I Wanna Be Part of Us

GreatAspirations

Week of August 2, 1998

Standing alone at a party. Watching TV by yourself on a Friday or Saturday night. Being the last person picked for team and wishing you were somewhere else, like on another planet. None of these things bring back fond memories of childhood.

It’s important to spend time alone. We need space away from the crowd, quiet moments to sort through our thoughts. But, at the same time, we humans are social animals. We crave belonging. We want to feel connections to other people. We need to be accepted and valued. And we all want to see ourselves as a part of something bigger -- a community of other people on whom we can depend and who depend on us. This is especially true for kids. Children with a sense of community are more confident, secure and alive to the world around them. They have a more positive view of life and believe in their potential to succeed.

But in order to give your child a feeling of community, you first have to exhibit that sense in your own life. In the old days, families had all manner of ready-made connection builders – neighborhood block parties, church pot luck dinners, quilting bees, and neighborhood schools with neighborhood playgrounds.

People sought out opportunities to create community through social get-togethers because that was all they had for entertainment. Today, with our two-income households, our burgers-to-go lifestyles and the explosion of electronic entertainment options, we have more dramatic forms of entertainment, but fewer community connections. Today, relationships have become de-personalized and disconnected. So how can we dads reverse this trend and renew the sense of belonging our kids so desperately need? What can you do to instill a feeling of community connectedness in your child?

The key is to encourage a PROACTIVE community spirit. Being passively supportive won’t cut it. Stir your children to seek out their own opportunities to create a sense of belonging. Here’s an example: Ask your child to think of a small kindness he or she can perform to make someone else’s life a little easier. Push your kids to come up with ideas that stretch them beyond their usual realms of experience -- like mowing the neighbor’s lawn, organizing a litter patrol or talking with the elderly people at church.

Genuine and unforced kindnesses bond the giver and receiver in a way nothing else can. Perhaps more importantly, they form a chain of thoughtfulness and caring that extends far beyond either person, naturally leading to other opportunities to establish one-on-one-and-beyond connections.

Here are a few more ideas for helping your kids forge their own connections:

Host a neighborhood Event Create community. Invite your neighbors over for a backyard BBQ or a pancake breakfast. If you don’t know your neighbors, change that! Make it a point to knock on their door the next sunny afternoon and introduce yourself. If your kids haven’t already broken the ice with their family, it’ll happen soon after you’ve taken the first step.

Encourage cooperation Organize your own neighborhood cleanup corps and tackle the yards of any senior citizens within a two-or-three block radius. Involve just your family. Or make it a multi-family adventure. First, canvas the neighborhood. Let your kids ask your elder neighbors what chores, tasks or maintenance jobs they’d like to have done. Then work together over a series of Saturdays to get it done.

Encourage children to work together and problem solve as a group Get a puzzle, 25, 50 or 500 pieces, and spend some time solving it together. Spark the kids to develop strategies (i.e. putting yellow pieces or the edge pieces together). Coach and inspire, don’t direct. Let them take their own approaches, make their own mistakes, and find ways to make their own contributions.

As parents, it’s part of our job to help our kids understand what it’s like to be a contributing member of a family, a neighborhood, a team, a community. Kids need to actively function within a group that fully and unconditionally accepts them. And, more than that, our kids need strong examples and earnest encouragement to learn to develop new connections on their own. It is from this sense of belonging that self-confidence develops and a sense of security grows.

(The Two Dads are Doug Hall, Director of Great Aspirations!, and Russ Quaglia, Child Aspirations Expert.)

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