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Here's Our Stories of the Month:
Through the Eyes of a Child
I have a 12-year-old niece who lives with me during the week so she can attend middle school in our desired school district. Her mother (my sister) is out of state in nursing school so I am practically her caretaker (along with my mother) and I handle all her school affairs.
She is in that stage of her life that school and homework and, ultimately, her grades were low on her list of priorities, way below friends and boys. She was doing very poorly in school her first year and I was partly at fault by being very hard on her. I have now started using the 3 s's of Yeses, the Forward Focused Questions and the 5 Tool Sequence to build her self-esteem, get her to acknowledge the issue and have her take responsibility for her actions.
I am so proud to say that she has made a huge change and I am now seeing A's and B's on her report cards.
-- Zoraya Lopez
Reviving the Spirit I Once Had Killed
Iowa winters are brutal. There were many times in a 2-week span that I would come home and clear snow from my driveway. I have a 12-year-old son who has always wanted to use our snowblower and I've always killed his spirit by telling him "no" - that he wasn't old enough.
After the Pathways seminar, I decided to give him the opportunity to try using it. I asked him if he knew how to start it and he replied that he had watched me start it and knew how to run it. He started the snowblower and took off down the driveway, pushing it. I could see the smile on his face as he moved the snow around. He now tells me how much he loves the snow because he gets to use the snowblower.
Most times now when I get home from work, the driveway is clear after a snowstorm. He has showed me that killing spirit can stifle personal growth and growth as a human being.
- Jim Darr
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