Category Archives: Events

Storytelling for SpEd kids

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I had a full day of employment today, and didn’t even really get to use it all.

Fairbanks Arts Assn. hired me to tell stories to the (primarily) Special Ed. students who were coming to their annual “Very Special Arts Day,” and I agreed, knowing I would have to do a lot of thinking/program-ordering on the fly, since there was no way to gage in advance the… mental abilities (or span of those) within any given group.

I settled on a handful of tried-and-true, back-pocket stories (things that I wouldn’t get flustered in if somebody got loud or something), and a few folktale picture books. Continue reading »

Connecting and purposeful parenting

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(Originally posted at Xanga.)I have these one-on-one consults I do for teaching FAM, and it is interesting to me how talking about something so personal seems to allow someone to completely open up about other parts of their lives.

I suppose I’m a fairly open person myself, so I didn’t think much about the freeness of others speaking to me until a few weeks ago when I told Jay my client and I had gotten off-topic quite a bit and spent time on parenting ideas.

“You really seem to connect with these ladies that come over,” he observed. And he’s right. I don’t know if it’s me, or the type of woman who comes (maybe a combination of the two), but, while we meet the goals of our time together, we never stay completely on-task.

One who came today commented as she was leaving how “inspiring” I was in the way I interacted with my girls. “That is so neat to see! I so want to be like that. I’m learning to be like that…” I thanked her for her kind words and said having the girls in a cooperative mood made maintaining that image a lot easier than it would be otherwise.

But it was encouraging to hear. Every now-and-then I get a really strong impression that I’m doing something right.

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Yesterday at MOPS, I got into this conversation about being purposeful in our choices as parents.

It started out being about looking for ideas to purposefully instill a godly foundation in our children. It surprised us how many people (even other moms in our group, from their comments) just “coast” along, without any plan. I can’t say I have any formal plan myself, but I have begun layering things into everyday routines, like the prayers at meal-times, and hymns and bible verses at bed-time, mixed-in with the lullabies and rhymes. I see these things laying a foundation; a vocabulary, if you will, that I pray I’ll have opportunity to draw on later.

The conversation moved into the importance of purposefulness in other areas of parenting: consciously observing your children to understand motivation, planning nap and bed-times so the child gets the sleep he or she needs, knowing your own child well enough to know what punishment is most effective in what circumstances.

We talked about the negative results of letting any of these things “just happen,” that it usually resulted in a need or opportunity being missed, or being less effective as a parent.

Conversations like these are very good for me, because they start me processing ideas and applications, and often bear good fruit. This time, it was encouragement “in due season,” giving me ideas as well as making me thankful for what’s going right so far.

The right place…

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Currently Reading
The Mommy Manual: Planting Roots That Give Your Children Wings
By Barbara Curtis
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I just finished my first full day of “A Woman’s Affair,” a trade-show showcasing anything interested parties (sellers) think a woman might buy.

I went this morning to sit behind a table as Gordian Knot Productions, and offer books and my workshop. I was feeling self-conscious again about being pregnant and “preaching” on this, so on my further explanation that I taped under my name-sign I put “Natural Pregnancy Achievement and Avoidance.” Putting the “achievement” part first, so I didn’t feel so weird.

I’ll be changing that for tomorrow. Back to the normal line on my business card: “Natural birth control and pregnancy achievement.” Not all that different, I know, but I noticed a number of people seemed to stop reading after the second word– or at least their comments indicated that. (”Don’t need another one of those!”)

Since I’ve always had more people interested in avoiding than achieving, I guess should just keep giving that side priority anyway…

Sold 2 books, signed-up two woman for the June workshop and told two military wives that if they could get five-friends together I’d set-up a special session for them (at 20%-off too) so they could have a bit more practice/experience by the time hubbies came back for R&R in July.

I’ve felt for a while that this deployment time is the perfect time for wives to learn FAM, and I’m very curious if the one lady will pull it off. Getting people together, I mean. She seemed pretty motivated.

Ordinarily (in theory at least) I’d only give the discount at a regularly scheduled class, but I liked the idea of motivating the gals to do some leg-work. And I felt a little guilty about how far away the next workshop is anyway. I’m hoping good comes of it. I guess by “good” I mean “results” or “income.”

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Being at the show has been interesting. Most people walk right by. Some smile, if I catch tem looking at me, and three have enthusiastically bubbled their version of “You’re exacting what I’m looking for! Are you in-town?”

If I get one more sign-up for June (and they all follow-through, and actually pay and come), I’ll make back my table cost. I am hoping, too, that ‘the word’ will somehow be “out” more, about my work and me too.