Search Results for: blog what can be done to encourage tolerance

Increase Your Tolerance for Stress

I do believe that our capacity to cope with and handle stress can be expanded with time and practice. I know that parenthood and life experiences have influenced my own capacity—I have much more resiliency and flexibility than I ever had when I was younger. The more we go through, the more we endure and survive, the more we realize just what is worth fussing over and what is not. In the early days of operating your home business, you may feel as though the stress of trying to coordinate all the facets of your life and organize your business … Continue reading →

Can We Have More Tolerance?

We have talked before here in the Parents Blog about the role and importance of patience in parenting, but we have not spent as much time talking about “tolerance.” I am not talking about tolerance on a societal or community level–but tolerance and ability to show acceptance in our own homes with our own children. Some parents can get confused about the difference between tolerance and leniency. There is a difference between healthy and reasonable tolerance and having loose boundaries. It is one thing to allow our children to misbehave and disobey rules and curfew, and another to accept their … Continue reading →

What Can Be Done to Encourage Tolerance?

“Tolerance” has become a buzz word in recent years in regards to children and diversity. But, as parents, there are every day things we can do to help our children learn to be more tolerant people and incorporate tolerance into their very characters. Learning to tolerate and appreciate people who are different than us is important and necessary in this modern, global world. There are natural, developmental stages that children go through where they are just not inclined to appreciate anything or anyone that seems different. The mid-elementary-school years, and again during the middle-school years are prime times when differences … Continue reading →

When Lettuce Attacks!

Posted on by

The Atkins diet is a low carb diet. Instead of bread, people are encouraged to use lettuce. You basically use it as a wrap, and place meat, cheese, and pickles inside it. It works pretty well, especially if you are using the greener, leafier, sort of lettuce. My experience with the Atkins diet this week revealed that I am allergic to (some types of) lettuce. What do I do now? I am a highly allergic person. I first started discovering that I had food allergies and intolerances when I was a teenager. That was the first time I had allergy … Continue reading →

A Caution About Introducing Children to Other Cultures

When I was a preschool teacher, I attended a workshop that challenged something I most loved to do. I was startled—someone was challenging something I believed was healthy and showed a commitment to diversity. As an adoptive parent, I now understand their point more than ever. I’ve always loved other cultures and try to show kids different customs, costumes and music from around the world. So I was very surprised when the workshop leaders criticized the “country of the week/month” held in many preschool and primary classes. The leaders pointed out that we often do this in a way which … Continue reading →

If We Want Our Children to Have Character Traits, We Need to Have Them First

I write often here about how important it is for us as parents to model behaviors for our kids—things like honesty and patience and empathy are all important personal traits that we can exhibit ourselves in order to help our children learn what is expected. But, I think there are all sorts of morals, ethics, and character strengths that we must first foster in ourselves if we have hopes that our children will grow up with these cherished traits. How can we teach something that we haven’t really learned ourselves? If children can learn negative and abusive behaviors in the … Continue reading →

Supporting Minority Teachers

Posted on by

When attending teacher workshops or in-service trainings, I have noticed one thing in common among elementary school teachers in Tennessee and surrounding states. It appears that most teachers in this area are white females. It is very rare to have over a few male teachers at these conferences. There are also very few teachers from different ethnic backgrounds and cultures. It also appears that white teachers must be the common majority in other areas of the country. There has been an identified shortage of male and minority teachers among public schools across the country. Several Midwestern universities also made this … Continue reading →

Seedfolks – Paul Fleischman

“Seedfolks” is a short novella, coming in at only sixty-nine pages. Amazing how just sixty-nine pages can pack such a punch. Each chapter is told through the eyes of a different person who lives near or along the edges of an old vacant lot, where garbage is piled high and vagrants come to spend the night. A run-down piece of ground in a run-down neighborhood, it becomes the site of a minor miracle. We begin with Kim, a young Vietnamese girl who came to America not long ago. Her father died some years ago, and it’s the anniversary of his … Continue reading →

Remember Learning to Share?

In the world I grew up in–and it wasn’t so very long ago, I’m only forty, after all– we had one television and two phone extensions (one in the kitchen and one in my parents room). These phones were connected to the wall completely (no portable or cordless). We didn’t have a computer and we had one household typewriter for doing those school papers. AND, we had one bathroom for three kids (horrors!) Somehow, we managed to grow up just fine without feeling deprived, and we learned how to share. In my little meager household now, we have 3 televisions, … Continue reading →

10 Good Reasons for Foreign Languages

I’ll come right out at the very beginning and admit my bias: I am a polyglot. I speak 2 other languages fluently besides English. I am in the very slow process of learning Mandarin Chinese from my babysitter. (Who, by the way, as a homeschooler taught herself how to speak Chinese while she was in high school.) To be honest, if I could, I would likely go back to school and study more foreign language. So it is a given that with all this foreign language swirling around our house, teaching a foreign language would be a given in our … Continue reading →