“Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine.” From short story “The Egg” by Andy Weir
1Infant-21
One of the funny/sensitive things about puberty is that kids can be the same age chronologically while being wildly varied in terms of development. Kid might be 6 feet tall in seventh grade or be a senior in high school and still not shaving. Everyone is self conscious, praying to avoid embarrassment. It’s all just part of growing up. Be kind to yourself and to your equally mortified peers.
11, 12, 13
Compete for the last meatball at Sunday dinner: Biggest burp, telling the best story, finished vegetables first, etc.
5
Gambling is designed to be seductive- Everything about casinos and online gambling sites is about getting you to hand over your cash. It’s a scam. Don’t fall for it!
15, 18
Talk about how choices become habits. Habits can become addictions. Describe how pathways are literally dug into the brain and it's very hard to change them once those paths are made.
13-16
“It takes about 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” - Warren Buffett
12, 14, 16, 19, 21
White privilege doesn’t mean that your life hasn’t been hard, it means that your skin color isn’t one of the things making it harder.
14
Shirts and pants don't go into the laundry inside-out. From now on, they will be responsible for turning their laundry right-side-out. Will help instill that laundry is not done by the laundry fairy.
4
Surprise! You’re not perfect. No one is. Do your best, but don’t expect perfection from yourself or any other human, young or old. Have compassion...We’re all in this together and we need each other to be kind and encouraging.
17, 21
Don't let the laundry pile up. This lessons extends to pretty much every chore: Stay ahead of it and you won't get crushed by it.
17
There IS such a thing as coming on too strong. Err on the side of leaving them wanting more.
15, 18, 21
Honesty without kindness is brutality. Kindness without honesty is manipulation. (That said, when anyone asks if that outfit makes them look fat, the answer is “you look perfect.”)
20
Book “Rainbow Relatives” is a great resource to be able to kindly, accurately and sensitively answer their questions about LGBTQ families.
6
Spend 20 minutes a day watching a show you like in Spanish (or whatever your target language is) with reactionary subtitles. You’ll pick it up in no time!
13, 16, 19
Remember when you’re faced with bullies, jerks and people who say bad things , follow advice from the Obama's: "When they go low we go high."
1Infant-14
Respect people’s boundaries / quirks. Someone who “doesn’t fly” may have fear of enclosed spaces due to anxiety or past trauma. Someone who doesn’t drink may have had a parent who was an abusive alcoholic. Don’t laugh, question or prod. If they want to talk about it, fine. Otherwise just accept their boundaries.
15, 21
Struggle is just part of the process. It doesn’t mean you’re doing it wrong or you’re dumb. It’s a key element of how we all learn.
11
The problems with pornography: When you’re young and have yet formed a basis for healthy and mutually satisfying sexual relationships, your brain doesn’t know what to do with that input. It becomes part of your brain, imprinted as normal or the way sex should be. When you’re older, the brain can see something that’s outrageous and recognize it and discard it. Also it’s incredibly misogynistic, will do horrible things for the way you see women. While some is fairly harmless and totally normal, even too much of a good thing is a bad thing. Too much of a bad thing is disastrous.
11, 12, 13, 14, 15