Child Safety: Forewarned is Forearmed

Most readers of my newsletter and blog will know that I don’t normally dwell on the darker side of life. Like many of you, I know that bad things happen but sometimes, I prefer not to know all the details and certainly don’t want to alarm people by elaborating on unpleasant and unsavoury events unnecessarily. However, this week I feel compelled to write about a difficult topic: child abduction and child safety. This is because firstly it’s Child Protection Week this week and secondly because of recent tragic events on the Sunshine Coast.

Every person in Queensland would be aware of the disappearance of Daniel Morcombe and the long painful quest to find out what happened to Daniel. It is every parent’s worst nightmare to discover that their child is missing. Sometimes, there is good news when a child is found safe and sound, but occasionally we know that parents’ worst fears are realised. Our hearts go out to the Morcombe family and most of us silently say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

Abductions of children while not common on the Sunshine Coast are still a huge cause for concern given what we have witnessed recently. Only last week the school received reports of attempted abductions at nearby schools in Caloundra. It is essential that everybody makes child safety a priority and the helpful tips below come from a very useful website: http://www.reallifesolutions.net/family/abductions.html

Here are some of the realities of child abduction:
• The majority of children who are reported missing have run away, or there has been a misunderstanding with their parents about where they were supposed to be.
• Of the young people that are truly abducted, the majority of them are taken by a family member or an acquaintance; only 25% of children are taken by strangers.
• Almost all children kidnapped by strangers are taken by men, and about two thirds of stranger abductions involve female children.
• Most abducted children are in their teens.
• Children are rarely abducted from school grounds.

Strategies for Preventing Abductions: Parents often do not provide their children with safety information that could help prevent an abduction.

These strategies may help:
• Make sure custody documents are in order.
• Have ID-like photos taken of your children every 6 months, and keep these readily accessible.
• Keep your children's medical and dental records up to date.
• Make online safety a priority. The Internet is a great tool, but it's also a perfect place for predators to stalk children. Be aware of your children's Internet activities and chat room "friends," and remind them never to give out personal information. Avoid posting identifying information or photos of your children online.
• Set boundaries about the places your children go. Supervise them in places like shopping centres, movie theatres, parks, public toilets, and don’t let your child do fundraising door to door.
• Never leave children alone in a car or stroller, even for a minute.
• Choose caregivers - babysitters, day-care providers, and nannies carefully and check their references. If you've arranged for someone to pick up your children from school or child care, discuss the arrangements beforehand with your children and with the school, kindergarten or the early learning centre.
• Avoid dressing your children in clothing with their names on it - children tend to trust adults who know their names.

Talk to Your Child About Strangers
Talk to your children often about their safety in different places – at home, at the shops or out playing, or coming from and going to school. Give your children the basics on how to avoid and escape potentially dangerous situations.

Teach them to:
• Never accept sweets or gifts from a stranger.
• Never go anywhere with a stranger, even if it sounds like fun. Predators can lure children with questions like "Can you help me find my lost puppy?" or "Do you want to see some cute kittens in my car?" Remind your children that adults they don't know should never ask children to help or to do things for them.
• Run away and scream if someone follows them or tries to force them into a car.
• Say ‘no’ to anyone who tries to make them do something you've said is wrong or touch them in a way that makes them feel uncomfortable.
• Always tell you or another trusted adult if a stranger asks personal questions, exposes himself, or otherwise makes them feel uneasy.
• Reassure children that it's OK to tell you even if the person made them promise not to or threatened them in some way.
• Always ask permission from a parent to leave the house, yard, or play area or to go into someone's home.

Keep these other tips in mind, too:
• Make sure younger children know their names, address, phone number including area code, and who to call in case of an emergency.
• Review with your child how to use ‘triple 0’ – what to say, what information to give.
• Discuss what to do if they get lost in a public place or store - most places have emergency procedures for handling lost children. Remind your children that they should never go to the parking lot to look for you. Instruct your children to ask a cashier for help or stand near the registers or front of the building away from the doors.
• Point out the homes of friends around the neighbourhood where your children can go in case of trouble.
• Be sure your children know in whose car they may ride and in whose they may not. Teach them to move away from any car that pulls up beside them and is driven by a stranger, even if that person looks lost or confused.
• Teach your children not to ride with anyone they don't know.
• If your children are old enough to stay home alone, make sure they keep the door locked and never tell anyone who knocks or calls they are home alone.

Parents as a school we do whatever we can to ensure your son or daughter’s safety. All teachers have spoken to students about the importance of being safe and staying safe while away from their parents. We have also spoken to children about road safety too and given the recent accident and death of a cyclist not far from the school, this has brought home how important it is for young people to take good care while riding bicycles or walking to and from school.

What can you do once a precious life has been taken forever? Accidents happen in the blink of an eye. Once the damage is done, nothing can turn back the clock and make it right again. Lives are destroyed. Heartache and remorse follow and for some families the healing process takes a long time; sometimes the pain stays with them all of their lives.

Let’s do all in our power to keep our young people safe and conscious of some of the dangers in life, without overwhelming them with frightening stories. Sensible strategies are a good starting place for discussion with our sons and daughters. Remember: ‘forewarned is forearmed’.

Karon Graham
Principal

Lessons learned from the colour palette in choosing the best school.

"The fact is that given the challenges we face, education doesn't need to be reformed -- it needs to be transformed. The key to this transformation is not to standardize education, but to personalize it, to build achievement on discovering the individual talents of each child, to put students in an environment where they want to learn and where they can naturally discover their true passions."
(Sir Ken Robinson, from The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything)

I was recently in an art class learning the finer art of finding the right way to mix colours for skin tones. Does it surprise you, like it did me, to discover that skin colour is a mix of colours as diverse as red, blue and yellow? Oh yes, and there is some white in the mix too, though white is not considered to be a colour. Now as someone who has often experienced a ‘Picasso or da Vinci’ moment, I have tried my hand at painting – not to any degree of success I might add and given that I did not know that white, red, yellow and blue make up skin colour, this is not surprising. I freely admit though, that art is one of my passions. I love nothing more than walking through an art gallery admiring the work of great painters and artists or trying my hand at drawing and painting when the mood strikes.

Discovering that such a small mix of colours can produce very life like skin tones was something of a revelation to me. Red, blue and yellow are of course primary colours and from these three colours, most other colours are derived. Wikipedia lists hundreds of colours by RGB, hue, saturation and value, because colour ‘naming’ is somewhat arbitrary and ambiguous to say the least. It’s estimated that there are 16 million colours that can be simulated by a 20 bit RGB computer, which bears no resemblance to the infinite numbers of colours that our eyes can recognise. Don’t you find it amazing to think that from so few primary colours, a world of colours is created?

Doug Keeley, a talented musician and one of the presenters at a recent principal’s ICP Conference I attended in Toronto, made the point that all music is derived from twelve tones, called the chromatic scale. All jazz, pop, rock, country and classical music is the outcome of variations in these twelve notes – a point that he proceeded to demonstrate by playing just a few notes from some well-known and well-loved pieces of music, within a few notes, most people in the audience recognised the music and the group playing it. This proved to be an interesting segue into the keynote presentation by internationally renowned, educationalists Michael Fullan, who is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto and Dr Andy Hargreaves, who is the Chair of School of Education at Boston College.

Both speakers spoke at length around some of the fallacies in education. One of the key points that resonated with me, was the fallacy of prescription. Both Hargreaves and Fullan argued that the old industrial model of schools had passed its ‘used by date’ long ago and that prescriptions of what students should study was no longer relevant. Hargreaves argued that the old model doesn’t need reforming, rather it needs to be totally transformed- a sentiment shared by Sir Ken Robinson, another leading, international educational expert. As Fullan explained:

“Reform is like ripe fruit; it rarely travels well.”

Hargreaves stressed that high performing organisations are flexible, innovative, creative and fit the curriculum to the child. Parents, the reason that this resonates so strongly with me, is that at Caloundra City Private School we go to extraordinary lengths to be flexible, innovative, and creative in fitting the curriculum (the teaching and learning) to each child.

Schools may have similar ingredients – students, teachers and classrooms - but like the combination of primary colours and the combination of 12 musical notes, the outcomes for each student can be very different, and differ dramatically from one school to another. The same mix of notes can be a symphony to your ears – like Beethoven’s No. 5 - or a cacophony of noises. The same mix of colours can be a beautiful “Mona Lisa” or a child-like one dimensional stick drawing. What would you rather for your son or daughter? Of course you want what’s best for your child.

Making choices about the best school for your son or daughter's education is a tough decision at the best time, but making a decision, when economic conditions are difficult can be even more confronting for parents. As someone who has sent all three of my children to a private school, I know the sacrifices that parents have to make but can I say, in the long run, it's worth every single cent. A child's very future is dictated by his or her love of learning from a very young age. If the light goes out, it's very difficult to rekindle. The money spent on your child's education is an investment in the future and it's so important to find the very best school for your son or daughter. All schools are not the same. They may have the same few ingredients, but it's how you put these altogether that determines which school is the best for your son or daughter. I agree with Sir Ken Robinson:

"Our task is to educate our students whole being so they can face the future. We may not see the future, but they will and our job is to help them make something of it." I would add:'and succeed in that future'.

Karon Graham
Principal

Parenting Teenagers during the Tricky Times

Teenagers can be tricky at the best of times and for parents it may be one of the toughest challenges of all to stay calm (and sane), through those trying days, weeks and months and even years. Now please don’t get me wrong, the teenage years can be fun too, but of all the time periods for young people, the teenage years can be the most challenging and frustrating for parents.

When it comes to sorting out teenage problems or family conflict, there are no quick fixes, nor are there one stop cure-alls, nor are there strategies or solutions that work for everyone. There is no right way or right approach that’s going to work for every person or for every situation. As one comic quipped:

“Raising teenagers is like nailing jelly to a tree.”

Yes we recognise that teenagers are growing up and need more independence, more autonomy and more privacy but this should be a measured and balanced approach. The ‘fine line’ is letting your son or daughter have more privacy, you don’t need to know everything, but by the same token you need them to understand that you want them to be safe, and because of this, there are some things that you do need to know.

Parents understand protective behaviours but adolescents don’t necessarily see the risks that parents do. Teenagers can be at risk because of someone else’s doing. Teenagers can be very manipulating when it comes to going out with their friends. Where they say they’re going and where they end up going, can be completely different. Yes you want to build trust but trust works both ways and they have to demonstrate to you that they can be trusted. It pays to contact the other parents to get details and ensure that the other parents are there or supervising your son or daughter. While this does not always pan out, there is some peace of mind in allowing your son or daughter to go to someone’s place if you have spoken to the parents beforehand.

Listen and share time with your teenager as part of your daily and weekly routine. As a busy parent, we often tell ourselves it’s the quality of the time not the quantity of time that counts most. Unfortunately all evidence is to the contrary. What’s most important, in fact, is the quantity of time we spend with our sons and daughters. Listening to your son or daughter sounds easy, most of us think that we do this really well, but often the child’s interpretation of time spent listening to them is quite the reverse. It’s hard sometimes to listen without giving advice or asking too many questions and this is an acquired skill that parents need to master. Listening in silence does not mean that you agree with your son or daughter, but it does mean you are listening. Reflective responses are helpful when listening; lecturing, giving advice (if it’s not requested), or starting with “when I was young” is not.

It’s not a perfect world, (we get that), but equally we need to understand that our teenagers are not perfect. Things will go wrong and do go wrong. Yes, there need to be consequences for inappropriate behaviour and wherever possible make the consequences relevant to the situation. Acknowledge the mistake and as a family, move forward, because constantly reminding your son or daughter of the mistake is not going to help the situation. Apologising for inappropriate behaviour is a very important step for teenagers to take, in allowing everyone to put the incident behind them and move on in life. Take heart from the philosophy that your teenager will learn from the mistakes and while it doesn’t seem like they are learning at the time, over the longer term, they do learn the lessons.

Who’s the boss in your family? According to expert, Elizabeth Harrell, teenagers need boundaries and safe, secure situations in which to grow. Parents are the provider of both, and when you act like a friend, your teen will lose security. Teens who view their parents as authority figures and providers are more likely to be close to them in adulthood. Despite what appearances might suggest, teens do not respect parents who behave like teens. Relating to your teen, based on your own experiences, can be a successful method of working through challenging situations, but at no time should you lose your parent status. (From: “11 Mistakes parents make with teen discipline”).

Setting boundaries is essential. You may feel like the enemy from time to time (and yes, occasionally your son or daughter may call you this), but more than anything, adolescents need to know what they can and can’t do. You are the parents and you determine what the rules and boundaries are in your household. Don’t succumb because of the ‘tried and tested’ (very testing), ‘Linda’s mum or Jamie’s dad lets them do this or go to this place’ - or whatever it might be that they want to do. Stay strong, like the Rock of Gibraltar – don’t let your teenager manipulate you emotionally.

Talk to the other parents of your son or daughter's friends. No-one likes to be the last parent to know about what is going on between your own son or daughter, with another teenager. Please, if you are one of the parents who knows something about another teenager’s risky behaviour, talk to one of the teen’s parents about what you have seen or heard. You may save a family from a very painful situation or a tragedy. At worse your comments may cause the other parent to become miffed, but if it was your son or daughter involved in risky behaviour, wouldn’t you want to know? Of course you would. If this all seems a little too difficult or confronting, let someone else know either in the school or a close friend of the family. Please don’t be the one to spread the gossip to other parents, this may fuel a potential situation and make it even more difficult for a family to resolve the issues with their own teenage son or daughter.

Be around and let it be known that you’re around. Teenagers are notorious for getting themselves into strife and then having a hard time getting out of a bad situation by themselves. Sometimes teenagers will go out with a group of friends and either separate from them to be with ‘someone special’ or alternatively may have an argument and walk off from his or her friends. Either way, the consequences of separating from friends to be by themselves can lead to dangerous or risky behaviour or situations. Always let your teenager know you are available to give them a lift home. You will pick him/her up at anyplace or anytime, even three o’clock in the morning. You will do so without any consequences to your teenager on the understanding that everyone makes mistakes in judgment. You simply want your son or daughter to be safe, no matter what the circumstances.

Be positive and have positive intentions and above all keep a sense of humour. I say this in hindsight as a parent who has seen three of my children grow into adults and now laugh when we talk about some of their misdemeanours during the more difficult teenage years. Can I laugh about all of the difficulties? Definitely not , but some of the ‘darkest hours’ have been defining moments in turning around one of my then teenagers from the ‘dark side’. Remaining positive and looking forward to a positive and bright future was a struggle some days but in the end, that’s what happened. Have faith and trust that the values that you share with your teenager will hold them in good stead for the future.

Sometimes we need to get professional help, because despite our best efforts, we are unable to work through the complicated issues that are causing escalated family conflict. Finding a professional ‘third party’ to mediate and arbitrate through the mine field is sometimes the only way forward.

As a school we support both students and parents through this difficult and trying time. Research shows that when the school and parents work in partnership, the resilience and protective factors of your child are enhanced. Our Life Skills Program and Outdoor Education Program, give young people effective strategies for dealing with a wide range of social and emotional issues as they grow and develop into young adults. Together we can work towards resolving many of the issues facing you as parents or your children. Yes, the teenage years are amongst the most challenging but they are also amongst the most rewarding and satisfying years of your life. Yes they really are; trust me on this point.

Karon Graham

Why are Some People so Lucky?

Do you ever wonder why some people are so lucky? I recently read an article about some incredibly lucky lottery winners. Hard to believe but Texan Joan Ginther, has actually won four jackpots since 1993 for the amazing, grand total of US$20.4 million. Experts say that the odds of one person winning four lottery jackpots are unbelievably difficult - more than 200 million to 1. Joan Ginther isn’t the only one to get so lucky; Ernest Pullen won US$1 million in June of 2010 and then won another $2 million in September. Doesn’t seem fair does it?

Of course being lucky in winning money does not necessarily guarantee being lucky in anything else and I have heard of some sad tales about people winning lottery, only to have a series of misfortunes befall them or their family. Being lucky in love or lucky in your work or in sport of course is a little different from winning money on a lottery ticket or a scratchie.

I am very sure that neither Cadel Evans, winner of the Tour de France nor James Magnussen’s, amazing winner of the 100 metre freestyle FINA world championship would be thinking that their recent wins, were ‘just lucky’- far from it I suspect. There is an element of luck in small decisions at a particular point in time but on the whole, to be successful in anything, there has to be a great deal of effort, preparation, commitment and perseverance. I don’t think there was much room for error or luck in Magnussen’s 100 metre race in the incredible time of 47.63 seconds. Who has time to even think in that length of time?

As Thomas Jefferson said:

“I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.”

In his research into why some people are lucky and others unlucky, Professor Richard Wiseman has distilled his research down to four basic principles which explains how some people create their own good fortune. Professor Wiseman shares the following principles in his book, “The Luck Factor”:

Principle One: Maximise Chance Opportunities
Lucky people are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities. They do this in various ways, including networking, adopting a relaxed attitude to life and by being open to new experiences.

Principle Two: Listening to Lucky Hunches
Lucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut feelings. In addition, they take steps to actively boost their intuitive abilities by, for example, meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts.

Principle Three: Expect Good Fortune
Lucky people are certain that the future is going to be full of good fortune. These expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies by helping lucky people persist in the face of failure, and shape their interactions with others in a positive way.

Principle Four: Turn Bad Luck to Good
Lucky people employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and often even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes their way. For example, they spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, do not dwell on ill fortune, and take control of the situation.




Surprisingly, it seems, luck is more about your attitude to life than it is about divine forces conspiring to bring either good or bad fortune. Yes I know this is contrary to many people’s perceptions but on the whole, it’s my belief that we make our own luck even when it seems the odds are stacked against us.

Best selling author of, “The Winner’s Bible”, Dr Kerry Spackman believes that those people with an absolute and resolute self belief, will be and usually are the people who succeed most in life. While it might be that there was a serendipitous moment where everything seemed to fall in place, it is usually the culmination of consistent and persistent effort, hard work and belief in yourself that brings ultimate success.

This is an important message for our young people, who from time to time doubt their own ability and may question why they are not doing as well as they would like to or maybe not achieving their goals. A good positive attitude and a healthy perspective about life and its shortcomings and the resilience to keep moving forward in the face of adversity or setbacks, will ultimately lead young people to a more successful future. As parents and teachers we can help this process by encouraging, inspiring and motivating our young people to always work to the best of their ability and to persevere, even if they don’t succeed at first (or second or third).

As William James, American psychologist and philosopher wrote:
“The greatest revolution of our generation
is the discovery that human beings,
by changing the inner attitudes in their minds,
can change the outer aspects of their lives.”

In essence, James is saying that we can not only change the outer aspect of our lives but we can also change our luck. Stay positive, think big and believe in yourself, no matter what - even when you don’t win the lottery – darn!

Karon Graham
Principal

Qualities of a good friend

Where would we be without friends? For most people, life is made all the more bearable because of friends. Sharing time with someone is a sure fire way to build up a friendship, particularly when we are good listeners. Sharing stories, sharing little snippets of our life, revealing our ‘real’ self to another person requires a ‘leap of faith’. How will someone react when we tell them about a problem worrying us, or sharing a secret that we have kept to ourselves? Fair weather friends may dessert us in times like this, but good friends stick by us until the end. How do we know if it’s the end? If it’s not okay, it’s not the end.

Good friends don’t give advice unless we ask for it. Good friends listen more than they talk. Good friends know when to stay silent and when to speak up. Good friends don’t make value judgements about your life choices. Good friends, as someone famously said, walk in when others walk out. Elbert Hubbard, author, artist and philosopher, humourously put it this way:

“The friend is the person
Who knows all about you,
And still likes you. "

Good friends are there when we need them most; they are there on our doorstep when tragedy strikes; they stand by us through thick and thin, particularly when our world is turned upside down. The amazing thing about good friends is that they really don’t need to say or do very much at all. Just being there to listen to what has happened can be the greatest comfort of all. Famous philosopher and author, Henry David Thoreau wrote:

“The language of
Friendship is not words, but Meanings.
It is an intelligence
Above language.”

Good friends show kindness, above and beyond the call of duty and often it’s not in grand gestures but in simple acts of kindness that we appreciate the most. Helping out by making a few frozen meals when a friend has a new baby to care for or offering to pick up our friend’s children from school when they are caught late at work. Friends help smooth out the ‘bumps’ in our lives and ease our burdens and bring greater happiness because they are there for us when we need them most.

One of our parents recently had a very distressing situation, her husband was away and she was confronted by a very agitated and menacing man at her front door. It was a frightening situation and one that was so unexpected in the local area where she lives. Within days, she had received many phone calls, emails and kind words from many of the parents at CCPS. She told me later that she was quite overwhelmed by the kindness and thoughtfulness of her friends and families of CCPS. It made a huge difference to her psychologically to have that kind of support from the school community and she wants to say thank you to all of those friends.

Some friendships happen spontaneously, as if there is an instant recognition of a like mind or personality; there is a connection that transcends time and place. Hard to explain the feeling and explain why this happens but I ‘m sure there are many experts out there who swear that we connect to people because of their face shapes, or pheromones or personality type or some other chemical or physical attribute. Surprisingly, these friendships are often the most enduring.

Mark Nepo writes in “The Book of Awakening” (no this is not a book about coming out of a coma, rather it is a collection of thought provoking quotes and stories which are motivating and inspiring) about a verse written in the 700s in the Tang Dynasty in China by the great poet Li Po. In the famous poem: “Letter in Exile”, Li Po talks about his deep, lifelong friendship with So-Kin of Rakuyo and he explains that even though they have only been together a handful of times, Li Po feels his friend’s presence even from afar. He eloquently writes:

“What is the use of talking, and there is no end of talking.
There is no end of things in the heart.”

Nepo questions how it‘s possible for two friends who have spent more time apart than together can be such close friends? Yes, life is a mystery in matters of the heart. In spite of so much time apart, another person, who we rarely see, can still shape one’s entire life. We are very fortunate if we are blessed by such friends, I know my life has been all the richer because of distant friends.

There is something about travelling to a new country that awakens within us a new perspective on life; it broadens our horizons literally and metaphorically. People we meet overseas are probably no different from the people we meet in our daily lives at home but it seems to me, that when you travel with someone away from home or meet new people overseas, we tend to bond more strongly with them. In some ways I think it happens because we realise that we may never have this opportunity again. Our new found friends become all the more precious because we know that what we share in those brief moments of contact or passage of time, we may never experience again.

With such amazing adventures of new worlds, new cultures, new friends in store for our young people, it is no surprise that lives are altered forever by the experience. At a higher level I agree with Woodrow Wilson who opined:

“Friendship is the only cement that will
Ever hold the world together.”

The challenge for each of us in life is to care for and tend to our friends like we would a garden. We have to pull out the weeds, the hurtful words spoken in haste; nourish the friendship frequently with kindness and thoughtfulness. If we can do all of this, then the friendship will blossom and grow over time and with such strong roots this precious friendship will help us and sustain us, all of our lives.

“True friendship is a plant of slow growth,
And must undergo and withstand the
Shocks of adversity before it
Is entitled to the appellation.”
(George Washington)

Portrait of a Friend
(author unknown)

I can't give solutions to all of life's problems, doubts or fears.
But I can listen to you, and together we will search for answers.
I can't change your past with all its headaches and pain, nor the future with its untold stories.
But I can be there now when you need me to care.
I can't keep your feet from stumbling.
I can only offer my hand that you may grasp it and not fall.
Your joys, triumphs, successes, and happiness are not mine;
Yet I can share in your joy and laughter.
Your decisions in life are not mine to make nor to judge;
I can only support you, encourage you, and help you when you ask.
I can't prevent you from falling away from friendship or from your values.
I can only pray for you, and talk to you.
I can't give you boundaries which I have determined for you.
But I can give you the room to change, room to grow, room to be yourself.
I can't keep your heart from breaking and hurting.
But I can cry with you and help you pick up the pieces and put them back in place.
I can't tell you who you are.
I can only love you and be your friend.
I promise to try to do all of these things and be the best friend I can be for now.

Karon Graham


Principal CCPS

The Lost Art of Showing Kindness

“Be kind and merciful. Let no one ever come to you without coming away better and happier.” (Mother Teresa)
We know life is not always a bed of roses and many of us get caught from time to time, by the thorny parts of life. Sometimes an angel in the guise of a friend, or loved one or even a complete stranger for that matter, comes along to rescue us or helps ease our burden by listening to our plight. It may not have been a grand gesture or a big thing that this person did or said but they helped us, when we needed it most.

How many times do we wish after a situation like this, that we had taken the time to thank that person properly for the kindness they showed us. Sometimes circumstances prevent us from showing our gratitude at the time and the opportunity of thanking them passes by and then before we know it, so much time has elapsed that the kindness has been all but forgotten and we have not made the effort to thank them. It can be tricky finding a way to thank complete strangers, but it is possible if we take the time and effort.

There is a lovely true story about Charles Plumb, who was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane as destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent six years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”

“How in the world did you know that?” asked Plumb.
“I packed your parachute,” the man replied. Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!”
Plumb assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”

Plumb couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says, “I kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat, a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good morning, how are you?’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.”
Plumb thought of the man hours the sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.

Now, Plumb asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?” Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory-he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.

With family and friends, it is much easier to say thank you and to show your gratitude, yet surprisingly, many people forget to do this. Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.

I like to think that developing positive relationships is like a bank account. We all make deposits and withdrawals. The deposits are the things we do to help someone, like a simple gesture of cleaning the kitchen up or taking them out to dinner or lunch. Withdrawals are when we need a favour or help and the other person does this for us out of the goodness of his or her heart (or maybe a little prompting in the case of our spouse or partner). In positive relationships, it’s always best to be on the credit side – to have made more deposits than withdrawals and if this is not the case, then it is very unlikely that both people in the relationship are happy.

Showing kindness and gratitude seems to me to be a lost art, don’t you think? Reading and hearing horrible stories of the verbal or physical cruelty that humans can inflict upon one another at home, or in business, on the road and even in schools is appalling and it would be very easy to become despondent about the lost art of good manners, thoughtfulness and kindness. Whatever happened to the adage that our mothers constantly repeated to us, ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? Yes, what has happened to the simple act of showing kindness?

One person can make such a difference to someone else’s life and believe it or not, to thousands of other people too. Ann Herbert may be an unknown name to you, but Ann started something big by one simple action. In 1982, in a restaurant in Sausalito, California, Ann wrote the following words on a place mat, “practice random acts of kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” Sounds simple and inconsequential don’t you think? Before long, it spread to bumper stickers and for some reason the simplicity appealed to many people and the practice of random acts on kindness became a world-wide phenomenon. From this one action grew mass action. True stories and books were written about random acts of kindness which has continued unabated since that fateful day in 1982 when one person made a simple but remarkable statement.

I am in awe of the number of ordinary heroes within our midst. Yes it might seem like an oxymoron to talk about ordinary heroes because a hero after all is someone venerated for heroic acts like putting their life at risk in order to save someone else’s life or many lives. Ordinary heroes, on the other hand, are more common but in my mind, every bit as heroic in the real sense of day to day living.

She or he is the kind of person that gets on and does a job without any fuss. Often they are the first to put up their hand for a new task, nothing is too much trouble and it seems as if they infinite time to go around. Now we know of course, that they have busy lives too, but somehow these people magically make time for other people and put their own needs second. If you talk to such a person they will tell you that they get more out of life by helping someone else and showing kindness to others, than if they had just gone on with their own lives. Debi Mazar puts it this way:

“A hero is somebody who is selfless, who is generous in spirit, who just tries to give back as much as possible and help people. A hero to me is someone who saves people and who really deeply cares. “

There are so many people around us who are ordinary heroes. Let's celebrate these people by showing our appreciation for their actions and kind words. We all benefit by showing gratitude and not only do we make someone's day by this simple thing, but we feel better about ourselves too.

“Appreciation is a wonderful thing: it makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” (Voltaire)

Karon Graham

If You're an Optimist, You're Not Alone!

Don’t you love it when a plan comes together? A plan as simple as organising a day out with your family or cooking a great meal or more significantly, organising a special surprise birthday party or escaping to your favourite holiday getaway can make your day and put you on top of the world, so long as, all goes well. Why the proviso? English poet, Robert Burns once wrote:

“The best laid schemes of mice and men oft go awry…”

Yes, sometimes our best laid plans can come unstuck and in spite of our best efforts, all does not go well. Making the best of a bad situation is often all that’s left for us to do, because the situation is, what it is. I recently came across some funny statements made on actual insurance claims that give some indication of how bad a day can go in the blink of an eye (apparently). In the drivers own words:

“Coming home I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have.”
“I had been shopping for plants all day and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision and I did not see the other car.”
“As I approached the intersection a sign suddenly appeared in a place where no sign had ever appeared before, making me unable to avoid the accident. “
"The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him."
"I was thrown from my car as it left the road, and was later found in a ditch by some stray cows."
And my favourite:
“In my attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole.”

I am a self confessed optimist and always try to look on the bright side of life. I have discovered though, that I am not the only one who thinks this way. Hard to believe that in this day and age of instant bad news, 24/7 and despite the barrage of bad news, it appears that most of us believe that things will turn out okay. While the world around us might be disintegrating, our personal view of our own life is still amazingly optimistic. Rather ironic don’t you think or maybe not. Maybe we are just far more complacent about our own personal circumstances than those of people around us.

I was heartened to read in a recent article by Tali Sharot in the June 6, Time magazine, called ‘The Optimism Bias’, that most of us are optimists. It turns out that we are hardwired to be this way, because of the evolution of our brain over time. Recent research shows that we expect things to turn out better than they wind up being and we seriously underestimate the chances of bad things happening to us, while we tend to overestimate good things happening to us and our family.

The fact that we believe the future will be much better than the present is called the ‘optimism bias’ according to Sharot and transcends all races, religion, socioeconomic status and cultures. This optimism bias actually protects us and inspires us and gives us hope. This faith helps motivate us to achieve our goals. No wonder our vision of our future is rosier than the reality of the situation. Take for example our perception of our own driving ability. Did you know that 93 percent of people surveyed believed that they were in the top 50th percentile for driving ability? Perhaps not so surprising given some of the statements made on the insurance claims up above.

Scientific evidence shows that where people are more optimistic, their chances of recovery from serious illness are more positive that those people who are pessimistic. According to Sharot, a study conducted with heart-disease patients showed that optimistic patients were more likely to take vitamins, eat low-fat diets and exercise and were more likely to reduce their overall coronary risks. A study of cancer patients revealed also, that pessimistic patients were more likely to die within eight months than optimistic patients of a similar age, status and health conditions. These studies beg the question,” Can optimism change reality?” Well according to another study conducted with students, it seems we can effect change in our reality.

Cognitive neuroscientist, Sara Bengtsson found that students’ brains responded differently to the mistakes they made depending on whether they were primed with certain words. She found that when she induced certain expectations with college students by using words such as ‘smart’,’ intelligent’ and ‘clever ‘just before asking them to perform a test that these students performed better than those students who heard words like ‘stupid’, and ‘ignorant’ before their test. Not surprisingly then, students performed better after hearing an affirmative message and she found that the brain activity was greater after a word like clever was used because the student was primed to perform well. When the word stupid was used, the brain expected to do poorly and did not show signs of surprise or conflict when it made an error.

Interestingly, the research shows that optimists work longer hours and tend to earn more. What are the implications of all of this information? Well as Sharot argues, the good news is that awareness of our optimism rarely shatters the illusion. I guess we are just better prepared for any eventuality. The glass remains half full, because we still believe that we will remain healthy, yet most of us take out health insurance and while for some of us the sun is always shining, we still take an umbrella with us, just in case.

Life’s not perfect but as Nicholas Butler points out:

“Optimism is essential to achievement and it is also the foundation of courage and true progress.”

Karon Graham