Winter Activities

Winter Activities

One of my favorite experiences so far at KRMS has been Winter Activities. Research overwhelmingly touts the benefits of physical activity and engaging with the outdoors, especially for kids. We are so fortunate that the tradition of Winter Activities is one that has lasted through the years and is supported by the schools, community, and the school board. 

During Winter Activities, students at KRMS have the opportunity to select from a variety of activities, indoors and out, such as skiing, snowboarding, ice fishing, snowshoeing, ice skating, outdoor “hodgepodge,” indoor “hodgepodge,” cooking, board games, yoga, and “winter zen.”

I have spent the last three weeks at Mt. Sunapee with our skiers and snowboarders. Each Tuesday, we load four busses with 165 excited students and head for the mountain. I am so impressed with the level of comfort and talent of many of our students and proud of the students who are trying a new sport for the first time. 



Some of my best moments on the mountain and some of the biggest smiles I’ve witnessed have been watching students, primarily from our Gateway program, in the New England Healing Sports Association (NHESA) program. NHESA is a non-profit program staffed by volunteers that provides adaptive ski and snowboard lessons to people of all ages with disabilities. The instructors utilize specialized equipment to provide a safe, and structured environment for our students to engage with the activities. You can learn more about the amazing work NHESA does at their website: http://nehsa.org/.

I would love to learn more about the history of Winter Activities and the Kearsarge Regional School District. If you know the story of how it all got started, please send me an email: acostanzo@kearsarge.org.

Self-Control with Technology

At a recent staff meeting, we had a mini-lesson on Mindfulness from veteran teacher Ms. Heidi Clarke.  Ms. Clarke uses mindfulness techniques on a daily basis with her 6th graders and has noted a reduction in the number of discipline issues and an increase in the amount of time on task.

A few days after the meeting, Heidi shared a video with us called Why Aren't We Teaching You Mindfulness.  The video is 14 minutes long.  It is totally worth your time.

Please view it and then come back and finish reading this post.

In the video, AnneMarie Rossi mentions that the most important factor in future success is self-control.  She talks about the fact that the ability to focus on one thing at a time is a skill and it takes practice.  Being able to focus doesn't happen automagically.  

Another really interesting thing Ms. Rossi said was:

"Mindfulness is the space between our emotions 

and our reactions 

so that we can think first."

From a technology perspective, this made me think of email flames.  You know what I mean, it's those snarky, sarcastic emails we fire off because we are angry.  Mindfulness would be waiting 24 hours before responding to an email.  Often times, it's a misunderstanding that is now worse because of the angry response.  The 24 hour waiting period would give us that time we need to think.

Here are some strategies:

1.  Craft your email but choose to leave it as a draft.  This allows you to vent and get it out of your system.  Then wait 24 hours, read it again and see if it really needs to be sent.

2.  Wait 24 hours and then speak to the person face to face the next day.  If you can't face the person to say what you want to say, then it probably shouldn't be said.  

3.  Filter!  Not everything you think in your head has to actually be said out loud.

4.  Set up an undo send on your email.  In Gmail, you can undo the send for up to 30 seconds.  This isn't much time to think but it's the best Gmail offers at the present time.

Something else I thought of were some chrome extension that you can put on your computer to assist you in staying focused on the task at hand.  Richard Byrne wrote this excellent post on staying focused.  He recommends StayFocused and ReCall Study Time as options.  Both of these chrome extensions allow the user to set up some restrictions on browsing social media or other websites for a specific amount of time with the idea that the person would focus on completing a task while the websites chosen by the user are blocked.  What I like about this is that the user is the one who chooses to set up the blocking.  This is an important step in learning self-control.

Apple came out with something called Screen Time in iOS 12.  This allows parents to set up screen time limits for themselves and their children on iPods, iPhones and iPads.  Link here to learn how to set this up on your iPhone.  Sometimes children need help with self-control by having the restrictions set by parents.

Technology isn't the issue.  The issue is our inability to control our use of technology.  It's important to recognize that self-control around technology use is going to take lots of practice.  As a parent, you have to be the leader.  This means you have to be a role model and control your own use of technology.  It also means that you have to help set boundaries or family rules and then enforce these rules.  This is not going to make you very popular, but parenting isn't a popularity contest.  

When I was growing up, my mom had a rule that was called:  "9 to 9 and never on Sunday."  This rule was related to the use of the telephone.  Full disclosure, this was back when the phones were 

rotary phones and were not cordless.

If the phone rang after 9 PM, I would be in a panic in my bedroom hoping the call was not for me.  My mom would not give me the easy way out.  If the call was for me, I would have to take the phone and tell the person on the other end that I was not allowed to talk on the phone after 9 PM.  This resulted in some awkward moments the next day in school.  I was in high school for goodness sake.  I was frustrated back in the day, but I have come to cherish that memory of learning self-control.  My mom did not waver in her conviction that families should have quiet time in the evenings and quality time together on Sundays.

This rule stuck with me for over 40 years and when my own phone rings after 9 PM, it makes me sad that people haven't learned to respect this quiet time that everyone should have.  Since I have caller ID, I simply don't answer.

The Battle of Screentime v Sleep ... and guess who is losing

So, let me begin by admitting, I am a worrier.  Always have been, and I expect, always will be.  These days we call it anxiety, but when I was growing up, I was just considered a big worrier.  My mom said it's because I care very much about things, which made me feel like it was a good thing!  These days I worry a lot about ... your children (and my children).  I worry that our digital age is wreaking havoc on our young people's hearts and minds, and I get incredibly overwhelmed in trying to figure out how to make it better.  It is an issue that is waaaaaay bigger than any one person, so I am trying to look at how we at KRMS can help in any small way possible.  I feel that a big step in the right direction was our updated cellphone policy that I spoke about in my last blog post on December 3 .... if you missed it, be sure to check it out.  My next focus is on the issue of cellphones in our children's bedrooms, so here I go.

Sleep.  Sweet, beautiful, brain growing, re-energizing, immune boosting, stress relieving, hormone balancing, cell repairing sleep.  Our children are not getting enough of it, and it is affecting their well-being in all kinds of ways. (Please look here to read about what I, as a School Counselor, am seeing as a result of sleep deprivation.)  Let's start by acknowledging that a middle schooler's sleep pattern is in flux -- when boys and girls hit puberty, their biological clock shifts to a preference for evenings, and this shift will last until about age 20.  During this phase, melatonin production (the sleep hormone) is produced later in the evenings - usually around 10:30 or 11:00, and remains elevated later in the mornings, which is why adolescents are so difficult to wake up!  To compare it to us adults, an adolescent waking up at 6:30am is comparable to an adult having to wake up at 4:30am or earlier.  (I have more compassion for my teenage boys already.)  Our middle schoolers need from 9 to 11 hours of sleep a night, and from the conversations I have with students, most kids are getting at least 2 hours less than that a night.  

The biological clock shift is certainly a culprit, but I am concerned about the effect that screen time has on our kids' sleep habits. It's not just the irresistible pull of Instagram, SnapChat, TickTock, Twitter, YouTube, etc, etc that is keeping our kids up later, it is the blue light that is emitted from our electronics that is a problem as well.  When the blue light frequency hits receptors in the eye, a signal is sent to the brain which suppresses the production of melatonin and keeps a child from feeling tired.  I know many students who take melatonin supplements to help them fall asleep and stay asleep ... maybe we can help their bodies produce it more effectively to begin with by limiting their exposure to screens in the evenings.  Kids are up at all hours of the night chatting, checking social media, or using the internet, unable to limit themselves from these distractions, and creating a stimulating environment which inhibits their ability to fall asleep.  If you have not done so already, it is time to develop some enforceable limits around technology and sleep.  

A very reasonable and easy-to-enforce rule is to have your child charge her phone (or other device) overnight outside of the bedroom.  I know many families who have a family charging station in the kitchen where everyone parks their respective devices for the evening.  Not only does this keep them from the middle-of-the-night texting that can really throw off a person's sleep, but it keeps that blue light from emitting in their room.  You are likely to hear the argument that they need to listen to music to fall asleep, or they need it for their alarm ... but honestly, it was not that long ago that we had to ability to listen to music or set an alarm without the invention of the smartphone.  I'm willing to bet you have that old school technology lying around somewhere in your house, and if not, it's awfully cheap nowadays.  It's definitely worth it to get an alternative in your child's room.  

All of that being said, any top-down directive will likely be met with resistance.  It is always a good idea to involve your middle schooler in setting up these new rules around a sleep plan, keeping in mind that you cannot force your child to sleep.  Having a conversation about the bigger picture - what kinds of things your child wants to achieve in life, and how those things are fueled by sleep - can bring you together on what is reasonable and why.  And maybe, just maybe, you can work towards making bedrooms device-free altogether :-) 

There is a Tech Talk Tuesday blog post on this same topic that you can read here.  Sleep deprivation is such a serious concern that I am seeing so much more of ... please talk to me if you need help in addressing this issue with your child.  And please share any ideas or successes you may have in the Comments section!!  Thank you!