Back to School

Love it or hate it, it’s that time again: time to go back to school.

Starting a new school year always has its ups and downs, even if you’re familiar with the school and your classmates.  One thing that always concerned me was whether or not I would wake up on time.  For the first week of school I would set every alarm I could, including the clock-radio in the kitchen (you can imagine that not everyone in the house was happy about that).  I never did sleep in and miss the bus, but I was always concerned that I would until I got into the school-routine and broke my summer-habit of sleeping in.

My concern was pretty small, and possibly a little neurotic.  However, there are plenty of concerns that other children and parents have about a new school year that are far more serious than my example.  These can including bullying, how to avoid unsafe situations, and how to stand up to peer pressure, just to name a few.

It’s important to talk to youth about these issues, especially since it’s not always something they will want to talk about.  Well do I remember the conversations with my parents that so annoyed me about choosing good friends, making good decisions, telling them if something is bothering me with one of my friends.  I never contributed much to these conversations other than an occasional “Yeah, okay.”  But the point is that the topic was opened up, a dialogue had been started.  I knew that they were a resource in case I had a problem, and I knew that they wanted to talk.  Moreover, I was alerted to possible issues, such as drinking or bullying, before I ever encountered anything. 

Thankfully I made it through to graduation without having any confrontations with fellow students and without ever being in a situation where I felt threatened or pressured into doing something I didn’t want to.  Not everyone has that same experience, and there are many reasons for that.  So many that it’s impossible to anticipate them all.  What can be done is to prepare young people so they have the skills to make good decisions no matter what situation they encounter.

This is something that the Sherburne County Area United Way strongly supports and encourages in the community.  In addition to implementing our own self-reliant programming where we strive to grow self-reliance skills in youth, we also advocate that it’s something that is discussed between youth and the adults in their life.  For anyone there can be a lot of uncertainties when starting a new school year, no matter if they had attended that school before or not.  One of the things that can lessen those uncertainties is talking about them.  Prepare before the situation arises, in other words.  No one can ever foresee every situation that will come up, but giving someone the resources to handle whatever comes their way is imperative.

Word of the Week: Smile

This week’s word is smile.  Why smile?  Don’t most people know what that word means?  Indeed, they probably do.  Or at least they know smile as it is defined by the dictionary.  Dictionary.com defines smile as assuming a facial expression indicating pleasure, favor, or amusement, but sometimes derision or scorn, characterized by an upturning of the mouth.  We’re all probably aware that that is what it means to smile.

But there’s more to a smile than that, which is why it’s this week’s word.

Recently I’ve realized that there are a fair amount of people that don’t fully understand the power of a smile.  On the surface, a smile is just a facial expression, but it can be so much more than that.  An icebreaker when meeting people, a signal to your brain that there’s a reason to be in a good mood, an invitation for others to smile and be happy, the list goes on and on.  All these things show the incredible power that a simple smile has.

Seeing that the power of a smile is so important, I try to find as many reasons to smile as I can on any given day.  After all, all signs point to the fact that smiling is a healthy activity, and I enjoy doing it.  So people often find me with a grin on my face, and I often think they might wonder why I’m so happy when I’m taking the garbage out.  But then a really wonderful thing happens: sometimes people smile just in response to my own smile.

This is exciting.  This is a good thing.  That smile response has resulted in me trying to find as many ways as I can to make someone else smile.  An example of this over the weekend was when I visited my sister, who was ill, and I gave her a book of funny quotes.  The goal was that she would smile as she read the book, and that was what happened.  As we left her home I noted that she looked a little better than when we had arrived.  Was that solely in response to smiling while we were visiting?  Probably not.  I do like to think that her looking a bit better as we left was partially as a result of having smiled while we were there.

You don’t need to give someone a gift to make them smile, though.  Maybe send someone a nice text saying hello.  Hold a door open for someone, this almost always results in a smile and a thank you.  What ever you end up doing, chances are that everyone will be a little happier after they smile.  How will you spread the power of a smile?

Tough Topics

Yesterday the Greater Twin Cities United Way held a conference called the United Against Violence Summit.  As you might have guessed from the name, the day featured topics on violence in Minnesota, particularly domestic violence and violence against women, and what organizations across the state are doing to eliminate violence and increase awareness about the various forms of abuse that occur.  The topics and discussion were great, and we took away a lot of good information that can be used in our self-reliance programming, but that’s not what stood out to me the most.  What really caught my attention was how little people know about certain serious issues that are present in our community.

For instance, I hadn’t been aware that Minnesota had the seventh-highest rate of underage prostitution in the country.   I also hadn’t been aware of the high rate of trafficking that occurs in the state.

Why is that?

I think it’s because these issues are literally too horrible to think about.  We don’t want to think about certain issues, let alone talk about them.  And if we did want to talk about abuse or crimes against minors, how would that conversation even start, anyway?  However, it is important to discuss topics such as abuse because you never know when that information will be necessary to know.  We all hope we will never need know how to deal with a violent relationship, but at the same time we never know what the future may hold.

Talking about violence, abuse, trafficking and how to educate people – especially children – about these issues was a high priority in discussions at the United Against Violence Summit.  But no one said it would be easy, in fact, it was discussed on how hard these topics are to talk about and how hard it is to make someone understand the issues.  Talking about tough topics doesn’t mean that we all have to present a Power Point on the subject everyday.  It doesn’t mean that you need to be an expert to talk about abuse or any other issue.

What is important is that we’re talking.  It’s important that we’re not ignoring any issue, no matter how unpleasant it may be.  After all, I’m not even remotely close to being an expert on the topic, but I’m still writing about it and advocating awareness.  And that is something that we all can do.

Word of the Week: Self-Reliance

A big thing this summer here at Sherburne County Area United Way has been the growth of self-reliance skills.  Our summer programming, which consisted of four week-long summer camps, revolved around building self-reliance skills in youth.  We’re looking at ways to continue this theme into future programming.  As a result, I’ve written a fair amount of blogs that were at least sort-of related to self-reliance.  But what I’ve realized is that though I’ve written about self-reliance skills and said they are important, I’ve not really explained what they are.  And that’s why self-reliance is this week’s word.

Now, self-reliance doesn’t actually have an official definition, at least there wasn’t one on dictionary.com, so let’s break it up, shall we?  Self means the distinct identity or individuality of a person of thing (in other words, it’s yourself.)  Reliance is defined as confident or trustful dependence.  Put the two together and what do you have?  Confident, trusting dependence upon yourself.  Self-reliance skills are skills that allow you to know that you can depend on yourself, and that you are capable of meeting and beating challenges you come in contact with.

So, why is self-reliance a good thing to have?  Why are self-reliance skills important to know?

Have you ever needed to provide a meal for yourself, even if you had all the ingredients already, have you had to prepare it when you weren’t expecting to?  Have you ever been in a social situation where you’ve been faced with a difficult choice and you weren’t able to talk it over with someone you trust before making your decision?  In both of these situations, it is necessary to be able to be confident in the fact that you possess the skills that are necessary to solve potentially problematic situations.  And that is where self-reliance skills come in.

Here at the Sherburne County Area United Way, we are dedicating ourselves to building those skills in youth throughout the community.  Why in youth, you might ask.  Well, the years when people are at school are when major parts of a person’s character are formed.  The interactions with their peers and teachers, their experiences at home when the school day is over, are all vital, and it’s important to be ready for a variety of situations.  It’s important for them to be able to draw upon well-developed self-reliance skills.  Knowing that you can identify and resolve a potentially violent situation before it escalates, that’s important.  Knowing you can feed yourself if, for whatever reason, an adult won’t be around to prepare a meal for you, that’s important.

That’s what self-reliance means to us.  What does it mean to you?

Chocolate Pop?

When I was little, around four or five, my neighbor gave my sister and me each a can of chocolate flavored pop.  We were delighted.  It was something neither of us had had before, and it was a combination of two things we loved: chocolate and pop.  Now I don’t remember what the pop tasted like and what my reaction to drinking it was, but I still vividly remember being given the pop.  My sister does as well.  What a strange, random thing for us to remember.  A can of uncommonly-flavored pop.

I feel that it’s not the pop itself that make it such a memory, it’s the feeling that was elicited by the pop.  It’s not everyday that we are surprised by a generous, thoughtful gesture from an unexpected source.  A friend of mine once said, in response to me putting a crazy straw in her milk when she wasn’t looking, “Everyone should go through life getting surprises like this.”  And that’s what our neighbor did: she gave us a delightful surprise that we remember nearly twenty years later.

This leads me to wonder what makes for great memories?  Do they have to be grand affairs like spending a year in England?  Or can the source of great memories be as simple as being given a can of chocolate pop, or being surprised by a crazy straw?

I think great memories can come from small gestures.  The key thing in both of my examples is that the small gestures were shared with people.  My sister and I were delighted by the can of pop.  My friends and I still chuckle over the reaction to the crazy straw.  Small gestures that bring happiness shared between people will continue to do so, or at least that’s the conclusion that I’ve come to.

There are a lot of opportunities to make memories with others, ample ways to share experiences that you will keep with you for years.  Find something that makes you happy, and share that with others.  I think crazy straws are fun, so I put one in a friend’s cup.  My neighbor’s family liked the chocolate pop, so she shared some with my sister and me.  What can you do?  Knit something and give it as a gift.  Suggest a movie night with some friends and each choose a favorite movie to watch.  Again, great memories don’t necessarily need to be grand memories.

Sometimes the smallest and most random memories are some of the best, I know mine are.

Word of the Week: Community

I’ve been ever so surprised to find that this blog has readers from all around the world (Welcome, everyone!).  It has really struck me how small it makes the world seem when I think about the fact that people in the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia and China are reading blogs that I write and post in Minnesota.

This brings new meaning to how I view the word community.  Community means a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage, but to me it has always simply meant where I lived.  Elk River, the town in which I live, that is the community I belong to, and I’ve never thought about it in greater terms than that.

Clearly, my definition of community has been much narrower than what the word actually means.  More than that, the things that I think affect my community are far broader than I had ever thought. 

For instance, there was a time when I thought homelessness, actually having no place to live, was something that was confined to cities, such as Minneapolis.  Imagine my surprise when a friend told me about a well-known homeless person in Zimmerman, or about a homeless man a friend saw behind a local grocery store.  I had assumed because I didn’t see these things, they weren’t here.

Serious problems are close to home, and it doesn’t matter if they are obvious or not.  Not seeing shouldn’t mean that it is assumed they’re not there.

Maybe that’s why people from so far away take the time to read this blog.  Maybe they’ve realized faster than I have that it is important to keep track of what’s happening in the world, because it can give you hints of what is happening in your own community.  Or rather, maybe the whole world is our community.  Does helping the homeless in the Sherburne County Area have an impact on homelessness in the Twin Cities?  Does helping the homeless in the Twin Cities have an impact on homelessness across the state of Minnesota?  Does that have an impact on homelessness in the Midwest?  How about the United States?  North America?  Earth?

By acknowledging issues close to home, by helping the people who are in need where we live, we have an impact on the greater communities that we are a part of.

So, hello, guten tag, привет, 你好, to everyone who is reading this blog, hopefully the translations for hello I pulled off of Google are accurate.   And hopefully no matter where you are, your sense of community is broad so that no one is left out.  The first part of helping is by acknowledging the presence of the problem.