Monday, October 8, 2007

Enthralled by Covey and Maria Montessori

Just tossing up a note to say that I'm in the midst of a Steven Covey read-a-thon. I've listened to 7 Habits in the car while reading 7 Habits/Family, and pre-reading 7 Habits/Teens before giving it to my stepson.

Simultaneously, I've been reading some of Maria Montessori's books about her teaching method. I'm shocked by how similar some of the basic concepts are.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Bitching and Moaning Revisited

On Yom Kippur, we attended our synagogue's family service with my 3-year-old son. Perhaps the most charming part of the event was the way he would sing along, even in Hebrew, but only in his Cookie Monster voice. Cute stuff. But I digress.

As a part of the service, one of our rabbis introduced the idea of the Complaint-Free World. We were each issued purplish rubber wrist bands of the Live Strong ilk, and presented with the plan: Wear the bracelet, and each time you catch yourself complaining, switch it to the other wrist. The goal? To wear the wristband for 21 days, the length of time it takes to change a habbit, on the same wrist without having to change it.

I've had mine on ever since that afternoon, and I'm finding it changes wrists on average once a day. Sometimes I switch it in advance because I sense a whining session coming on and I just acknowledge it and switch as payment before I start. Sometimes it goes for days without moving. Once or twice, I've switched it for massive internal whining when I felt wronged by something, even though I wasn't actually complaining to another person. And once last weekend, I changed it 3 times in about 15 minutes at a party because I was unable to hide the fact that I was pissed at my husband. When my mother-in-law asked me what was wrong, I told her I couldn't tell her because I'd have to change my wristband. And then I realized that threatening to change my wristband in those circumstances was code for the bitching I wanted to do, and so I changed it.

I am notoriously hard on myself about things like this.

The church that sponsors the program will send you a wristband for free, and takes donations to fund the operation. They even have instructions for how to properly remind someone else to change THEIR wristband.

Don't you wish everyone had one?