Thanksgiving

 Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday.  It continues to hold deep meaning for me, from both its historical and spiritual perspectives. Thanksgiving commemorates a successful harvest for the newly arrived Pilgrims, achieved through the beneficence of the host culture of Native Americans.  Two peoples, seemingly completely different, sat together to celebrate the bounty of Mother Earth and the collaboration of her children.  A societal ideal for which we still strive today.

For my family, Thanksgiving is the one holiday that we can fully celebrate together.  Gratitude for the blessings of life transcends religion.  While we try to live gratefully everyday, it's so nice to have one special day dedicated to being thankful.  Just like we try to respect our mother everyday, but treat her extra specially on Mothers Day.  Filling our homes with family and friends, filling our table with festive foods, taking time to acknowledge the goodness in our lives; this is the essence of Thanksgiving, and a huge cause for celebration.  

Gratitude is a difficult character trait to instill in our children, because it stems from a feeling.  What we can teach are the physical actions that demonstrate gratitude, such as saying "please" and "thank you".  At first, saying these words may not mean much to a child, but when practiced over and over, they do plant seeds of gratitude.  Children who are accustomed to saying "thank you"  come to recognize the actions or words that prompt that response.  For example, if they are taught to say "thank you" every time someone gives them a snack, they will eventually identify receiving a snack as a signal for thanks.   We can also encourage them to perform acts of kindness, such as calling grandma or a sick friend,  and let them know how much their actions are appreciated.

Children learn best by observing the important adults in their lives, so we can teach gratitude through our own behaviors. We can be sure to say thank you to people who serve us, either at a gas station, restaurant, supermarket, etc. If  a child says something nice, or makes us a picture, or picks up his toys when asked, we can let him know how grateful we are for his thoughtfulness.   We can talk about how much we appreciate the people and things in our lives, helping children see that everything we have is a gift; nothing should be taken for granted.

Prefacing a request with "please" can engender gratitude too.  By saying "please", we acknowledge someone else's control over what we want.  Even if we are sure to receive it, whatever it may be, "please" teaches us that we are not owed or entitled.   We respect the kindness of others. In this way, "please" is an advanced expression of gratitude.  I once met a boy in the supermarket parking lot who was clearly being taught good manners.  I had just emptied my cart into the trunk of my car.  He approached me and asked for the cart.  I said "Please", meaning please take it.  He said, "Please?", thinking I was telling him to say please.  

If  we truly believe that everything we have is a gift, then gratitude becomes easier.  And when we feel grateful, we feel happier, and more at peace.  That's a wonderful gift to pass on to our children.

Cooking With Kids

The kitchen is the heart of the home.  It is the central gathering place for family members, a place of warmth where we feel cared for and safe .  Cooking for our family expresses our love for them, as we nourish them with healthy food that enables them to grow, and we nurture them with tastes that bring them pleasure.  Food preparation involves all of our senses: the kitchen fills with aroma; we feel the warmth of the oven; we hear the sounds of boiling or frying or perking (coffee; notice the coffee pots in both pictures); we're given a sample to touch and taste.  These are very soothing sensory experiences, so we feel comforted, secure, at peace.

Involving our children in cooking is so good for them, in so many ways.  At home, children learn the life skills of food preparation and forge a generational connection that will follow  them into adulthood.  Children generally love to be included in the cooking process, and gain a feeling of competence and value as they contribute to the family.  Including children however adds time to the process, so it's not always feasible.  Still, if they start with small tasks they will gain proficiency and be ready to take on more.  The longer we do something the better we get at it.  Even small children can be taught to add ingredients, to wash vegetables, to crack eggs (tap, crack, and use thumbs to separate), to peel and cut, pour and mix. 

I think children gravitate toward preparing their favorite foods.  As a child, it was my job to make the salad.  My mother taught me to tear the lettuce and dribble just enough olive oil and vinegar to lightly coat each piece.  To this day, I make the best salad (just sayin) and never measure.  Her father did all the cooking in their house, and we visited them at least once a week.  My job was to taste the macaroni.  Grandpa would trust me to know when it was ready.  Again, to this day I do not time anything I cook.  I just sort of know when it's done.  In my family, one of my daughters makes the best french fries.  Another is an incredible baker.  And another has a favorite dessert she makes every Passover.  It's a touching experience to eat at their homes, enjoying so many of the foods I normally cook.

Cooking is an integral part of most early childhood classrooms.  It's a wonderful experience for young children who are just learning to separate from their parents, because it evokes homey feelings, fortifying the home-school connection.  It's also a terrific way to learn math and science, as children measure ingredients and observe the changes that occur when foods are mixed and/or cooked.  The caveat to all this learning is that children be allowed to cook independently. Teachers know that children learn by doing, but tend to take over for them when it comes to cooking.   In too many classrooms, I have seen the children watch the teacher measure and mix, while they sit around a table waiting for a turn to stir.  To be effective, cooking should be done in small groups, so that each child has an authentic opportunity to learn.  Children can be taught to follow a recipe, maybe in rebus form (with pictures).  They can learn to measure, to cut, to mix, to pour, etc.  School supply stores sell child-size utensils for cooking.  A good one is forsmallhands.com, a Montessori catalogue. 

Children are most often recipients.  We do a lot for them.  Teaching them to cook allows them to become givers.  It feels good to give, to be generous, to be loving, to be needed.  Opening the doors to giving is a precious gift to children.  Mix in the sensory experiences of preparing foods, and the math, science, and reading lessons involved...cooking is pretty much the ideal teaching tool!

Tradition: The Story of Us

As I prepare for Rosh Hashana, I can't help but think about the myriad traditions in our lives and the important role that they play in shaping our identities.  I have so many fond childhood memories of holidays and yearly outings with my parents and siblings.  My own children still talk about vacations and holidays from their childhood. And now we are building new traditions for their children.  Many family traditions center on holidays:  visiting extended family and friends; preparing special foods; exchanging gifts; sending greeting cards; maybe visiting a house of worship.  Our memories of those special times and the unique ways our family marked them occupy a special place in our hearts. They spark rich conversations between the generations in a family, providing a connection between the past and the present.  

The traditions we practice as children give us a sense of self.  A child sees himself as part of a family who celebrates in its own way.  This is who we are.  This is what we do.  This feeling of belonging gives children security, as does the predictability of holiday celebrations.  Similar to daily routines, when our children know what to expect, they feel more in control, calmer, and safer. 

Traditions are not only about holidays.  Many families create traditions around birthdays or other occasions. Traditions can be any activity that we do together again and again at specific times; once a year, once a season, once a month.  When I was a little girl, my family used to go to an amusement park called PlayLand every summer.  My parents would wave to me and my brother and sister as we went on the rides.  We would laugh with the thrill of being spun around, and our parents would smile with joy at making their children happy.  When I became a mother, my parents continued the tradition and brought me and my family to PlayLand every summer.  It was so much fun to wave to my children as they went on the rides, and very special to watch my mother wave to them!!   Even when I became a grandmother, my parents continued the PlayLand tradition.  A special memory is the summer my dad had just gotten out of the hospital and insisted on taking us to PlayLand.  We got him a wheelchair to ease the burden of all the walking, but he used it to push the cooler!!  My dad passed away several years ago, but my mother still brings us all to PlayLand every summer, waving at her great grandchildren as they go on the familiar rides.

There is also a beautiful gift for adults who share traditions with young children, which is the ability to see those traditions in a new light.  As we experience life through the eyes of our children, many tired, old actions seem fresh and new.  A child's participation in a family holiday or tradition reinvigorates the adults around her to invest more attention to time-honored practices.  It's joyful to observe children as they introduce their own personalities, actions, and reactions to things so utterly familiar to us.

The traditions that we create for our children form the story of their lives.  Think back on the family traditions of your childhood, and the ways in which they are now part of who you are. How do you want your children to remember the holidays?  What are some things that you can you do to make those special times more meaningful?  Know that the family traditions you create now will live on in your children's memories and bind them to you forever.