This story by EOT co-founder Dr. Chris Thurber was originally published in the January/February issue of CampBusiness.

“Did I ever tell you my President Obama story?” asked my cab driver out of the blue. Ever, I thought. I’ve been riding in your cab for 10 minutes, in total silence. Did you ever tell me? I looked up from my iPhone and contemplated accepting the invitation to talk. In the rearview mirror, I could see the side of the driver’s face. His response to my reflection was to show his completely. He caught my eye and winked.

I always enjoy my June travel, even though it pulls me away from my family and the camp where I spend July and August. The workshops I deliver to other camps help them provide a better experience for the young people they serve. If something I teach helps a staff member at some distant camp treat a child more kindly, resolve a conflict more skillfully, provide feedback more honestly, or set a good example more consistently, then I have done my job. And if, in some measure, I’ve been able to spread a bit of the Belknap Spirit, then I guess I’ve really succeeded. Surely, the camp’s founders never intended for us to keep all the good things on these particular acres.

Listen

In addition to teaching, I also learn a lot myself during my travels to different camps and summer schools just by listening. I listen to staff members praise and critique directors; to directors who praise and critique staff members. I hear about mundane matters, such as how the price of lettuce has gone up ten cents a head. And I hear about exciting projects, such as the construction of a new climbing tower. I hear about hires and fires, scandals and injustices, new rules being implemented and old rules being broken … again and again. I hear about staff members who interviewed like champs but then performed like chumps. I hear how impossible it is to create an entirely homegrown leadership. And when a full day of teaching and listening is over, I’m ready to unwind and begin my trip to the next camp.

That evening in the cab heading from LaMontagne Sailing Club to LaGuardia Airport was my time to relax. So as much as I wanted to hear the driver’s “President Obama story,” I didn’t have the energy to listen to some political rant. But something about the driver’s wink pulled me in. Most people don’t wink before they harangue you. A wink says, “I’ve got the dish; it’s yours for the taking.”

I suppose I also felt bad for my cab driver. I say “my,” but he really was only going to be mine for another 20 minutes. Being someone’s cabbie is a supremely temporary gig. So random and brief are most taxi-fare connections that we should probably say “the driver” not “my driver.” Either way, my sympathy for the driver’s bid overcame my desire to retreat into my BBC app or another game of Boggle.

Serious Stories

I smiled. “No, you never told me your President Obama story. He didn’t puke back here on the seat or something, did he?” The driver laughed. Then I laughed. Then he got serious all of a sudden and concentrated on the road. “Don’t laugh, man,” he said. “Those are the worst fares ever. I hate picking up drunk kids from parties. Make a mess of my cab. Forget to tip. Then who the heck do you think cleans it up? It ain’t the kids … and it sure as shootin’ ain’t their mommy or daddy. It’s yours truly.” Now he studied me in the rearview mirror, as if to test my comprehension, to gauge my appreciation.

I also reflected, thinking of the dozens of times I’d sat next to a student in my office at Phillips Exeter Academy while the parents were called to describe a disciplinary infraction involving alcohol. “Well,” I said, “anyone who has been drinking is lucky to have had you. You know, kinda like a designated driver. Better they call a cab than get behind the wheel inebriated, right? Who knows how many lives you’ve saved … even if it has meant cleaning up some … uh … disgusting messes.”

The driver’s face softened. “Seems practically heroic when you put it that way.” I leaned in and smiled. The driver stroked his three-day beard.

“Well?” I prodded. “What’s your President Obama story?”

“Funny you should ask,” he joked. “Well, it’s interesting. My sister’s college roommate was his girlfriend at Columbia. You know, before he met Michelle.”

“Wow,” I said. “What did the roommate tell your sister about Obama?”

“Not much, man. Not much. He was a gentleman. That’s all.”

I thought about a reply. That’s all? That’s your whole President Obama story? But I thought better of saying that out loud. The driver was obviously proud of this friend-of-a-friend-of-my-sister connection and that was that. I sat quietly, thinking maybe if there was more to tell, he’d fill the silence. He didn’t.

Destination Inspiration

I launched the Maps app on my phone to calculate the time left in our route to the airport. The driver broke the silence after a quick glance in his mirror. “I bet that thing’s showing you 25 minutes.”

I looked down. “How did you know?” He looked at me blankly and raised his eyebrows, as if to say, Buddy, I don’t need no stinkin’ GPS. I do this for a living. “If it says 25,” he continued,” “I can get you there in 21. Google hasn’t been driving a cab for 30 years, my friend. Not by a long shot.”

“OK,” I said. “Impress me.” The driver smiled and spent the next 19 minutes zipping along the south shore of Westchester County, sidestepping traffic and coming to a gentle stop in front of Marine Terminal at LaGuardia. “Wow,” I said for the second time in half an hour. “You know, you’re good at what you do.”

He took my wheelie out of the trunk. “So,” he said, standing there in the sun. “You got a story?”

“I don’t have a Barack Obama story, if that’s what you mean.”

“No, man. I mean, what do you do?”

“I’m a psychologist,” I said. “And a teacher. I work at a boarding school and a summer camp.”

“So what’s with the fancy-pants yacht club, Jackson?”

“What?”

“In LaMontagne, where I just picked you up, genius.”

“Oh, that. I was helping to train their sailing instructors.”

“That’s your job?”

“That’s part of it.”

“Like it?”

“I love it.”

“Good kids?”

“Mostly.”

“Ever wanna quit?”

“Only once.”

The driver paused, waiting. Knowing that we had arrived early—thanks to him—I chose to continue.

“Well, like you, I dislike cleaning up, um, vomit. So, in the middle of the first night of my first year as a full-fledged cabin leader, a boy named Chris Mountain woke me up because he felt sick. He was just standing next to my bunk, silhouetted in the moonlight, shaking my shoulder. Before I could walk him outside and down to the Health Center, he threw up all over me.”

“Ugh. And I thought the back seat was bad,” the driver said, wincing. “You got tagged, man.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So, um, you didn’t quit?”

“I thought about it, for a day or two. But that was 29 summers ago,” I said, smiling. “Enough said, right? Every job has its moments, but you keep going because you know that what you’re doing means something to somebody.”

I looked at my watch, a signal that I wanted to get going. I resisted the urge to preach about the benefits of summer camp while he patiently took an impression of my credit card with the side of a pencil. I added a tip and then grabbed my bag to head inside.

“You know something?” he asked. “In all my years driving a cab, you’re the first person who’s told me that I’m good at what I do.”

“That’s hard to believe,” I said.

“Believe it. Anyway, if you ever need a cab in the city, I’m your driver.”

I smiled. My driver. In a half hour, he’d gone from the driver to my driver. That was kind of cool. I looked at his ID tag, “Thanks, Ross,” I said, smiling. “That’s good to know.”

My Leader, My Counselor

I’m fairly sure that most campers transition from calling the leader in their cabin or the counselor for the group to my leader and my counselor. And that’s cool, too. If we’re doing our jobs well, then our campers will realize how dedicated their leader or their counselor is. We get them ready in the morning, care for them throughout the day, clean up their messes, show them a sporting time on land, guard their lives in the water, teach them new games, listen to what’s on their mind, put them to bed or pack them safely in busses each evening. And then we stay up late planning how to do it all again the next day, even better. Caring staff members show kids how to be parents, CEOs, teachers, coaches, and mentors.

Here’s hoping that a few of your campers will find the time this season to tell you that you’re good at what you do. Nothing nourishes your spirit more than heartfelt thanks for a job well done.

Dr. Christopher Thurber is a psychologist, author, and father. He serves on the faculty of Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, N.H., and is the director of content for Expert Online Training. To book a workshop, purchase DVDs, or access leadership resources, visit CampSpirit.com.

This article was originally posted on Dr. Caren Baruch-Feldman’s blog:
http://drbaruchfeldman.com/got-grit-got-marshmallows-increasing-self-control-and-resilience-in-the-lives-of-our-children/

Imagine twenty-five second graders sitting at their desks with a marshmallow in front of them, but NO ONE eats it. What is going on? Second graders at Harrison Avenue are working on self-control. But, how did they do it? The second graders had the benefit of learning some self-control strategies from an old friend, cookie monster.

Dr. Walter Mischel in his new book, The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self-Control discusses his famous marshmallow test. In his original test, conducted nearly 50 years ago, preschoolers were given a choice, one marshmallow now or two marshmallows later. The experimenter then left the preschooler alone in a room for 15 minutes to decide what to do. Dr. Mischel discovered that preschoolers who could wait, went on to have better outcomes later in life (e.g., higher SAT scores, more advanced degrees, better able to cope with stress).

But, what helped some kids wait while others could not? By activating cool, goal oriented thoughts such as not looking at the marshmallow, putting the marshmallow in a picture frame, imagining the marshmallow was something non-desirable, or by focusing on the end goal (two marshmallows instead of one), preschoolers were more successful in waiting. In contrast, activating hot, demanding immediate gratification thoughts such as staring at the marshmallow, smelling the marshmallow, or thinking how yummy it would be to eat it, made it more likely that the kids could not wait. Dr. Mischel discovered that although for some kids it is genetically easier to wait than for others, you can teach these strategies.

In a terrific partnership with Sesame Street, he did just that: teach these skills. In the Sesame Street videos, the same ones that were shown to the second graders at Harrison Avenue, cookie monster is seen cooling his thoughts, so he could wait. What we see in these videos is cookie monster showing grit, changing his mindset, and ultimately showing self-control.

What does it mean to show grit? Dr. Angela Duckworth is one of the leading experts on grit. She explains in a TED Talk that has been seen by over five million people that “grit is passion and perseverance, sticking with your future, day in and day out”. She discusses that success is associated with a growth mindset where failure is not seen as a permanent condition. Successful people believe that their skill set is not “fixed”, but rather that it can change with effort.

In my private practice, I often see kids who lack “grit”. When faced with a challenge, they think that they have a limited amount of skills and that when challenged the answer is quitting (they just want to eat the marshmallow). However, in my work with these youngsters, I encourage them to see a challenge as an opportunity to grow and to treat their lives not like a sprint, but rather as a marathon.

I often give kids the example of what I hear from one of my favorite instructors at the gym. The instructor who teaches the “Extreme Limits Class” does NOT say, “Oh you are tired, just drop the weights”. Oh no! Instead she says, “You are tired, that’s a good sign. It means your muscles are changing, keep going, you can do it!” The instructor is encouraging cool thoughts, grit, and a different mindset!

In Part 2 of this blog (coming out next month), I will be discussing strategies that parents and teachers can use to increase grit and mindset change which ultimately will lead to self-control and more resilience. You will have to have some self-control and wait until January to find out.

In the meantime, how do you keep from not eating the marshmallow? As many second graders told me, “I changed it into a smelly fish” or “I remembered that you would give me two, if I waited”, and lastly, “I remembered what was important”. Hoping the wisdom shared from our students helps you, with whatever your “marshmallow” is.
_____________________________________________________________________
If you like these ideas I encourage you to read Dr. Mischel’s The Marshmallow Test: Mastering Self Control. In addition, check out Angela Duckworth’s TED Talk on grit and two videos on youtube produced by Sesame Street (“Me Want It” and “Sesame Street: The Waiting Game with Guy Smiley”). Please check out my website at drbaruchfeldman.com for additional blogs, articles, and presentations.

_____________________________________________________
EOT Faculty member Dr. Caren Baruch-Feldman works part-time in the Harrison schools and maintains a private practice in Scarsdale. She can be reached at (914) 646-9030. Other articles are available at drbaruchfeldman.com.

With the beginning of the school year and the Jewish New Year approaching, it is a good time to reflect on our own behavior and the behavior of others we can influence. We all are eager to grow as people and to help develop the people in our charge. But, the real challenge is how can we make lasting and meaningful changes? The answer is NOT by denying, screaming, and focusing on the negative. Instead what we know is that in order to make lasting and real change, we need to come from a place of JOY and a place of “YES”!
To see how this is true, try doing a simple exercise with me. First, shake your head “no”. When you shook your head “no”, what did you feel? Now, shake your head “yes”. What feelings come up now? If you are like most people when you shook your head “no” you might have felt the muscles of your face tighten, an increase in negative emotions, and even a tendency to take a step back. However, what happened when you shook your head “yes”? Shaking your head “yes” is often accompanied with feelings of peace, acceptance, and lightness. So what does this have to do with change? We often go about changing ourselves and others by telling ourselves and others “no”! For example, no more computer, no more cake, or no more running in the halls. However, when we focus on the no, it is human nature to fight it (we actually take a step back). You may know the famous pink elephant experiment. It is a good example of how saying “NO” backfires. If I ask you, do NOT think of pink elephants; do not think of pink elephants dancing, ice skating, or running down the halls, what happens? All you can think of are pink elephants engaged in some unusual activities. What would happen instead if we focused on the “yes”? Yes, to more meaningful activities, yes, to healthy bodies, yes, to foods that energizes us and promotes health, and yes, to being productive, calm, and thoughtful in our everyday life.
I have used the philosophy of “YES” in my own life. I lost 20 pounds about two years ago. I had tried in the past to lose weight, but it was always from a place of “no”. What I did differently this time and I continually do now was to focus on the positive aspects of the journey rather than on the deprivation. So instead of focusing on “not eating that marshmallow” I focus on why this decision is good for me, my health, and the clothes I can buy.
This attitude is not only true about weight loss. It is true for all behaviors we want to change. Whether it is getting yourself to stop yelling at home, or helping your child bring home his/her agenda book home every night – try to create these new behaviors by emphasizing the value in them and making it a win-win (a yes). My challenge to you is to take one behavior for yourself and one behavior for the children in your life and address it from a place of “yes”. Follow these three simple rules.
1. Frame the Behavior in the Positive (e.g., I will be calm with my children, I will eat healthier, I will be on time). Many people try to change a habit by resisting urges, using willpower and saying, “no”, However, the human mind doesn’t like being told “no”. Highlight the positive aspects rather than focusing on the deprivation. This positive outlook will lead to less resistance and ultimately to more success.
2. Stand Firm, No Wavering: This notion of “standing firm” has been for me, one of the most important ones. The idea is that whatever behavior you decide to change, once you commit, you need to tell yourself that there is no choice. “This is what I am doing!” It is the wavering that causes all the trouble. Once you start having a dialogue, “Should I eat the cookie, it is only one, I was so good today,” or “I know I am late, but it is only a few minutes, I’m sure it will be fine,” you have lost the battle! Don’t get into the dialogue, instead stand firm. I often think about this in terms of me being kosher. I don’t eat lobster. I am not tempted by lobster. It is a no-brainer and takes no willpower. It is because there is no choice and I never waver from that decision that it is easy for me.
3. Bring the Behavior to the Forefront By Making an Advantage Card: An advantage card lists the advantages of the new behavior(s). An advantage card for losing weight may include: will feel healthier, fit in my clothes better, not have pain in my feet, etc. An advantage card for being patient with your child during homework time may include: will feel better afterwards, my child will listen to me more, my son/daughter won’t be putting me in a nursing home, etc. Whatever behavior you are trying to work on, make an advantage card and read it every day before you start your day. By reading the advantage card every day, you are setting yourself up for the day you want, rather than experiencing the day you fall into.
Remember, when we individually choose to be more positive we don’t affect ourselves, we affect our whole community.
Warm Regards- Caren Baruch-Feldman
_____________________________________________________
EOT Faculty member Dr. Caren Baruch-Feldman works part-time in the Harrison schools and maintains a private practice in Scarsdale. She can be reached at (914) 646-9030. Other articles are available at drbaruchfeldman.com.

This article, which quotes the work of EOT’s faculty Caren Baruch-Feldman, was originally published in The Scarsdale Inquirer on April 11, 2014.

According to Dr. Caren Baruch-Feldman, using sheer will power to control one’s impulses and actions simply does not work. At best, will power is a limited resource in short supply. At her presentation at Edgemont High School March 19, “Helping Children Change: It’s Not About Willpower,” subtitled “What science tells us about forming and maintaining new habits in children,” Baruch-Feldman said instead of relying on will power to “muscle in” on change, kids — and adults — can modify their behavior by adopting good habits to replace bad ones. (Baruch-Feldman recently presented the same series at the Scarsdale Library.)

Baruch-Feldman, who has a private practice in Scarsdale and is a school psychologist in Harrison, became her own test case, asking herself why she couldn’t just lose weight by forcing herself to behave differently.
To illustrate the problem she played a video showing people stuck on an escalator that had stopped moving. They complained about the escalator malfunctioning and how nobody was repairing it, while they continued to stand on the same steps on the stationary mechanism. They were so accustomed to their old ways, they could not see the obvious solution to the problem: simply walking down or up to reach their destination.
Baruch-Feldman was careful to point out that with school-aged children, change can only happen if there is a positive relationship between the parent and child. She asked parents in the audience to describe changes they would like to see in their kids. One woman wished for her daughter to be more communicative. Another wanted her son to spend less time playing video games.

Like the Johnny Mercer song says, “You’ve got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.” Only after parents have provided a positive environment, show empathy for their child and give credit can they prepare their children for change in behavior, and Baruch-Feldman said the same is true in adults. “In our own lives, it’s easier to make a change when you’re getting positive feedback.”

There has to be an agreement on goals — a difficult goal in itself — if a teenage boy perceives no problem if he’s playing video games for hours, yet is still getting good grades in school. Getting kids to “buy in” to that goal was a particular hurdle for some Edgemont parents. Baruch- Feldman said waiting until your son is in a good mood is the time to have the conversation, and “to plant the seeds and get to work on small things. If you are always that annoying person telling your child to get off the computer, then it won’t work. Parents should ask why the new behavior is going to be best for him and ask how their children can be part of the solution,” she said.
Parents think of creating a positive atmosphere for change as “putting money in the bank,” she said, so that when you ask kids to do things, it is like taking a “withdrawal. Figure out when things are working. When does the daughter become more communicative?”

Using her own son as an example, Baruch- Feldman said she stocked up on a particular brand of water he liked which set the stage for changes she wanted him to make, like keeping track of his jacket and remembering to take medication.

It is a scientific fact that the frontal lobe in a child’s brain is not fully formed, which affects their emotional control, impulsivity and the ability to think about long-term consequences. Because their brains are less flexible, “we [adults] have to be their frontal lobe,” said Baruch-Feldman. Children are “works-in-progress” and may not be ready to change.

But in reality, change is hard for almost everybody, presenting a tug of war between what feels good in the moment versus the right decision in the long run. The goal is to help make change as easy as possible. “Our brains are lazy,” said Baruch-Feldman. Will power is a limited resource. Successful people bypass the attempt at will power and the “muscling in” and instead make something a habit.

Baruch-Feldman presented the “Stages of Behavioral Change” found in the book “Changing For Good” by James O. Prochaska. Those steps include precontemplative, contemplation, preparation, action and maintenance. Change is a gradual process and won’t likely occur if adults force kids to go from precontemplative directly to action. “If you skip or go too quickly, then it won’t happen,” she said.

Other tips for making a change include:
• Avoiding triggers. It is better to avoid triggers (junk food, for example) than to keep being near them and trying to resist them.
• Waiting 10 minutes before doing something undesirable (like eating the junk food) promotes planning for the long term.
• Let people know your goal and get social support.
• Writing down the change is an effective strategy, especially when kids experience anxiety.
• Choose one behavior to change instead of a whole laundry list.
• Keep an “advantage card.” Write down the advantages of the new behavior and read it every day.

Albert Ellis, credited with founding cognitive behavioral therapy, advocates not just changing habits, but changing beliefs. A child may feel he “can’t stand” something — a homework assignment or a class — but adults can try to get him to see issues more accurately. Kids tend to think in black and white. Parents can help them think more “in the gray.” It is not the event itself that’s making a person upset, it is how the person is thinking about it. Parents should find out, “What is the negative thinking that’s getting in the way?”

A child should be reassured that her whole self worth is not based on one incident going badly. That incident should be thought of as just one action and not a determinant of who they are as a human being.
Finally, Baruch-Feldman addressed the idea that kids with “cushy lives” have to be challenged, need to be taught to have “grit” and adopt a growth mindset instead of shying away from challenges. “Eventually students are going to hit a wall and have to work hard,” she said. Other pitfalls occur when students think, “I messed up, so I might as well forget the whole thing.” Stand firm, remind yourself of the whole story, not just the beginning. “One slip does not cause a downfall.”

Baruch-Feldman introduced her presentation by showing a “before” picture of herself as a heavier woman who struggled with her weight, next to the “after” picture showing her trimmer self after losing 25 pounds. Although she must remind herself to stay in the “maintenance” mode of Prochaska’s stages of behavioral change, she is living proof that making a habit out of eating healthier worked better than any will power ever could.

Stages of Behavior Change:
Dr. Baruch-Feldman cited the five stages of behavior change from the book, “Changing for Good,” by James Prochaska
1. Precontemplation (unaware of the problem)
2. Contemplation (aware of the problem and of the desired behavior change)
3. Preparation (intends to take action)
4. Action (practices the desired behavior)
5. Maintenance (works to sustain the behavior change)

Recommended reading: “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg, “The Willpower Instinct” by Kelly McGonigal, “Willpower” by Roy Baumeister and John Tierny, “Switch” by Chip Heath and Dan Heath, and “Raising Resilient Children” by Robert Brooks, Ph.D. and Sam Goldstein, Ph.D. For more information about Caren Baruch-Feldman or to see her March 19 PowerPoint presentation at EHS, visit drbaruchfeldman. com.

As New Year’s Eve comes around I thought it was a good time to share this article. Happy New Year’s to you.

As a psychologist, I am often struck by how both children and adults desire to change, but when faced with the obstacle they want to tackle, they fall back onto old habits. I recently read a number of books on willpower and habit formation* and realized that these books hold the key to making the changes people really want to implement. So if you are interested in changing your waistline, or the tone you use when speaking to your child, the following ideas will help you to better achieve your goals:

• It is important to recognize that many of the bad behaviors (overeating, yelling, procrastinating, etc.) we engage in are “habits”. When a habit occurs, the brain goes on automatic pilot. Your brain acts lazy so unless you deliberately fight a habit by finding a new routine, the pattern will be followed automatically. The good news is that even though it is hard to change a habit, if you are diligent and consistent in creating new routines, the new routines will become as automatic as your old habits.

• All habits exist because there is a cue, a routine, and a reward. For example, when your child starts to whine, that is the cue. The routine is you screaming, “Stop!” The reward is the end of the whining. This cycle creates a habit loop. What we know about changing habits is that the cue stays the same and the reward results naturally, so what we can control and change is the routine. If your child starts to whine, you can establish a new routine of walking away. The cue is still the whining and the new reward is that 1) you are proud of how you acted and 2) your child learns eventually that whining doesn’t lead her/him to get what he/she wants.

• Some habits are considered gateway habits or “keystone habits”. Once you start changing them, other habits start to change as well. For example, people who habitually exercise become more productive at work. If you focus on changing keystone habits, you can cause widespread shifts.

• According to C. Duhigg who wrote the book, “The Power of Habit”, “Willpower is the single most important keystone habit for individual success”. Willpower is a real form of mental energy, powered by glucose in the bloodstream, which is used up as you exert self-control. This is why dieting is so challenging — because you need willpower to diet and the only way to get willpower is through sugar (ugh). A study, led by Wilhelm Hofmann of the University of Chicago, showed that the people with the best self-control are the ones who use their willpower less often. Instead of fending off one urge after another, these people set up their lives to minimize temptations. They are proactive instead of defensive, using their willpower in advance so that they avoid crises and conserve their willpower reserves.

• Since willpower is a limited resource, it is best to transform those activities that require willpower into habits. Once the activity is a habit, it is automatic and no longer needs to draw upon the limited resource of willpower. For example, brushing my teeth in the morning is a habit for me. It doesn’t take willpower for me to do it. However, my son, who has not made tooth brushing into a habit, has to use willpower. The good news is that with my continued encouragement, tooth brushing will also turn into a habit for my son and will eventually be effortless and automatic for him as well.

• Willpower is like a muscle. It gets tired as it works harder. So, the more willpower you use throughout the day, the less you will have later on (now I understand why I am so tempted by late night snacks). So what can you do? Here are some suggestions that will help you to best utilize your willpower in order to effect change in your life:

Change one habit at a time. With a finite supply of willpower, it’s tough enough to reach one goal, so take on only one goal at a time. For example, don’t take on exercising, being nicer to your spouse, and being earlier for carpool all at the same time. Take on one.

Write it down and be specific. Write down what you want to take on– the more specific, the better. For example writing, “I will walk at 7:00 AM each day for 25 minutes” or “I will have patience with my daughter during math homework” is better than just thinking “I will exercise” and “I will have patience”. Writing down what you want to accomplish and being specific increases success.

Get social support. Let others know that you are working on a goal and try to work on the goal together. By letting people know what you are doing, you pre-commit and have a better chance of changing your ways (this is one of the secrets of Weight Watchers).

It takes three week. Changing a habit takes three weeks. Have patience and give it some time.

Practice meditation. Practicing mindfulness meditation for a few minutes each day can actually boost willpower by building up gray matter in areas of the brain that regulate emotions and govern decision making. Paying attention to what’s happening in the moment, what’s going on in your body, your mind, and all around you, can make it easier to pay attention to choices you make throughout the day.

Reward often. Rewards are necessary to change and sustain habits. If you want your willpower to last, reward yourself often.

Don’t overreact when you mess up. For example, one reason dieters fail is a phenomenon known informally as the “what the hell effect.” Once people lapse, they figure the day’s diet is blown anyway, so they go on to finish the whole carton of ice cream, thereby doing far more damage than the original lapse.

I hope these ideas inspire you. If you do decide to change a habit– remember to pick one habit at a time, write it down, tell your friends, meditate, reward yourself, and don’t overreact if you mess up. Soon the new habit will become as automatic as some of your old bad ones.
_______________________________________________________________
The ideas for this article come from the following books: C. Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit”, K. McGonigal’s “The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do To Get More of It” and F. Baumeister’s “Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.” I highly recommend reading these books in their entirety.

Dr. Caren Baruch-Feldman works part-time in the Harrison schools and maintains a private practice in Scarsdale. She can be reached at (914) 646-9030. Other articles are available at drbaruchfe1dman.com.

This article was originally posted in Camp Business http://www.northstarpubs.com/articles/cb/a-healthy-lead on September 4, 2013.

Staff members are usually on top of their game until they start treating their job like one. Once young people lose sight of the importance of caring for other people’s children, taking unhealthy risks increases. By contrast, if they rest playful leadership on the three-legged stool of sleep, exercise, and nutritional food, their resilience and stamina also increase.

Ask Not What Your Camp Can Do for You

Does this sound idealistic? Do you wonder where on earth you might find such wholesome young adults to staff your camp? Whether you staff the camp with an apprentice-style, internal leadership-development program, with external hires, or with some combination of the two, the quest for quality should always include the appropriate interview questions.

Asking hypothetical questions with “right” answers is a waste of time. “What would you do if some of your friends had been drinking and were about to drive themselves home?” is an example of just such a vacuous query. The question lacks what psychologists call discriminative validity, meaning that it cannot validly discriminate between two groups—in this case between responsible and irresponsible people. A person’s answer to this question tells only whether the interviewee knows what a person should do in such a circumstance. (If you’re done having candidates tell you what they know you want to hear, read on.)

A better alternative is to say, “Tell me about a time when you had to make a tough decision to keep a friend out of trouble.” Listen carefully to the person’s answer, and then ask open-ended follow-up questions such as, “What did you struggle with when you chose that course of action?” and “Who in your life influenced you to behave that way?” and “When have you ever had a friend get you out of a jam?” and “What did you learn from that experience or from some other poor choice?” and “How might you instill a sense of social responsibility in your fellow staff members this summer?”

The strategy of asking a job candidate to choose a specific, personal behavior and then answer a string of open-ended questions about that situation is called behavior-based interviewing or sometimes performance-based interviewing.

Religious Taboos

Anti-discrimination laws justifiably prohibit employers from asking prospective employees, “What religion are you?” The answer is worthless anyway, not because it is meaningless to the person, but because it has no discriminative validity. There are great leaders from different faith traditions and many who do not identify with a particular faith. What does have some value is asking about one’s coping style.

How do you bounce back from adversity?
What do you think or do to help make things better when you’re feeling down?
How have you overcome challenges that seem doable at first but then seem much more difficult?
What or who supports you when you feel down, drained, or discouraged?
These open-ended questions are all fair game. Best of all, the answers will teach you a lot about a person’s resilience and stress-management strategies. Some prospective leaders might even expound on their faith-based ways of coping, such as prayer, meditation, or participation in religious services. Religious or not, that person will provide an accurate sense of a coping style—data which can predict the person’s stability, stamina, and ability to weather in healthy ways the sometimes stressful storm of youth leadership.

Four Legs And Two Arms

Apparently, then, the three-legged stool of wellness turns out to have four legs: sleep, exercise, nutrition, and coping style. Naturally, candidates who deal with stress by drinking, drugging, or anything else that hurts their bodies or others should be summarily dropped from your list. But most interviewees are savvy enough to discuss only healthy strategies in your presence. This means that the discriminative validity of these resilience questions might take a hit—unless you listen for the “two arms” of the wellness picture.

The “arms” you should be paying attention to are the outstretched arms of social connection. Prospective staff members who recognize their own limitations and have the foresight and courage to reach out to others for support are staff members who will last the longest and demonstrate the most equanimity at camp. They also end up supporting their co-counselors and fellow staff through the summer’s toughest challenges. Realize that when interviewees mention social support in their coping repertoire, it’s an asset.

Reticence Predicts Weakness

Prospective hires who cannot articulate projects of which they are proud, decisions they wrestled with, and challenges they overcame are not ready to care for other people’s children. The interviewees may have athletic, artistic, or academic strengths, but they are unlikely to have the necessary combination of fortitude, gratitude, insight, judgment, and resilience. A perfect tennis serve won’t mitigate homesickness, promote good sportsmanship, or blend two cliques into a unified group of friends.

I’ve never known a staff member to be fired mid-season because of a lack of talent in basketball or finger painting, but I’ve known many to be fired for boundary-crossing, rule-breaking, and unhealthy interpersonal forays. My advice to directors is always to hire the person, not the resume. Of course, that requires thoroughly checking three references and solid behavior-based interviewing—time well spent if the quality of the staff-camper relationship is a top priority.

Fortified, Not Anesthetized

A journalist recently asked me what factors diminish the intensity of homesickness in college freshmen. She was a college student herself, so when I began talking about the foundations of wellness, she slowly realized that sleep deprivation, a diet of potato chips and beer, and a routine of sitting in class followed by sitting in front of a screen was a recipe for poor health. She ended the interview with her own insightful conclusion: “So, a healthy lifestyle can diminish the intensity of homesickness by shielding you from stress.”

“Yes and no,” I replied. “Wellness is more like a sponge than a shield. It absorbs some of the stress, but you’ll always feel something.” She thought for a moment. “Well, you’d want that, I suppose. No one wants to feel numb.” Not if they’re going to work with children, I mused.

Dr. Christopher Thurber enjoys learning from his own two children and from the students at Phillips Exeter Academy, where he serves as the psychologist. He is the co-founder of ExpertOnlineTraining.com, a web-based training platform for youth-development professionals. Visit his website at CampSpirit.com.

This blog was originally posted on http://blog.campeasy.com/ on April 22, 2013.

Dear Mom and Dad,

I know that I was nervous about camp when you dropped me off, but now I don’t want to leave. I’ve had the most amazing time here! I love this place! Could you please pay for me to stay a little longer, and pick me up at the end of the summer? That would be awesome!

The thing I love most about camp is that I get to be myself here. At school and in our neighborhood, kids try to be…I don’t know…all the same. Everyone at school wants to wear “cool” clothes and hang out with the “popular” kids. I guess I did too, but I was never part of the “in” crowd. At camp, it’s different. The brand of clothes doesn’t matter here. And people don’t care whether you’re a terrific athlete or not. The staff here keep telling us, “It’s how you treat other people that matters.” I think they’re right. It’s what I’m trying to do.

Speaking of how people treat others, I should mention that I’ve made a ton of friends at camp. My counselor says that we don’t all have to be best friends, we just have to respect each other. Would you be surprised if I told you that I do have best friends here at camp? That’s one of the reasons I want to stay! We hang out all the time and do really fun stuff. It’s way better than school. I do miss my phone, though. And I miss you guys, too, but not as much as I thought I would. I hope you forgive me for only writing once. I’ve just been so busy!

When you bring me home, I’ll be different. I’ll be sad to leave my camp friends, so I might be quiet or grumpy for a while. There will be times when I feel like talking about camp non-stop. I’ll tell you all about the thunder storm during our camp-out, the camp-wide hide-and-seek game and the song we made up about chicken patties. Other times, I won’t want to talk much at all. But don’t worry…most of my camp stories will trickle out before next summer. You have signed me up for next summer, haven’t you?

My cabin leader says that one of things parents love about camp is that their children are so well behaved when they get home. I guess they make their beds and set the table and stuff without being asked. I know I have to do all that at camp…just don’t expect that to last for too long after I get home. I mean…don’t get me wrong: You’ve been great parents and all. But something about camp makes it easier to be helpful and kind to others.

What it is about fresh air, beautiful nature, and cool counselors that makes me feel so good? I’m happier than I’ve ever been, but also sad to leave. Anyway, you guys rock for sending me to camp. That sounds weird, right? Like: “Thanks for being great parents by sending me away for a while.” Some parents wouldn’t understand, but I think you do. If you don’t get it now, you will when you see how much I’ve grown. And I don’t mean taller…I mean better.

Love,

Your child

Dr. Christopher Thurber, a frequent contributor to camping publications and health blogs, works as a clinical psychologist at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He is the co-author of The Summer Camp Handbook and the host of the homesickness prevention DVD entitled The Secret Ingredients of Summer Camp Success. Learn more on Chris’s website: CampSpirit.com.

As part of our educational mission, ExpertOnlineTraining.com hosted a live webinar (Google Hangout) in which Dr. Chris Thurber answered questions on the topic of homesickness and adjustment to separation. The webinar aired on May 16th, 2013. We hope you enjoy this outstanding educational material.

Dr. Chris Thurber serves as a teacher and psychologist at Phillips Exeter Academy. He is co-founder of ExpertOnlineTraining.com, the leading provider of Internet-based educational content for youth leaders. Chris also hosts ACA’s homesickness prevention DVD for new campers, called The Secret Ingredients of Summer Camp Success. To book Chris for an event, visit CampSpirit.com.

This article was originally published inCamping Magazine’s 2013 May/June issue

 

 

Last Night

Phil Bader did everything wrong on his last night off except give his keys to a sober colleague. He’d left camp 10 minutes early, bought alcohol with a fake ID, indulged in binge drinking, stumbled back into his cabin 30 minutes late and urinated in a child’s footlocker before collapsing in his own bed.

 

Had a camper needed his assistance later that night—for an asthma attack, a nightmare or an upset stomach—Phil would have been useless. But Phil would not have been alone. Many other camp counselors, at all different kinds of day and resident camps, spent their time in a similar fashion that night.

 

In the morning, when a certain hapless child attempted to get dressed and discovered Phil’s incontinent indiscretion, the child complained to the unit leader. The unit leader did the right thing by confronting Phil, listening to the parts of the story that Phil remembered and then escorting Phil to the camp director. In turn, the camp director did the right thing by terminating Phil’s employment and contacting the child’s parents after laundering his clothes and having a new footlocker Fed-Ex’ed to the camp at Phil’s expense.

 

It was, as noted above, Phil’s last night off. But Phil was an outlier. Not in a behavior sense, but in a statistical sense. He was one of the few camp staff to be fired for spending his time off poorly. Most of the young men and women who had engaged in similarly unwise recreation simply got up the next morning, splashed their faces with cold water and got back to taking care of other people’s children. Which is a sobering thought.

 

Partying is Fun

Lest you fear that I’m about to lapse into a condescending lecture, let me state two undeniable truths: (1) Many unhealthy ways of spending time off are fun, just as many kinds of junk food are delicious; (2) Many unhealthy ways of spending time off are bonding experiences, just as hazing rituals and fighting together on a battlefield are. But who would say that junk food and war are healthy choices?

 

I do understand that getting drunk and doing crazy things can be a blast. I also understand that an activity’s fun quotient and bonding power are not the best ways to judge that activity’s appropriateness for the camp setting. Youth development professionals must use another litmus test: How does this activity affect my ability to lead and care for campers? If an activity helps you lead and care, please continue; if it hurts, please stop. And if you’re not sure, please talk with a more experienced staff member who can bring clarity to your judgment.

 

The Time Off Test

For any staff member who is unsure about whether a time-off activity enhances or diminishes his or her ability to lead and care for young people, there is another easy assessment: The Tme Off Test. Simply ask yourself, upon returning to camp, “Do I feel relaxed, refreshed, and ready to go?” (Remember, whether you work at a day camp, overnight camp or another youth-serving organization, you’ll need energy and patience all season long.)

 

Your honest answer to that single question will help you plan for the next time off. If your answer is “Yes,” then you’re probably doing what you need to be doing. If, on the other hand, your answer is: “No. I feel worse than when I left,” then you should revise your plans for the next night or day off. Most of you reading this are not parents, but you can all ask yourself a second, hypothetical question: If your campers were your own children, would you be proud—honestly—of the kind of shape you are in?

 

Poor Use of Time Off

Binge drinking may be the most common unhealthy time off choice for camp staff worldwide, but there are other poor uses of time off that deserve mention. Like drinking, each is motivated by good intentions, such as having fun and bonding, but each is blind to the bigger picture of professional responsibility. Examples include:

 

• Driving outrageous distances. “Road trip!” may sound fun when it’s shouted at the start of time off, but long drives are exhausting. As a rule of thumb, staff should spend no more than 25% of their time off in the car. For example, a staff member at a resident camp with a 24-hour day off should spend no more than three hours driving to a day-off destination.
• Staying up most of the night. Surrounded by friends and a festive atmosphere, it’s easy to watch movies or play games all night, but sleep deprivation has dangerous consequences. A drowsy lifeguard, belayer, van driver, trip leader or boat driver could neglect duties or experience slowed reaction time…with lethal consequences.
• Using or abusing drugs. Alcohol is not the only recreational drug that staff abuse at camp. Prescription painkillers, stimulant medications, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety medications can all have illicit uses, in addition to their helpful, legitimate uses. Just as staff must be abstinent from illegal drugs such as marijuana, they must also abstain from medications not prescribed to them.
• Participating in dangerous activities. Staff at day and resident camps spend a great deal of time designing and supervising healthy risks for young people, as well as ensuring that they are wearing properly fitting helmets, life preservers, and footwear. Ironically, these are the same staff who go cliff jumping, drag racing, have unprotected sex or drive drunk during time off. Staff would be wise to maintain safe practices all season long, both during time on and time off. Healthy behaviors benefit individual staff members, the young people they serve and the reputation of the camp.

 

Healthier Options

Time off spent wisely is a bonding experience that is both fun and restorative. But it does take planning. Without preparation, partying becomes the default plan. Therefore, the most successful camps have spent years building a three-ring binder full of healthy time-off choices. These binders typically include local points of interest, the best neighborhood restaurants, addresses of alums happy to host nights and days off, and recreation options (camp sites, shopping malls, movie theaters, national parks, etc.) within striking distance.

 

The value of a time-off binder is twofold: First, staff are more likely to spend their time off wisely, because a multitude of healthy options—vetted by previous staff members—are at their fingertips. Second, staff are less likely to engage in unhealthy risk-taking, such as binge drinking, because they experience the easy value of spending time off in fun and wholesome ways. Best of all, the staff themselves revise and contribute to the binder. As old venues close or fall out of favor and new venues open or rise in popularity, the binder’s content evolves.

 

Examples of healthy time-off choices include:

 

• Camping out
• Seeing a movie
• Climbing a mountain
• Eating at a restaurant
• Sleeping later than usual
• Visiting nearby camp alums
• Cooking together, indoors or out
• Relaxing at a public beach, pool or lakeside

 

Shifting Your Mindset

Working at camp involves a paradigm shift. Youth leaders are transitioning from college, university or a vocational setting, where the work is mostly self-focused, to camp, where the work is expressly other-focused. During the academic year, staff may complete some phenomenal volunteer or service work, but they are primarily working toward earning grades, stuffing their resumes, or making money. For themselves.

 

At camp, staff are working for others. And not just any others. You are caring for other people’s children. There can be no greater responsibility. This means that more than your mindset needs to shift. You also need to shift your behavior as you consider what the consequences of your actions are. Ask yourself, “How will this choice affect the young people I serve?”

 

Fail Like Phil? You Decide.

My compliments to any staff member who has read this far. Many staff are dismissive of health advice. I was, between the ages of 16 and 26. Even with a strong family history of malignant melanoma (a deadly form of skin cancer), I dismissed my mother’s advice to put on sunscreen, in favor of cultivating my summer tan. I changed my mind about sunscreen when I first noticed permanent wrinkles on my face and a few scary-looking freckles on my back that my dermatologist had to burn off with a laser. But my dermatologist was clear: the bulk of sun damage had already been done. Lesson learned. But only time will tell if my learning was too late.

 

These days, I’m happily surprised to see young staff putting sunscreen on themselves and their campers. What caused this behavior change? It was nothing I said. It was two other factors: Availability and example. When I was a young leader, sunscreen was an optional, personal toiletry. In the last decade, most camps have strategically placed one-gallon sunscreen pumps throughout camp. That’s availability. Just like time-off binders, giant sunscreen pumps make healthy choices abundantly available. That’s one factor.

 

The other factor—example—came in the form of experienced staff publically showcasing their use of sunscreen. The rest of the staff (and campers) followed suit. It’s simply what was done. And it’s the same for time off. When a few experienced staff showcase their healthy choices—by talking about their great camping trip or pinning photos of their mountain climb on the camp’s bulletin board—they are setting a great example for other staff to follow.

 

You’ve read to the end of this article, which I hope indicates your willingness to set that great example. Following in Phil Bader’s footsteps is one option; choosing to spend your time off wisely is the other.

 

Dr. Chris Thurber serves as a teacher and psychologist at Phillips Exeter Academy. He is co-founder of ExpertOnlineTraining.com, the leading provider of Internet-based educational content for youth leaders. Chris also hosts ACA’s homesickness prevention DVD for new campers, called The Secret Ingredients of Summer Camp Success. To book Chris for an event, visit CampSpirit.com.

This blog was originally posted on http://blog.campeasy.com/ on April 16, 2013.

 

It’s not as simple as you might think…but it just got easier.

Back in the day, all a college kid needed to land a camp job was to be a college kid. Camps were started in the latter part of the 1800′s by progressive educators-college professors and prep school headmasters-with degrees from Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and so forth.

Naturally, the young men (and, eventually, women) those owner/directors employed were-you guessed it-students from Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale and Columbia. The educational pedigree was enough. Alternatively, a university student might have a patron of sorts who wrote a handwritten “letter of reference” attesting to their character.

I don’t have hard data to support my gut feeling, but I sense that by the 1950′s, that Ivy League line was all but erased. Yet with all of the beneficial variety in staff educational backgrounds came looser (dare I say sloppy?) hiring practices. Enter movies such as Meatballs, whose portrayal of camp shenanigans in the 1970′s is as legendary as it is accurate.

The second millennium ushered in a new wave of staff hiring practices. Heightened awareness of physical and sexual abuse perpetrated by camp staff, along with industry associations that emphasized staff professionalism, established practices like background checks for all staff and transformed slapdash one-day orientations into “staff training week.”

These days, camp directors won’t even look at a prospective staff member’s application without first conducting a criminal background check and acquiring three references. There are even a growing number of national and provincial accreditation standards that suggest specific topics for staff training, which is wonderful. Topics such as equity and diversity, which never got mentioned, now get equal billing alongside lifeguard training and behavior management.

All of this specificity and conscientiousness has created a new problem, however. There is no longer enough time during staff training week (which in most cases is actually five days, not seven) to cover all of the recommended topics in any kind of meaningful depth. The average camp staff member needs to know everything from CPR and first-aid for anaphylaxis to bullying prevention and best practices for “responding to sensitive issues.” So although industry professionalism is an admirable goal, constraints in time and on-site expertise mean it is seldom fully achieved at the level of the front-line staff member.

How can a twenty-first century camp train professional-grade staff without expanding staff training week into staff training month? The answer is ridiculously simple: online education that staff complete before staff training week. Today’s college students already spend 6-8 hours per day online. Why not create a library of YouTube-length videos hosted by the top professionals in youth development and education? And, to ensure that the young man or woman taking care of your son or daughter has actually understood what they’ve watched, each video should be followed by a quiz whose results are also viewable to the camp director.

Enter ExpertOnlineTraining.com, an educational website with an impressive library of videos hosted by internationally renowned authors like Dr. Michael Thompson (of Raising Cain fame), Dr. Joel Haber (of BullyProof Your Child fame), and Faith Evans (of The More the Merrier fame). There are even videos hosted by Canadian canoeing expert Mike Sladden (ofCamp Pathfinder in Algonquin Provincial Park fame).

Ok, full disclosure: I co-founded the site. But that’s exactly why it should matter to moms and dads. I’m a father of two campers, ages 8 and 10. So now you now know an industry insider and camp parent who created an educational solution to a serious problem no camp director would dare mention. I’m biased, of course, but I recommend that every parent look for the EOT logo on their camp’s website and ask how they use ExpertOnlineTraining.com to complement their on-site training.

Your child deserves a capable leader, not just a student with a smile. And yes, we now have a video training module on treating anaphylaxis. Thank you, Dr. Laura Blaisdell.

Dr. Christopher Thurber, a frequent contributor to camping publications and health blogs, works as a clinical psychologist at Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. He is the co-author of The Summer Camp Handbook and the host of the homesickness prevention DVD entitled The Secret Ingredients of Summer Camp Success. Learn more on Chris’s website: CampSpirit.com.