Bossy vs. inspiring

A friend just posted the following quote on Facebook:

“I want every little girl who [is told] they’re bossy to be told instead, “You have leadership skills.”                         — Sheryl Sandberg

She and Sheryl Sandberg both mean well, I know, but I'm going to quibble because I think this sentiment is wrong and ultimately harmful to girls.

"Bossy" is used negatively as a descriptor of someone who is trying to be domineering, to "boss" other people around, i.e., get them to do what he/she wants. "Bossy" is used as a label for people we perceive to hold a desire to have and exercise power over us. That's never going to be a popular term in a nation that values freedom as highly as the USA does.

Leadership, on the other hand, is widely understood to include the ability to inspire others and to get their buy-in on carrying out a plan. While that is power of a sort, it is quite different than being domineering.

Instead of merely being "the boss" on the top of a hierarchy, an effective leader motivates others to work with her to pursue a common vision of their own volition, not just because they've been ordered to do so. Bossy people, ironically, often counter-productively evoke passive-aggressive behavior from their subordinates.

Anyone who can talk can give orders--I present my three-year-old toddler as evidence of that--but only a good leader can make it so that other people want to do what the leader says. If a girl is acting in such a way as to result in others wanting to call her "bossy," odds are good that she's trying to order others around in a way that is rubbing them wrong.  Instead of being told that already she has leadership skills, the girl needs to be taught actual leadership skills--including communication skills, motivation skills, delegating, positivity, being proactive, trustworthiness, creativity, giving effective feedback and seeking feedback, resourcefulness, being well-informed, responsibility, flexibility, commitment (follow-through), and self-confidence (the humble, well-founded sort of confidence, not arrogance)--so that her inclination to head up successful teams can someday be realized.

Spring break

The local schools just had spring break, so we did, too. Minimal daily schoolwork--math, music, religion, PE, and astronomy--was still assigned here at home, but I let the children have more free time to play at the park and be with friends. They also spent a lot of time reading. Dragon fever has hit my two oldest, thanks to the Wings of Fire series.

One thing we didn't do was go to places that would be crowded due to it being spring break! The science museum and the indoor swimming pool can wait until nearly everyone else is back in school, thank you. :)

Spring Break Schedule

Self-published!

To help my oldest child learn her math facts, I have written two adventure stories. One teaches addition facts in the context of traveling to different parts of the world. The second, which I just finished, teaches multiplication facts in the context of traveling through time and space (but only on Earth). My daughters are assisting me with the task of illustrating them.

To share the stories with a wider audience, we are "self-publishing" them on Amazon.com. I just uploaded the first book this afternoon. It is called Adding Adventure to Life. The book is about as cheap as it can be ($0.99 for the first one), but it's so fun to see one's own nom de plume in print! (I used a pseudonym because my children are still young, and I want to protect their privacy.) Maybe by summer, we'll have earned enough to go out for ice cream. :)

Here's the link to the book if you are interested in seeing what a self-published e-book looks like on Amazon.com. Or if you feel like donating to an ice cream fund. Either one works.

Refurbishing a blue loft bed

We have a blue and natural wood colored loft bed that looks like this:

Particle board with paper thin veneer

The veneer is attractive, but it is also super thin. After some children had put stickers and clear tape on various parts of it--"but we're decorating, Mommy!"--and I eventually removed them, there were several spots where the blond particle board underneath showed. Not pretty.

I decided to try using a dark blue permanent marker to cover over the ugly areas, but that was less than lovely because the marker's tip always went outside the patch area and got on the undamaged veneer.  So I took a paper towel and soaked it with rubbing alcohol. Right after I colored a damaged spot, I went over it and the surrounding veneer with the alcohol-soaked paper towel. It looked so good that I did the same thing with a regular brown marker on the natural wood parts, and I ended up with a lovely, quick refurbishment job. Under normal room light, the furniture looks nearly new!

Update: I put a 60 watt reading lamp in the recessed area, and I'm sorry to say that my fix doesn't look so good under strong light. Oh, well. It's still much better than it was before I pulled out the markers.

Exchange Students

It used to be when I heard "exchange student," I had all sorts of happy images in my mind of curious, friendly, adventurous teenagers who were eager to learn about a new place and culture. Now that I've served as an emergency/temporary host for one, my mental images have changed. Now I mostly just see "a foreign teenager," and potentially a less-than-pleasant one at that.

Admittedly, I didn't see the best example of an exchange student. This one was eventually sent home for being involved in breaking some of the exchange program's rules. Two of her closest friends were also sent home. It's such a shame that they squandered their scholarship program experience for the sake of one evening of foolishness.

I was disheartened to see a high level of self-absorption, tech-dependency, and materialism in some of the exchange student teenagers. Why travel to another country to spend all one's free time talking and texting on the phone to friends? Friends that are almost all other exchange students? Also, while we middle-class American families may seem quite rich compared to the average in some countries, that doesn't mean we have the funds to go out to eat all the time and buy lots of name-brand clothes at the mall shops.

If there are any future exchange students reading this, may I share a little advice:

1) If you don't want to abide by the rules of your exchange program, please don't come. You're taking someone else's place in the program.
2) If you're not curious about learning all you can during your short ten months in a new city and home, please don't come. What's the point?
3) If you are going to spend all your free time either shopping or hunched over your tablet or smart phone, please don't come. You can shop and play on your phone at home.

If you do want to keep rules, learn a lot, and become acquainted with new places and people from all kinds of backgrounds, I hope I can someday host one of you. :) I'd love for our family to have a more positive hosting experience.

Inclined?

We have had an exchange student staying with us temporarily (since before Christmas, actually, but that's fodder for another blog post...), and she is flying home next week. For a last Colorado hurrah, I took her, a couple of friends, and dd10 up the Manitou Springs Incline. Two thousand feet up an irregular staircase, covered in snow and slush in places where the sun doesn't shine enough. And we made it! It took two hours, but we did it. Here's the view from the top:

Manitou Springs Incline looking down from the top

Walking down the Barr Trail (if one goes up it far enough, one gets to the top of Pike's Peak) back to the car was harder than anticipated due to slushy, slippery conditions. It took us two more hours. But it was still a safer choice for us than going back down the Incline due to the Incline's steepness and slipperiness. I bought the exchange student and dd10 T-shirts in the gift shop by the parking lot to commemorate their accomplishment.