Selective Vision

Anyone with kids knows that by at least the age of four, they develop something called Selective Hearing. This involves being able to hear a marshmallow bouncing off sponge cake seven rooms away in the middle of the night, but not being able to hear when a parent says, "It's time for bed," or "Go brush your teeth," or any number of un-wished-for parental phrases.



Selective Vision operates much the same way.



"How could you not notice that there was dog barf/a hair ball on the floor? You walked right by it. In fact, you almost walked right through it."



"What do you mean you couldn't find it? If you got any closer to it, it would bite you!"



"This room isn't clean - there are still dirty clothes all over the floor."



However, if your child is at a store and his or her goal is obtaining the latest and greatest item that's all the rage at their school, they suddenly develop x-ray vision and can spot that most-wanted item from outside the store. "Come on, mom, hurry UP! It's over there in aisle 7, and they only have it in red, and it's the LAST ONE!"



Our children are not unique - many kids share this ability to develop Selective Hearing and Selective Vision. That ability can follow them throughout life, especially if they carry that "Y" chromosome. The ability returns to both sexes equally at about age 70.



At our elementary school, we have a program called "Doing the Right Thing." If anyone catches another student "doing the right thing," the child's name is put on a slip of paper along with the name of the person nominating the child, and put into the hat for a drawing at the end of the week. Five students are chosen an rewarded with a candy bar, as well as a candy bar for the name submitter.



It's fun to catch kids especially when they don't know you're looking. Sometimes, the students you least expect to do the right thing will surprise you by holding a door open for a classmate or visiting adult, or share supplies with someone else who is in dire straits. Sometimes, the student will proudly take down the "Doing the Right Thing" slip and deposit it in the hat himself, while some people like to keep the student in the dark until the name is called over the PA system that week. The student then says, "What happened? What'd I do?"



Today, another staff member and I watched to see who would "do the right thing." The entire class had taken a quiz this morning, and as papers were turned in at the wire basket at the back of the room, one quiz fell to the floor. I was going to pick it up, but thought I should give those who were approaching the basket the opportunity.



Not to mention bending over would re-start the leak in this thing I call a nose.



Several students deposited their papers into the basket. Several students walked by the paper on the floor, which was in danger of slipping under the cabinet and being lost for good.



A few more walked up, bent over far enough to find something else they needed, but left that poor paper, abandoned to its fate, on the floor.



Another student walked right over it and though it didn't look deliberate, I wondered if a person could possibly pace themselves while walking so their stride misses every obstacle in the way.



The other staff member and I looked at each other as we wondered, now that there were only three kids left in a class of 27, who would pick up the lost paper.



There was a flurry at the basket as a couple more rushed to slap their quizzes into the basket. They joyfully bounded away, leaving a forlorn paper on the floor.



Then.



The most wonderful thing happened.



A student approached the basket, someone who didn't even look as though she had scanned the floor for any type of debris. After she leaned over to put her paper in its place, she casually bent down and picked up that poor, lost little quiz that had been relegated to the floor by an accident of fate, and placed it safely in the wire basket with its companions.

The student didn't look reproachfully at my colleague and me and say indignantly that she had picked up this paper, even though we were standing within feet of it at the time.



She didn't look around and holler out to the paper's owner, "HEY! YOUR QUIZ IS ON THE FLOOR!" and wave it around dramatically.



She just very quietly went about doing the right thing, saving a classmate a lot of grief over a potentially misplaced quiz.



She did a favor, though the recipient of the favor will never know.



She did the right thing, and didn't even look around to see if anyone saw so that she could ask for a reward.



Hey! What a kid! It's a really nice thing to see that "doing the right thing" can come naturally to kids, and also to know that not every kid practices Selective Vision.



I don't want to clean up dog barf or the cat's hair balls either, but I'm the grown up and that task is likely to fall to me. I can't blame a kid for turning a blind eye. There are times I'd like to practice Selective Hearing and Selective Vision when it comes to the gross stuff, too.



I don't know if this particular student saves her Selective Vision for home life, but if she goes home and overlooks that dirty pair of socks in the middle of the bedroom floor, or absently wanders past an overflowing waste basket, I hope her parents cut her some slack. I'll tell them that their daughter is an observant kid, and hey - what's one pair of dirty socks, right?

Chalk up Two for the Good Guys

Like any parent, I'm proud of my kids. Especially when they go above and beyond the call of duty to help others.

For some kids, "above and beyond the call of duty" is no big deal - it's almost a daily thing. For others, it's a big thing because they're not accustomed to standing out from the crowd.

My son is one of those kids who is just naturally helpful. He's always looking for something to do to help me or his dad when we're in the yard or in the kitchen. When it comes to people in public places though, he's a lot more hesitant to jump in and lend a hand. It isn't out of any inherent selfishness, more that it is out of a self-consciousness: What if everyone looks at me?

Anyway, my son and two of his buddies were playing a ball game at recess time with another group of boys. A boy on the other team, we'll call him "Maynard," hit a ball toward another boy whom we'll call "Ralph." Ralph was hit in the face by the ball, which as a young elementary school kid, can be a very upsetting thing. He departed the field in tears. The other boys looked on, and one of my son's friends said to Maynard, "That wasn't very nice." Maynard's response was "Meh. It's no big deal."

The two buddies and my son looked at each other, and in a matter of seconds my son and a buddy had taken off to find Ralph. The other boy stayed behind to have a chat about good sportsmanship with Maynard.

Ralph turned out to be ok, except for a red mark on his face, which the playground aide handled with an ice pack. He returned to the ball game, where Maynard apologized for the poorly-aimed ball. Accidental or not, getting hit in the face by a ball should require an apology - especially during an informal recess game.

Maynard was reluctant to apologize at first - he didn't seem to care that the other boy might have been injured. His feeling was that the other boy wasn't particularly popular and a bit of a pest anyhow, so who cares, right? The other three boys stood firm, though, and Maynard backed down and did the right thing.

I think that's something to be proud of. I'm not sure, had my son been playing the game without his buddies, if the outcome of the incident would have been different. I know he'd have felt sorry for the other boy, but might not have had the courage to stand up for him all on his own. But there is something to be said for "courage in numbers." Together, the three boys (who also have been picked on numerous times) let it be known that Maynard's behavior was unacceptable and doing so in such a public manner let everyone else know it, too.

Even if Ralph wasn't the most favorite classmate in the world, he still deserved to be treated respectfully.

I hope that the three buddies will have the courage to stand up for others even if they don't have their friends along for back-up. Banding together can help inspire the kind of confidence a kid needs to do the right thing at other times, too, I think, when they're going solo.

Some kids can do this without any difficulty. Just this week, I heard about the perfect example.

An older elementary girl was watching kids being chosen for teams in her gym class.

If you're like me, you don't have fond memories of this process. The best athletes were always chosen first, then those who were friends with the team captain, and then there were the left-overs. I was generally a left-over. I wasn't an athlete by any stretch of the imagination, and I wasn't usually best buds with the team captain. When it came to sports, I much preferred standing on the sidelines. . . or as far away from the action as I could be.

I don't know what was going through the mind of the new student as she waited to be chosen for a team. Perhaps she was anticipating playing a game she enjoyed, is good at, and looked forward to showing her new classmates that she was worth knowing. Possibly she hoped to make some new friends who might also share her interest in the game that was about to start.

Then, the older girl overheard a classmate tell this new student, "It'll be 'eenie-meenie-miney-mo' when it comes to deciding who gets YOU on the team."

I imagine the new girl felt immediately deflated. I imagine she felt puzzled and hurt as she wondered, "Why? What's so bad about me being on the team? I can play, too."

The older girl, without a second thought and without consulting her friends, walked over to the new girl and said, "You can be on our team," and walked the new girl over to where she and her teammates were waiting.

That action may have been second nature to the girl, but likely was a very big deal to the new student. It's hard enough starting in a new school and not knowing anyone, but to have unkind words add to that feeling of feeling displaced just increases the sense of not belonging, of being invisible. The older girl's actions, I hope, did much to erase that sense, and I hope that the new student began to feel more welcome once she was included in the activity of that class period.

Courage comes in many forms, and it shows itself in small actions as well as large ones. Standing up for what is right takes lots of courage. We're generally not hard-wired to want to voice our opinions and be the stand-alone voice in a group of people who either can't make up their minds, or who don't want to draw attention to themselves.

Courage comes in all shapes and sizes too, and I'm feeling good that even the little guys and the bigger girls are showing their courage and doing it so publicly. I hope their actions will inspire others to do the same.

What's in a Name? Everything Loaded, Apparently

All right. So if I ever again attend an elementary school open house and open my mouth to another parent beyond the words, "Hello, nice to see you," somebody grab the duct tape.

As I entered a classroom at the tail-end of open house, a mother glanced at me and said, "Oh. Hi." I saw her in the hall afterward and asked, with genuine curiousity, "Why do you look so familiar?"

"I live on your street," she replied, with a restrained withering tone of voice.

I immediately covered my face with my papers and said, "I'm such an idiot." Another parent standing nearby nodded sympathetically.

In an attempt to salvage the moment, we made small talk about why each of us was there at school. I was there for a younger child, but I also work as a classroom aide in the upper grades, where I had met the other moms.

Their children were in the grades I was in every day. "Yeah," I said ruefully, "I have 80 names to learn this year. And they're all some form of Abby, Mackenzie, Madison, Branden, Brendan, or Braydon, Taylor or Tyler."

I saw my formerly sympathetic parent wince and nod knowingly. Oh crap, I thought. "One of those belongs to you?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yes." The other mom, who lives down the street from me, said nothing. Her child is one of those with a name I mentioned, too.

Well, how's that working out, I thought to myself. Did it again. Open mouth, insert size 8 1/2.

I truly didn't mean anything by it! But, names are very personal. Parents select a name they like, whether it's something that has been considered out of style for generations, or it's something in the popular mainstream. Then they tweak it a bit by changing the spelling.

I know how that is. Try being one of four variations of "Kathy," with either a "C" or a "K," in school. From about 1st grade through 12th, a teacher would call on "Kathy" and four voices would pipe up in utter defeat, "Which one?"

Shelly, Michelle, Jennifer, Tiffany, Cheri, and Sarah were also popular when I was in high school. So were Shelli, Shelley, Shellie, Michele, Jenni, Jenny, Jennie, Sheri, Sherrie, Shery, Tiffani, Tiffanie, Tiffanee, and Sara.

Sheesh. What's a person to do?

If anybody figures it out, let me know, because I could sure use some help on this one.

Before I married, there was someone else in the family who had my name. That was fun when it was time to visit the dentist or the doctor. I always signed in and listed my address so I wouldn't end up with the root canal intended for my older cousin.

Even now that I'm married, I have the same problem: my mother-in-law and I have the same name. At Christmas time, our middle initials go on gift tags.

So what do I do now? Do I memorize the names and faces of the kids with the same names? Call all students, regardless of moniker, by "sweetie" or "honey"?

I wish there was a way to see the spelling as the name was said. Then I could say to myself, "Ok, that's Mackenzie with an "IE."

No such luck for me.

So don't be surprised if your child comes home from school and says one of the staff always calls him or her "honey." It's probably me.

I SAID, "TURN IT OFF!"

All righty then. I know this technically isn't about kids, but I have to say it anyway and get it off my chest.

Turn off the freaking cell phones when you're on someone else's time.

I sat through a training session this afternoon that was a complete frustration, for several reasons.

1. We're all supposed to be adults, but there were little clusters of people having their own conversations as our presenter tried to instruct us about a computer-centered program we will be using this year, on the job.
2. At least half of the people, myself included, had not completed the first steps at the time of the presentation and thus were a little clueless at the start. I take responsibility for myself not being prepared, but I managed to catch on quickly - but others were logging in at the web site, and then asking questions about how to do this process, which was supposed to be completed before the start of this seminar.
3. The computer-centered program we were being trained for was not completely geared for the group that was present, which generated a lot of questions our presenter could not answer as the answer involved a third party who was not represented at the meeting.
4. A legitimate question veered off into a heated ten-minute discussion about union matters, until someone firmly insisted we save that for another time and get back to training. THANK YOU, WHOEVER YOU WERE.
5. I was seated next to someone who smelled like a combination of fresh oranges and wet kitty litter for 90 minutes.
6. Someone left their cell phone on, and it rang with a loud and distinctive tune during the presentation. Then, rather than turn OFF the cell phone or LEAVE THE ROOM, the cell phone owner answered it with a meek "hello?"

WTF????
First of all, you're on work time and in a group setting - a large meeting. TURN OFF THE CELL PHONE or SET IT TO VIBRATE and TURN OFF THE SOUND. Is it that hard? Don't answer it, and then treat the rest of us to your conversation.
I was truly embarrassed. The presenter, who was from another company, probably thought we were the worst-behaved group of people she'd ever had the displeasure of being with.
And who could blame her?