What Is Love?
By · CommentsKids Know Best!
I love kids for their honesty, openness, and mostly for being their authentic selves. Nothing shows that better than this story about kids’ answers about the meaning of love. A group of professional people posed this question to 4- to 8-year-olds: “What does love mean?” The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think.
· “When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis, too. That’s love.”
Rebecca—age 8
· “When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.”
Billy—age 4
· “Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.”
Chrissy—age 6
· “Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.”
Karl—age 5
· “Love is what makes you smile when you’re tired.”
Terri—age 4
· “Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that.”
Emily—age 8
· “Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.”
Noelle—age 7
· “Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.”
Tommy—age 6
· “During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn’t scared anymore.”
Cindy—age 8
· “My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don’t see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.”
Clare—age 6
· “Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.”
Mary Ann—age 4
· “I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.”
Lauren—age 4
· “When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.”
Karen—age 7
· “You really shouldn’t say ‘I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.”
Jessica—age 8
· And the final one — Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four-year-old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman’s yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, “Nothing, I just helped him cry.”
Ask your sons and daughters, What Is Love? Please share their answers with us.
Congregations have inter-generational opportunities built in.
“When seven-year–old Kate asked her mom if the family could join a congregation, like all her friends, her mom knew it was time to find a spiritual home. She is glad she did, as the power of deep connections her kids found in the youth group, family camp, and intergenerational activities were life-changing for the whole family.”
Discussion:
This story is actually mine. We found a wonderful home in our small congregation of 180 families. It was great because everything anyone volunteered to do made a big difference and it was easy to contribute. Congregations are one of the best place for intergenerational activities. Some of the activities we did were:
- Secret Buddy: every kid who wanted to was paired up with an adult secret buddy for a month. They exchanged little gifts, cards over the month and then had a celebration where everyone found out who their secret buddy was.
- Everyone Birthday Party:we all divided up in groups by month of our birthday and sometimes even met other people born on our same day of the month. The group talked about what we liked about our birthday month and common interests. Then all the groups ate cake together. It was a blast!
- Intergenerational Dances: where the members were the band, and we rock-and-rolled with kids running around us. There was plenty of goodies and energy to last all night. We played music to appeal to all generations.
- Pancake breakfasts and Group Soup: every month we all had a couple meals together.
- Coming of Age program for a 13-14 year-olds, with a Wizard of Oz retreat to kick it off, values of our religious organization, and a Wilderness retreat. For the mentor program, an adult volunteer was matched with a mentee for the 6 month program and did service-learning, fun activities, and exploring insightful questions. This pair become very close.
- Family Camp at Seabeck: this was the very best, where my children got to experience freedom like I had in my childhood. Families with kids of all ages hang out together on 20 acres for a week. The kids run free together all day. This was the best for teens who all accepted for who they are.
This truly is a place where children can say “I feel cared for and valued by my congregational village.”
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If I knew then what I know now,
I would have spread the value of coming of age programs to everyone.
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What was your biggest take-away?
Let me know if you have any questions?
Part 8 of 11: A caring neighborhood can provide community and a safety net.
“When Mary Pipher was a little girls she picked lilacs from Mr. Green’s yard. He caught her and called her dad. Her dad asked her to apologize to Mr. Green. Everywhere she went for the next few weeks, people would say, “I heard you stole lilacs from Mr. Green’s yard. Mary never stole anything again the rest of her life. Now here is story #2, kids steal flowers from Mr. Brown’s yard. He comes out and yells at the kids but he doesn’t know who they. The kids cuss back and run off laughing. Mr. Brown hates kids and the kids hate him. He never votes “yes” for a school bond from then on. em>
Discussion:
In Mary Pipher’s day people knew their neighbors and they watched out for each other. People sometimes lived their whole lives in the house they were born. They certainly didn’t move every 3-5 years, like today. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of us could say, “I feel safe, cared for, and connected in my neighborhood.” In Mary Pipher’s neighborhood, they had:
- community: where people cared and helped each other in hard times.
- zone of safety where kids could freely play and walk to the Five and Dime.
- connection where there was always someone sitting on their front porch waiting for a chat.
There was the problem of getting one’s nose in other people’s business, but the benefits far outweighed the negatives.
The second story is a problem complicated by not knowing a name. If Mr. Brown lived in a connected neighborhood, he would have known the names of the kids and been able to tell the parents. The kids would have learned accountability and respect for other people’s property. Instead nothing was learned except maybe, “vandalism is fun.”
There are literally hundreds of ways to build community in your neighborhood: street parties and potluck meals regularly where everyone hangs out while the kids play. Having an open attitude of borrowing sugar, eggs, and the lawnmower or sharing emails with any neighborhood thefts or the latest on city policies that affect your neighborhood can be connecting.
In our neighborhood, we created a wonderful event around May Day, that really cements our commitment to each other. It involves
- Updating the Neighborhood Roster, including current emails and cell phones for emergencies.
- Creating a Photo Collages of all the kids in the neighborhood, with their grade and school. Then everyone can identify the kids of the neighborhood and know where they live. The elderly neighbors particularly love this information. They can reach out to the kids easier and are more comfortable with them, The kids in turn feel safer and more willing to go to these neighbors if they are afraid or need help.
- Inviting all the neighbor kids over on May Day to eat snacks while they build May Day Baskets made of paper cones filled with of flowers. Then they deliver the baskets on each neighbor’s doorstep along with a rolled up roster/photo collage.
- Everyone attending the annual Spring Potluck to get reunited as we are more outdoors for summer/fall.
What do you do in your neighborhood to build connection and closeness?
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If I knew then what I know now,
I would have had been friendlier to the neighbor kids to be sure they felt safe to come to me if they needed to.
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Reflections
We take a breather today from “Building Our Village” series for reflection.
Here are a few of my favorite inspirational quotes.
- The most important thing she’d learned over the years
was that there was no way to be a perfect mother
and a million ways to be a good one.
Jill Churchill -
Courage doesn’t always roar.
Sometimes courage is the quiet
voice at the end of the day saying,
“I will try again tomorrow.”
Mary Anne Radmacher-Hershey -
You find time for the things that are important to you.
Anonymous
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If I knew then what I know now,
I would have rested and reflected more often and breathe…just breathe.
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Fostering safe havens at school
“Mary volunteered regularly in the classroom all through grade school where she was able to be helpful and connected to the teachers, classmates and school climate. Now that both her kids are in middle school, the teachers don’t have activities for her to be helpful in classroom so she feels disconnected and can’t assess how her kids are doing as well.”
It was so fun to hang out in the school when my kids were there. For me there is no group of people living more fully than children. They live in the present moment and are so alive it is infectious. Plus of course, I got to see my kids in their school environment and get to know the other kids in the classroom and the school staff to boot. So figuring out ways to expand kids learning and have fun too was always a priority. I was always on the look-out for ideas to bring in. Here are some after-school activities I did in my kids school, even when my kids weren’t in them.
- Baseball club in grade school: I was so discouraged by the amount of time a family gives up to baseball and I wanted to bring back the ease and love of the game I had growing up playing pick-up football every fall and pick-up baseball every spring and summer. Parents bought hats and snacks. We meet weekly and played a round robin game with 8-9 kids.
- Girls Science Club: In middle school, I felt so useless in the classroom. When I found the AWSEM curriculum at the Saturday Academy in Portland, it was a way to share my love of science with girls. We met weekly doing science experiments, like collecting germs in the boy’s bathroom and drinking fountain and growing them on a culture, making GAK and Oobleck, and building and firing rocket ships. We also visited businesses where women mentored the girls and shared a hands-on-activity with them. This was so fun I did it over the four years my two kids were in middle school.
- Girls Sports Club: I was discouraged by the drop out in physical activity by many kids, especially girls, by age 10. Why? Parental involvement in sports has brought in seriousness, fierceness, and winning at all cost. Kids just want to have fun. So I wanted to bring in fun, life-long, physical activity back. We choose: self-defense, yoga, kick-boxing, and Tai Chi. The girls had a blast.
- Pottery Club: I wanted to involve the boys, so I came up with the idea of a pottery club. It worked. A few boys came to the first session and created some fantastic little sculptures. But they didn’t come back. I realize now I needed to make it more boy friendly by calling it Mud Club and having each session end by throwing a wad of clay at a target on the wall. That would have kept the boys there.
There are an infinite variety of things you could do with kids. Just think about what you and your kids like to do. Think of what would provide a safe, inclusive feeling for kids and talk to the school about it. Other “safe havens” ideas for school
- Lunch fun room: help create a safe space for kids who don’t feel comfortable on the playground or in the library. It could have a foosball table, board games, puzzles …
- Girls and Boys Night Out: great for breaking down cliques and building new friendships, like all the girls in 6th grade spend the night at the school, with teen mentors, friendship discussions, and FUN. Dads run the boys’ event.
- Girls/ Boys Support Groups: kids who are marginalized or frequently in conflict with others can benefit tremendously with facilitated discussions with their peers. An excellent source is www.girlscircle.com and www.boyscouncil.com for resource guides and for training. School counselors are excellent at running these and selecting the kids. PTA can pay for it. It can markedly reduce bullying, as well as empowering each kid.
- Running Club: a PE teacher offered this during recess at school. The kids had a big graph hung conspicuously that they posted their progress on. It ended by running together in the Starlight Parade Run in June.
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If I knew then what I know now,
I would have encouraged the formation of clubs during lunch recess, a tough time for excluded kids.
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