauma.”

Nature has developed the immobility response for two good reasons. One, it serves as a last-ditch survival strategy. You might know it better as “playing possum.” Take the young impala, for instance. There is a possibility that the cheetah may decide to drag its “dead” prey to a place safe from other predators; or to its lair, where the food can be shared later with its cubs. During this time, the impala could awaken from its frozen state and make a hasty escape in an unguarded moment. When it is out of danger, the animal will literally “shake off” the residual effects of the immobility response and gain full control of its body. It will then return to its normal life as if nothing had happened. Secondly, in freezing, the impala (and human) enters an altered state in which no pain is experienced. What that means for the impala is that it will not have to suffer while being torn apart by the cheetah’s sharp teeth and claws.

Dr. Levine goes on to note how antithetical this “instinctive surrender” is to most human cultures. Immobility reminds us too much of death. Yet “the physiological evidence clearly shows that the ability to go into and come out of this natural response is the key to avoiding the debilitating effects of trauma. It is a gift to us from the wild.”

“The Body Bears the Burden”

In his Psychotherapy Networker article “The Precarious Present,” Dr. Scaer begins by describing a client with persistent and intrusive thoughts: “visibly distressed” with “the pinched, drawn face and hunched shoulders of someone who felt at once threatened and helpless.” Body reflects mind.

In my 20 years as medical director of a multidisciplinary chronic pain program, I have found these body/mind intrusions to be a sort of generic marker for significant emotional disorders, including depression, anxiety, PTSD, and adjustment disorder.

But if Linda’s distress seems familiar, it’s not just because we see this kind of client so frequently in our offices. Its also because her complaint rings true for “healthy” people like ourselves.

It also underscores the fact that our understanding of trauma is “woefully incomplete.”

In fact, any negative life event occurring in a state of relative helplessness – a car accident, the sudden death of a loved one, a frightening medical procedure, a significant experience of rejection – can produce the same neurophysiological changes in the brain as combat, rape or abuse. What makes a negative life event traumatizing is not the literal life-threatening nature of the event, but rather 1) the degree of helplessness it engenders and 2) one’s history of prior trauma.

Negative intrusive thoughts and sensations, Dr. Scaer argues, “are, in fact, symptoms of trauma. They may not be identified as such in the DSM-IV. But these more commonplace body/mind invasions assume the same meaning, if not the intensity, as the trauma related thoughts and flashbacks of full-fledged PTSD.”

In both PTSD and what we might call “ordinary” trauma, both conscious and unconscious memories brutally intrude upon and corrupt the present moment. Not everyone suffers from PTSD. But each one of us has sustained many of these smaller traumas, setting us up to be continually shoved out of the present moment into a frightening, helpless past.

Dr. Scaer goes on to show how we often experience such “autonomic memories” through physical sensations like a tightened chest or rapid heartbeat. Over time, these can lead to chronic illness, as shown through studies linking early trauma to conditions as varied as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, IBS and autoimmune disorders.

“The body remembers,” he writes, “and keeps on remembering.”
 

Next time: How we can teach the body to deal with such remembering

 
Yoga Calm is proud to offer “TRE-Tension/Trauma Release,” a three day public workshop and Facilitator Certification Training with David Berceli. The workshop will be held at the beautiful Still Meadow Retreat just outside of metro Portland, Oregon, February 22-24, 2013. For details, download our flyer. To register, click here.

Learn more about Dr. Bercelli and his work

Sowing Mindfulness & Social Skills, Harvesting Gratitude

Heading into the holiday season, I find my thoughts going back several years to a party I attended at the elementary school where I worked as a counselor. Each of the 32 students contributed some kind of food.

There were large bottles of soda, big bags of chips and cookies. Some brought candy; others, beautifully decorated cupcakes. As soon as this bounty had been placed on a table that parents had decorated, the kids made a mad rush! And no sooner had they gobbled their share, they asked for more!

Though there were just five minutes left in the school day, their teacher released them to work off some of that frenetic energy. Their party had lasted 15 minutes – and I finally understood why one teacher had told me, “I like to take a personal day on party days.”

What are we teaching with parties like this? I wondered. I knew some schools had stopped allowing sweets, opting for non-edible items like pencils and stickers. That’s a good change, I thought, but is it just gifts that make something a party? What kind of party could I create that would be more meaningful?

For inspiration, I turned to the mindfulness and yoga practices I’ve studied most of my life.

Thinking of wholesome food, I began with a trip to a local farm, where I was able to taste, touch and smell many varieties of regional fruit. I bought Seckel pears, perfectly ripe, and sweet Honeycrisp apples, as well as a gallon of freshly pressed apple juice. I bought gluten-free pumpkin cookies from a local bakery and Free Trade chocolate that helps fund programs to protect endangered species. Then I gathered some beautiful fall objects in a basket – leaves, pods, late blooming mums and fuchsias. I packed my hand-painted Turkish glasses and a deep red decanter, along with one of my favorite pashmina shawls, LED candles, cloth napkins – some deep red, some decorated with fall leaves – and a soothing CD to create a mood.

And with that, I was off to the 7th and 8th graders waiting in the Behavior Classroom!

We began our party with some calming, yoga-based breathing. Then I turned on the music and dimmed the lights. “Sit in a circle,” I said. “We’re having a different kind of party this year.” I placed the shawl in the center and asked a few students to turn on the candles and create a centerpiece with the flowers.

After they had all cleaned their hands with wipes I’d provided, I passed around the deep red napkins. “Open them,” I said, “and admire their color.” We did this with the decorated napkins, too, admiring the artwork.

The basket came next. “Use these objects to decorate your setting,” I said, giving each a small piece of colorful paper, as well, with their name calligraphed on it.

Then I carefully passed around the glasses and decanter. “Smell the cider before pouring it,” I guided. “Don’t taste anything until all have been served.”

A summer party

I passed the foods around one by one, sharing a story for each. I told them about the farm I had visited – how beautiful it was, how I had thought of them while buying the fruit. I read the label on the chocolate and talked about how we were helping protect animals. I told them about the wonderful little bakery that had made the cookies.

Once everyone had a small amount of food, I passed around a stone for each to hold while telling us one of their favorite things about the holidays. They spoke quietly. They listened to one another. They ate slowly. They enjoyed their food.

One student said that she felt like she was in a different country.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s cool.”

Another said, “This is a quiet party.”

“What do you think about that?” I asked.

“It’s much better. I hate all of that noise.”

The party lasted 45 minutes. We talked about healthy food and parties and gratitude. We shared stories about holidays and told of the parties we’d enjoy with friends and family this year. Afterward, one of the boys said. “Let’s have parties like this every time.”

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What can you do differently during the holidays this year? What healthy foods and gratitude can you weave into what you now do around the table or in the classroom? Try something new this holiday season…and carry it through into the New Year with ongoing holidays and celebrations. We’d love to hear what you do – and invite you to share your ideas here in the comments, as well as on our Good People Everywhere Facebook page.
 

Crossposted on Today’s Parent & other family blogs