Invisible Scars

In his book ‘Invisible,’* artist turned author Hugues De Montalembert, who tragically lost his sight when a burglar threw paint remover in his face, describes a scene that unfolded with a Paris Taxi cab driver. During a Paris trip in a taxi-cab, the Cambodian driver extended his sympathy towards Montalembert for his obvious handicap. The author thanked him for his concern, but remarked that there were “people much more wounded than me.” A moment of silence ensued, before the cabbie opened up and confessed that his wife and children had been slaughtered right before his eyes in Cambodia. “So there he was,” Montalembert writes, “driving his cab in Paris with this huge wound that nobody could see.”

This story illustrates a principle that is very active in our everyday lives, and one we should all try to remember more often: Our perceptions of the world, especially those involving judgments or assessments of others, are limited by what we don't know about them. A primary contributor to many of the problems we face in this world is that everyone is limited by their own perception, and thus blinded by what we cannot see.

We float about our daily lives, bumping into our fellow human beings along the way, relating to each other like pinballs - reacting according to what we encounter on the surface. We all have a tendency to get lost in our own little world, dealing with all the problems and little dramas in our own lives. Amidst this, we tend to forget that others have their own issues that they are dealing with, and that these issues can impact the choices they make or the way they behave. We take in a fraction of a percent of the knowledge about other individuals, yet we turn around and use this sliver of a perspective to make rash judgments that we then hold in the utmost confidence. From the people we judge on news or TV shows to those we interact with in our day-to-day lives, we are all guilty of making surface judgments about others.

Not every taxi-cab driver has had his wife and children slaughtered in a genocide, but every single one of us is the product of our inherent biological quirks interacting against our life experiences, and you rarely see even so much as a glimpse of the behind-the-scenes material that makes the person. We all carry our own scars and woes, our own hidden stressors, and it is usually these hidden issues and underlying insecurities that drive the ugliest behavior we see in others. Perhaps the rude man you ran into at the grocery store just received a foreclosure notice. Maybe the woman who cut in front of you in line is worried about losing her job if she's late getting back from her break. Perhaps the driver who just cut you off is working two jobs to make ends meet and is caving under the stress. Perhaps the ex-convict who was re-arrested for committing another crime had filled out a thousand job applications and could not find a single employer who would give him a chance, and so he regressed back to the only way he knew to make a living.

With every person and in every situation, there are always angles we cannot see. It's a reminder to be a little more patient, a little more compassionate, and perhaps a little more understanding and less judgmental when others do upsetting things or get on our nerves. Nobody wakes up in the morning with a desire to be evil or means spirited; each of us is merely doing our best to manage the unique struggles we each face according the mental and environmental resources we have available. It’s good to remember this when you end up on the receiving end of someone's less-than-desirable behavior. There are always underlying stressors and hidden motivations residing under the surface. So always keep in mind that your perspective is limited - don't let your view of the world be blinded, or your empathy for others dampened, by ignoring the things you cannot see.

Learning Physics While Skateboarding

A cleaver study by psychologist Michale McBeath of Arizona state University, found that skateboarders are better than college students at answering physics questions related to slope. When give the problem of predicting which ball reached the bottom first on two slopes, one with a steeper incline, then a flat spot in the middle, then another steeper incline, verses a slope with s steady decline and not flat spots, more experienced skateboarders recruited from a skateboarding park got this counter intuitive problem correct (61%) than did college students (27%). The correct answer is that the ball on the slope with the long flat area will reach the bottom first, because it's slightly incline on the other two sections makes up for the level area.

So how does this experiment pertain to you kid? We found it interesting because it shows that intuition about complicated mathematical concepts really does come from experience learned through a child's interaction with the physical world. Weather it be skateboarding, riding bikes, playing sports, or simply getting outside in nature, a child's core intelligence is strengthened through physical activity and interaction with the natural world. So send your kids outside so that they can study physics!

Teen Girls, Competition; and Self-Esteem

We all want our sons or daughters to be winners and not losers. But when it comes to teens and competition, there may be something more important for your child's self-esteem than whether or not they win or lose.

New research out of California State University, in collaboration with the University of Texas at Dallas, examined two types of competition involving high school seniors: competing to win and competing to excel. The spirit of competing to excel is not necessarily to beat out your competition, but to surpass your own personal goals or improve one's skills. In the study, more boys than girls reported competing to win--a finding consistent with other research. And for boys, who are naturally more competitive to begin with, this attitude of seeking to dominate rivals, annihilate the competition, and prove their superior skill did not significantly relate to outcomes of mental health.

Yet the spirit of competition seems to affect boys and girls differently, and among teenage girls, it was a quite different story. Females who said that they competed to win reported higher rates of both depression and loneliness, as well as fewer friends and social relationships, when compared to girls who said they did not compete to outperform their competition. Meanwhile, in both boys and girls, competing to excel was correlated with higher self-esteem, more feelings of achievement and lower rates of depression.

There could be several reasons for such a finding. More competitive teens tend to be harsher both on themselves and others when they feel they don't measure up. And since these psychological inventories tend to capture traits that leak into other areas, it's hard to say which is causing which. (More competitive spirits may be more often seen in narcissistic and/or self-absorbed teens, as well as in those with a poor self-image, who may use competition as a crutch to make up for other self-esteem issues.) And of course, teens that make a habit of showing off and showing down their peers will tend to drive away friends, thus leading to more social isolation, loneliness, and depression.

Whatever the answer, there is one thing for certain: it's not necessarily whether you win or lose, but the manner in which you approach the competition. It's a message I'm sure most parents would agree with, yet it's one that often gets lost in practice. Too often the focus in competitions rests solely on winning, with awards, trophies, and recognition/praise given solely for beating the competition. Whether as parents or as educators or as coaches, we could all do more to encourage competing to excel versus competing to win. Do we recognize a child's improved performance? Do we comment about how they've improved over themselves? Do we award self-growth in sports and other interests as much as we do dominating the competition? Or is the focus merely on winning or losing?

You don't need to downplay the thrills of winning or pretend that losing can't be unpleasant. We’re not trying to advocate a delicate-flower philosophy where everyone must get a blue ribbon just for showing up. Just try to include the focus on competing to improve oneself, and make it just as much a part of the game as a win/loss column. It will help youth develop a more well-rounded and healthy spirit of competition. After all, few of us can be Tiger Woods or John Elway or Kobe Bryant. If the only goal is getting to the top, it's one that will end in failure for 99.999% of youth.
But when the focus is built as much around improving oneself as it is measuring up against others, it's a goal everyone can feel good about obtaining.

Some quick guidelines for promoting the spirit of "competing to excel":

1. Set individual goals for participants in team sports, and reappraise them at the end of the season.

2. Point out the varying degrees of ability in everyday life. Even among professional athletes who have reached the top tier, there are varying degrees of ability, yet all are an important part of making up the team.

3. When your child loses a game but scores a goal or plays well, do you celebrate their performance? After all, a game is comprised of many parts that are more than just a score card, and these can be praised even amidst a loss.

4. Model this behavior yourself. It's going to be difficult for your kids to adopt this spirit if you treat winning as everything yourself.

5. Make a habit of praising other players, teams, and play. This sends the message that it’s OK to recognize the skills of others without feeling threatened by it.

6. Start early. If you foster this spirit in little league, kids will have healthy attitudes towards sports during the teenage years and for the rest of their life.

The Darker Side of Reusable Grocery Bags

Kudos to those who have started using renewable grocery bags when they shop. Lord knows our depleted planet needs any relief from the parasites that are us which we can possibly give it. But like all things in life, there are sometimes unintended trade-offs, and a few of these are becoming evident as consumers make the switch from paper or plastic to reusable grocery bags.

One thing people need to be aware of is the possibility for contamination from reuse. For example, if you put a hunk of meat in your bag, and it drips, you could start your own little E-coli culture in the bottom of the bag, which could sicken your family if the next time you place vegetables or other food items in it. A joint study by the University of Arizona and Lona Linda University in California found that half of the 84 reusable bags they tested had coliform bacteria, which is not surprising considering 97% of users said they never wash them.

Also concerning was a recent report by the Tampa Tribune, which found that reusable bags purchased at Winn-Dixie, Publix, Sweetboy, Walmart and Target all contained lead. This is particularly troublesome given that we put our food in them. The good news, according to testers, is that the lead seems to be in paint used for illustrations on the bag, which wouldn't easily rub off on food, though it might eventually flake.

In response, retailers are asking suppliers to make reusable bags with less lead, and some are calling on federal agencies to put a ban in place for reusable bags that contain lead. Don't ask us why it's so hard to make bags without any lead, but apparently, it is.

Reusable grocery bags currently make up 10% to 15% of the market, and are expected to grow to as much as 25% in the next few years. And there's good reason to be using them. Plastic bags are the world's second most common form of marine debris (the first is cigarette butts) according to a 2009 report by Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group.

Just be sure to take proper precautions. Wash your bag regularly, particularly after using it to transport something that is potentially hazardous, such as raw meat. Or you can make an exception for meat products and stick with the stores plastic bags rather than transport it in your reusable one. That way you can have guilt-free shopping while ensuring your family's safety at the same time. Almost guilt free, I should say ...there's nothing to be done about that bag of cookies in the cart.

Parents: No cellphones for toys

Call phone are like computers: if it is a few years old, it's already out of date. But as millions of parents update their device, many have been giving their old cell phone to the kids to play with. This, however, has created an unintended problem for 911 call centers.

Many parents don't realize that as a safety feature, any deactivated cell phone can still dial 911. It doesn't matter weather the service is shut off, if it still has juice in the battery or some other power source, it can still call 911. Some will even dial the emergency number simply by pressing 9. So as parents let their preschoolers play with a deactivated cell phone that still has power, it has presented an unintended problem for emergency responders.

So if you want to give your child an old phone as a play prop, please make sure that the power in the battery is completely drained. It may be more fun for kids if the buttons work, but not so much for the police and firefighters who have to chase down rogue calls.