Marshmallow Trick and the Money Saving Pig...

Awhile ago, my class was visited by an incredible speaker who presented at least three hours worth of exercises counselors can use in group therapy. I mean, this wasn't some boring presenter who had us sticking toothpicks in our eyelids to keep them open like in the cartoons. He was from New Orleans and seemed to be a mix of a counselor and Matthew McConaughey in the way that he was all over the map and had a cool, smooth talking southern accent. We were all depressed when his speaking time was up, but there was still so much more for us to learn. He set all of his props (mousetraps, etc.) all around the room and had us choose which topic we were most curious about learning. On my way home that night, I started thinking that someday when I had time I would relay some of the cool things I learned that night and I figured I could start with the Marshmallow study...

The Study: Marshmallow Study (I chose this article because it is simple, but I also really liked the money saving, delayed gratification piggy bank! There's a link...)

Essentially, there was a study done on small children where the children were placed one at a time in a room with a marshmallow and were told by an adult that if they didn't eat the marshmallow, when the adult returned in 10 minutes, they would receive another marshmallow to eat (so two marshmallows total). I guess some kids didn't even make it through the directions before they were shoving their faces with marshmallowly goodness. Others occupied the 10 minute duration by singing to the marshmallow, licking the bottom and setting it back down, talking to it, and some, well, some just ate it.

Some time after the study, the conductors of the study did a couple of follow up sessions and discovered consistent results among the participants. The ones who ate the marshmallow (the instant gratification kids) had troubled lives, which usually meant divorce, jail time, lower income, etc. The ones who waited (the delayed gratification kids) had consistently better lives, which meant anything from higher education to longer marriages.

So with that said, I kept wondering when the speaker was telling this story, what my own child would do. I mean, she is half me (waits to spend a gift card until I am really, really sure I want something and waits 24 hours before making any major purchases when I see something I want) and half of my husband (can't stand the thought of a gift card burning a hole in his pocket). So I went home that night and decided to see how my daughter reacted to a mini-test. I didn't have marshmallows and she doesn't really like them anyway, so I used Cadbury Mini-eggs instead. Before I could even explain the directions, my just-home-from-gymnastics and wired little girl gobbled the egg up in one gulp! So then I thought "Well, that's okay, she didn't hear the directions and wasn't paying attention when I handed it to her" so I tried again. I set the egg on the table and explained the directions thoroughly to her. I set the timer and decided to start dinner. Two minutes later she had walked away, so I looked over to see how the egg was doing. It was still there, but it had giant chunks of chocolate taken out if it (keep in mind this is an egg smaller than a quarter). The sweet pastel coating had been licked and the faint blue color was all over the kitchen table. Two minutes after that, I looked over to see my daughter with her tongue stuck out as far as it could reach, slowly approaching the top of the egg. That is when I finally gave in and told her to take the egg. I figured out that she was set up to fail and that this wasn't the most scientific of experiments. She was hyper and tired. She was hungry and loves chocolate. Most importantly, she was my own child, so that alone means she wasn't going to do what I said. I think if I had to redo this, I would use another adult to explain the directions and I would choose a location that was more conducive to conducting egg experiments. Oh well! Anyway, it provided a bit of a laugh for our family and my daughter got some chocolate before dinner, so she was happy.

I did realize the importance of teaching delayed gratification to my daughter since she is definitely the princess of our family. I mean, when I lecture my husband for giving into her he says "...but she's cute!" So I think I definitely have my work cut out for me!

More Smiles...

According to the book Bluffer's Guide to Psychology by Warren Mansell (I know, don't ask, I was bored of the music on my iPod, so I listened to Jed Rubenfeld's psychological and somewhat fictional thriller based on Freud's theories of a murder mystery Interpretation of Murder, which led me to search for other such books, which led me here, sort of. So, anyway, keep reading...), Children laugh about 400 times a day, but adults apparently laugh only 18. Today I am sure I have laughed at least 18 times because my coworker is hilarious, but also because my daughter is the most purposefully (and sometimes not so purposefully) funny person I have ever met. So I was wondering if children laugh 400 times and normal adults laugh 18 times, if adults with children don't laugh more than a typical adult? I think you almost have to have a better sense of humor than average to have a child. I mean, anyone who has to stay up all night with a newborn, clean up spit up, throw up, and other such gross stuff has to have some kind of sense of humor.

So this made me wonder if adults with children aren't just more emotional in general than a typical adult. I mean, if children laugh 18 times a day, depending on their age, they also fall down and cry at least that amount. They also cry over toys, losing games, eating peas, etc. So essentially, they are living, breathing emotional roller coasters and I am just wondering if they are taking us along for the emotionally turbulent ride. I know there must be some reason that I am emotionally drained at the end of each day. So, I guess what is truly important is that the laughter outweighs the crying? In other words, there should be more ups in the roller coaster of life, than downs. So far, for me, there are...

Smile and Say Princess!

The Today Show just had a story recently about smiles in childhood photographs in correlation with the likelihood of divorce later on in life. Apparently the more you smiled in your childhood photographs can directly correlate to how well your marriage does. The theory, although there is nothing concrete, is that smiles are contagious and the attitudes of those around people who smile more are impacted for the better.

I thought this was an interesting story mainly for selfish reasons: Recently the new girl at work told another coworker and me that she thought my daughter looked "sad" because of the pictures I have hanging on my bulletin board at my desk. Mind you, she has never met my daughter, so she doesn't know anything different than what she has seen from those pictures. Obviously this is all about perceptions, but I can honestly say this never, ever occurred to me! I love my daughter and her smile, but artistically speaking, the pictures I love the best of her are the less traditional ones. I am soooo not a fan of awkward, cheesy school pictures that look like the child is being forced to smile at gunpoint. I do like pictures with my daughter smiling, but I especially like the ones that show her character, such as her "I am a princess and you should treat me as such" attitude or her fantastic sense of humor. That and it is very near impossible to get a candid picture of her smiling. When I point the camera in her direction, she constantly poses for pictures by doing her "pouty" look, or her "serious" look, or "surprised" look - you get the idea. So I guess, for the sake of her future relationships, we need to work more on her "happy" look. No problem! She has an incredible smile!

Another note on perceptions: I feel like I should have been more aware of how others view my daughter's pictures because this is basic human nature stuff here. For my work, I had to attend one of those personality seminars where they explicitly tell you that some 60% of your results will be what you think, but 40% is based on what other people think. The truth is, whether or not we like it, perception is everything. No matter what we see in ourselves, it does no good unless that is the image we are portraying to the outside world - often it is not. Often, we think we are this fantastic person that everyone should love, but in actuality we have idiosyncrasies that people really do notice. I can't speak for myself, because I am perfect (kidding, only kidding), but I work with people who definitely think they are much more agreeable and easygoing than they actually are. Anyway, it's all about perceptions and I am going to try my best to be more aware in the future!

The Power of Words...

So I was on the way to work this morning when the song "Creep" by Radiohead came on the radio. I was listening to a fairly edgy station, well, for public radio and I suddenly had a realization that I don't listen to normal radio that often. My husband has Sirius and I am usually listening to my iPod, kids CD's, or language CD's for my daughter, so I just don't really have the opportunity to listen to "normal" radio that often. Anyway...the point that I am trying to make is that while listening I noticed the radio station bleeped out the "F" word (Does Blogger let you say that word? Not sure) and I suddenly had an epiphany about language: We have the power to let language and words affect us. What if we just let people say the "F" word and other such words. Wouldn't these words lose their potency after awhile and, in turn, wouldn't these words lose the power they have over us? Why do we jolt when someone utters a swear word? Don't those "jolts" simply highlight the fact that these words have so much power in our language, which in turn allows the user of the words to have that much more of an impact on us?

I mean don't get me wrong, I swear my fair share, it's just that this fleeting thought I had about the power of language led to another thought about how this is true for a lot of things in life. The more we give in to these tactics that are designed to shock us, the more the "Shockers" will continue to get their kicks at our expense. For example, look at the way the media manipulates so many people into paranoia just for ratings. Or, what about teeny bop magazines that make little girls think they are less than perfect if they don't look like Taylor Swift? As long as we continue to let people get in our heads, they will. I mean, we might as well clean out some space in the insecure part of our brains and say "Hey, welcome, come on in." Why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we as individuals or even as a culture allow people to impact how we think of ourselves and at what point are we going to take away the power others have over us? Another thing... What can we do to change this epidemic seeping into the minds of people all over the world? Sadly, I don't know... I guess I have some thinking to do...we all do. In the mean time, I recently rediscovered a relatively simple solution from my five-year-old daughter: "I'm rubber you're glue, what ever you say bounces off me and sticks to you." I mean, I can't really see saying this out loud to anyone, but there's nothing wrong with thinking it. It could be a secret mental inside joke used to repel negative thoughts. Who knows, it just might work!

Fear: Just Do it

Okay, so I was given an assignment by my Brief professor and was a bit anxious about it, so I relayed these fears to my professor in an e-mail. His response: "Please see the following link," which led to an Amazon.com page featuring the book Feel the Fear...and Do it Anyway by Susan Jeffers. It was a brief counselor's very brief way of telling me to get over myself. I laughed out loud at the e-mail because he is right. I mean , it's not that simple, but he is still right. I mean, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?

So with that said... Sometimes the things that run through my mind don't make a lot of sense, but yet they still keep me awake at night. I guess that's what happens when a person has insomnia! Anyway... Recently I was thinking about what someone said about genetics and how everyone on earth at this moment got here because our ancestors were a little bit sharper than the rest of the pack, but then I was wondering where we are headed in a world that is changing to less caveman and club your dinner over the head to a world full of computer techies and corporate meetings. For example, there are a lot of people who are afraid of heights, right? This makes sense because being afraid of high places is your body's natural instinct to not want to fall down and die, but then, how (if natural selection got these people this far) are there people who are not afraid of heights? So I was thinking that these are the people who are willing to take risks and therefore discovered new lands, new foods, new medicines, etc. So you have these people who are here because they didn't fall off a cliff, but also because others were willing to take a chance and lived to tell about it. So with the new world as it is, the number one fear is a fear of public speaking. Is this a relatively new fear? I mean, clearly there were not public speeches being held amongst the cavemen and dinosaurs. Even the cowboys, who may have had public speeches, probably weren't timid about getting up in front of groups, picturing their audience in their underwear. So where did this fear come from? How do we as a collective group develop a new fear, just like that? It happens though. I mean, for a more obvious development of a new fear, look at World War II. People were building bomb shelters, having bomb drills in schools, placing innocent people in concentration camps, etc. It was fear and mostly likely fear that hadn't existed previously, but this had precipitating events that led to these fear. Public speaking fears just sort of popped up somewhere along the lines. I wonder...I bet some historian out there knows the answer, but until then, I just thought it was interesting...

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Another thing that crossed my mind today was how the DJ's on the radio were talking about the website DontDateHimGirl.com. I don't know anyone on this site, but I thought it was interesting hearing all of the callers talk about their previous relationships who they have posted on here. It's kind of sad actually because it kind of tarnishes people's reputations, but at the same time, it makes me wonder how awful these people must have treated these women to want to put this person on here. Anyway, interesting stuff...

What I have learned from podcasts...this week:

As usual I have been busy, but I am able to listen to podcasts while driving or working out, so here is what I have learned this week, which mostly came from Oprah:

According to Rabbi Shmuley:
60% have the television on during dinner
70% of people answer the phone during dinner

• My husband does both of these things and I didn't grow up this way, so we are learning to meet somewhere in the middle. The studies done regarding families who eat at the table are astounding, so this is something that is important to me. I don't think he understands what the big deal is, but he plays along anyway. So Rabbi Shmuley has a campaign to make Friday family night, but I think just about any night will work. We use Friday as family movie night, but Shmuley seems opposed to any kind of TV or movies on this family night as well, so I think I will try for Sunday night instead. Friday is Family Night

The Coupon Mom was on Oprah's podcast as well. Some of the following sites were from a recent episode of the Today Show as well as from the Mighty Mommy podcast, but Coupon Mom's site seems to be mentioned a lot, so I think I will check them out. I haven't yet. Some sites let you register your frequent shopper card to get extra coupons:

• Couponmom.com
• smartsource.com
• coolsavings.com
• coupons.com
• shortcuts.com
• thegrocerygame.com

Another thing I learned about from Oprah was getting rid of waste and reducing the amount of trash you use, which is important when we have limited resources, so one interviewee suggested this site: http://www.freecycle.org/groups/unitedstates/ for getting rid of clutter and allowing others to reuse the things we don't use any more. One book I just read (Maurer: One Small Step that Can Change Your Life) talks about the Kaizen theory. Essentially I learned that one way to make a change is to think small. Due to our biological make-up, human beings are programmed to react with a fight or flight mechanism when they are given a daunting task to do or if they are confronted with anything their brains might categorize as being dangerous. The Kaizen technique recommends tiptoeing around this area of the brain (the amygdala) by using small changes to a new behavior. One particular method or example that stood out for me was the method of throwing away the first bite of a dessert in order to slowly stop eating as much. I also liked the idea of having the waiter put half of your food into a to-go container so you do not even know what you are missing, as well as the resolution exercises; specifically the one that talked about saving a dollar a day, which would eventually total $365 a year! Back to getting rid of waste though... the interviewee on the podcast talked about how you can just start with one thing, such as water bottles. One place to start is by buying the metal canteens from places like Target instead of buying water bottles. I did this a few years ago and have found that I am addicted to my canteen/water bottle now and can't leave home without it. I have also noticed such a huge reduction in my recycle bins just from bottles alone and I don't have to carry those bottles home to recycle anymore (although my work has added bins now too!).

Another guest talked about this site: ToyTips.com. She is a psychology/marketing major, so she has come up with a practical website regarding toys. I haven't checked this one out yet either.

Learning the Ropes:

I have always hated journaling because I always have so much to tell that I feel overwhelmed by the thought of writing it all out, so I just put it off. By the time I get around to finally writing my thoughts down, it becomes a novel. This has happened recently to me with this blog. I have had a ton of really fascinating (well in my opinion at least) things going on, but no time to tell it all, so I have just given up on telling anything! I do want to get my thoughts out though, just so they are not floating around in my head. Here are some...

Recently I went on vacation (which I may or may not talk about later), which was fun, but I also spent a portion of my spring break doing the ropes course to fulfill a requirement for one of my classes. This was a bit of a painful experience for me, but also enjoyable. The first day I was a bit jet lagged from my trip still and I had a poor attitude because of it, but I am hopeful this did not come across too much in our activities. We were able to climb the rock wall, which is something I love doing anyway, so I had fun. I went home though seeing flashes of swirling lights and felt nauseous, so I told my husband I was having a mini-stroke. He was less than sympathetic and told me I was too young to have a mini-stroke, so I resolved myself to simply laying in front of the television and watching kid movies with my daughter. Saturday I was feeling much more enthusiastic, but I still secretly hate get-to-know-you games, so I was actually happy to get to the 25-foot-tall ropes course.

Initially, we started Saturday morning by walking in and having ribbon handcuffs slapped onto us and intertwined with another person and were told to find our way out without letting the cuffs slip off our wrists. We finally figured out the trick (think small circles for anyone who is ever in this situation) and got out. We then had to figure out how to get eight of us across this small terrain by only using some small tools and three beams of wood. This took awhile and I felt really, really ignored by the team, but I was not alone. Here's the thing: I hate these exercises because the most logical people (I am not saying this is me!) are not always the ones in charge (just like life, right?). I am not saying the people who were leading us in the exercise weren't logical, but what a true leader knows is "the more input the better." Too often leaders don't ask they just do. So after we had gotten across the terrain the facilitator fixed the beams in a way that made our long drawn out process seem silly and inefficient. Oh well.

This is kind of how being in this group of classmates feels to me. I feel invisible and ignored a lot, but I am getting kind of used to this (sadly! ) and I am trying to not take it personally. My self-esteem has definitely been knocked down a few notches since I have started grad school! I was a little bit happy at the end of the day when the facilitator actually pointed this out to the group. She said I was "logical" and that things may have been easier if the group had listened to me. Seriously? I don't think anyone has ever stood up for me like that; even if it did make me want to crawl into a hole from embarrassment. I am sort of glad she acknowledged my feelings because I didn't feel as depressed afterwards! Okay, I will stop whining because I sound like a baby. LOL

Anyway... So the actual ropes course was fun, but a little disheartening. I am not scared of heights in the least, so I was really excited about doing the course; yet, when I got up there I was not as (for lack of better words) as good as I thought I would be! I mean, I am not a trapeze artist, but I thought I would breeze through it, but it turns out I have zero balancing skills, so I found myself kind of nervous about falling and slapping my head against a piece of wood. In my defense, it was pretty windy up there as well. I muddled through though and found myself agreeing at the end to jump off the platform on a giant swing, which was the best part! The swing actually makes you feel as though you will be yanked forward off the platform, but the facilitator told me to jump off to the right. I must admit I asked the facilitator like three times "Are you sure that I just jump off here? Really? You're sure? I won't hit my head?" I was never an expert at physics, but she tried to convince me to jump by telling me that the centrifugal force would actually drive me to the right and then lunge me forward and she was right, so it's all good! ; ) That was seriously fun and I would do that again a million times over. After awhile of watching the second group I also had myself convinced I would do the course again as well!

So all-in-all the experience was a good one and I am glad that I did it. I wish I had been there with my sister though because I know her and I would have had a blast and she would have been a huge support. Plus, she is a crazy daredevil!