When you're a bucket-filler, you make the world a better place! Using a simple metaphor of a bucket and a dipper, author Carol McCloud illustrates in her book “Have You Filled A Bucket Today?” that when we choose to be kind, we not only fill the buckets of those around us, but also fill our own bucket!   

Sometimes we forget this in our family relationships, at work and in the hectic pace of life.  Living within a snow globe of swirling responsibilities, demands, checklists and choices is stressful. It enriches our lives to stop and remember that life is a journey--not a race, a destination or a competition-but a beautiful journey to be walked, danced and enjoyed with those we care most about.

We are not meant to merely survive, endure get through each day but to enjoy and revel in our meaningful relationships. The world is changed by our example, not our opinion or words but how we live our lives!

So, this week, I challenge you to take time to let the snow globe settle. Make time to ask your daughter to tell you about her best friends at school and be present to her while she talks. Take your son to the hardware store and ask him to help with a project around the house.  Cook dinner together. Go for a walk as a family.  Use a mealtime to talk about favorite family vacations. Call your child that is away at college. Make a lunch date for the next time they will be home. Write a text or mail a card to your adult children just to say you are thinking of them. Visit or call your parents or grandparents.

Read “Have You Filled A Bucket Today?” www.amazon.com/Have-Filled-Bucket-Today-Bucketfilling/dp/099609993X and talk about ways your family can practice kindness in your neighborhood. Watch the YouTube video “Grateful: A Love Song to the World” together. www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO2o98Zpzg8  Challenge your family members to find other inspirational videos and Ted Talks to share with the family.

Buckminster Fuller, 20th century architect, inventor and visionary dedicated his life to making the world work for all of humanity. He said, "In order to change an existing paradigm you do not struggle to try and change the problematic model. You create a new model and make the old one obsolete. That, in essence, is the higher service to which we are all being called."

​We all can create amazing experiences, connections, and memories in our families and in the process, we heal ourselves and influence those around us.

All of us know that our life on this physical plane is finite and we don't clearly know when family and friends will draw their last breath. For some, it is sudden--without any heads up--and often, it is too soon. For others, death comes at the end of a life well-lived filled with many memories. As I am writing this blog, my father's life has just ended, and I am looking at ways to say goodbye.

My sisters and I had the luxury of knowing that the end was near so we could plan some final moments together with our dad and mom. At the end of May, we gathered in the assisted living where my parents reside and spent time together. We talked about shared memories and listened to our dad's end of life requests. We celebrated their 69th wedding anniversary with ice cream drumsticks--their request. And my youngest sister organized timeslots on zoom for family and friends to connect with my dad, sharing memories and saying goodbye.

I will be spending the next week together with my mom, offering support, sharing memories, prayers, and songs. Even though we all know that death is inevitable, we don't know enough about what to do at the end. Even those who work in hospice care have difficulty finding ways to say goodbye to loved ones. I pray that I can bring peace and support to my mom. 

This month, I find myself embracing both ends of the lifecycle with the birth of my second grandchild and the end of the physical life of my dad. The photos above are part of my many memories of him. If you have parents or grandparents who are still living, I encourage you to take the opportunity to talk with them about their lives, the most important memories, their regrets, their accomplishments, and their end-of-life desires. I have listed a few resources below that I have found meaningful.

What I wrote a few years ago for Father's Day
www.coachmyrna.org/blog/what-i-learned-from-watching-my-dad

Helping children deal with death:
www.coachmyrna.org/blog/helping-our-children-deal-with-death

Grief One Day at a Time: 365 Meditations to Help You Heal After Loss 
www.amazon.com/gp/product/1617222380
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Are you aware that children who know details about their family history--where their parents and grandparents grew up, how they overcame difficulties, what their hopes and dreams were as a child or teenager, where certain family traditions came from, how their parents and grandparents met, what their first car or house was like--are emotionally healthier and happier? Dr. Marshall Duke and Dr. Robyn Fivush developed the “Do You Know…?” scale, sometimes called “The 20 Questions,” that tap into different kinds of family stories. The questions were designed as a starting point for sharing family stories and the result was that knowing about one's family history gave rootedness in something bigger than themselves. The process of families sharing stories about their lives provides bedrock upon which to build our own future. The links at the bottom of this blog give more details about the research.

As a child, I remember visiting my mother's parents in Doylestown, PA where my grandfather had a shoe store. My mother told me that in the beginning, my grandfather would buy shoes in Philadelphia and sell them out of the trunk of his car before he opened a store. I was impressed with his entrepreneurship! My father, as the youngest of ten children, became his family's historian and has authored several books that provide a rich history of where I come from. As a teenager, I enjoyed wearing bib overalls, much to the amusement of my father. I learned that he was eager to put wearing bib overalls behind him when he entered high school. As the youngest son of a farmer, it was a practical thing to wear and often, the clothes were handed down because times were hard during WW2. 

Whether you are a parent or a grandparent or even a beloved uncle or aunt, the children in your lives need to hear stories of where they came from.  Below are some questions to get you started in the family tradition of telling your stories.

• Do you know how your parents met?
• What traditions did they have growing up?
• What was their first job?
• What was their favorite vacation?
• What were they doing/where were they living when you were born?
• Why did they choose your name for you?
• Where did your grandparents meet?
• What kind of work did they do?
• What kind of car did they drive?
• Who in the family do you most look like?

Resources:
Dr. Marshall Duke at Emory University: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jE_oaW-ezc
Dr. Robyn Fivush:  www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-stories-our-lives/201611/the-do-you-know-20-questions-about-family-stories

• Most likely, you have heard research that shows that children who eat dinner with their families have healthier diets, better manners, larger vocabulary, and higher self-esteem. They are also less likely to drink, smoke, do drugs, get pregnant, commit suicide, and develop eating disorders. But it turns out that it isn't about the dinner--it is about building relationships and strengthening connection within the family.

There are many ways to do this that do not involve dinner. Be creative and rethink the ritual!

• Can't get everyone together at dinner? Gather at 8 pm for dessert, a bedtime snack or just to share about the day.
• Weekdays too busy? Aim for a weekend. One family with adult married children and grandchild get together for a family breakfast once a month. This can be at someone's house, and it is a potluck, or it could be at a restaurant.
• Don't have time to cook? Try Leftover Mondays, Chinese Takeout Tuesdays, or breakfast for dinner.
• How about a Sunday lunch after church? Put something in the crockpot, throw together a salad and enjoy hanging out together.

In The Secrets of Happy Families, author Bruce Feiler shares a very cool “10-50-1 formula” for improving your family meals. Here is what it means:
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• 10 – Aim for ten minutes of quality talk per meal: usually, our conversations at the table are mostly about food and getting everyone fed (especially with small children): “Could I have more water please?” or “Mama, Max took my tomato!”. The quality talk involves reflecting on the day, talking about a topic, telling stories, sharing dreams and concerns and so on. That may sound like a time-consuming task, but according to research, ten minutes of substantial conversation is enough for mental and emotional benefits. So even if you are in a rush, you can do it.
• 50 – Let your kids speak at least half of the time: adults usually use up most of the ten minutes talking. But the whole point is to socialize with your children. So let them talk for half of the time. You can also practice your listening skills.
• 1 – Teach your kids one new word at every meal: “a large vocabulary is a great boost in life” – states Bruce Feiler. Children with large vocabulary perform better at school and succeed in life. Watch this TED talk by Dr Brenda Fitzerald on her fascinating research on this topic! www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8qc8Aa3weE

According to the most recent market research to sharpen your brain, we should be taking fish oil supplements, use turmeric, do exercise and puzzle books and invest in a language course. But SURPRISE—the easiest, cheapest and most time-tested method is…READING! It’s almost summer and any teacher will tell you that summer reading is critical for students to retain knowledge and skills learned in the previous school year. Students who don't read are at risk of falling behind their classmates. Parents and teachers can avoid this by making sure kids take time to read.  Need some suggestions on how to help this to happen? Keep reading.

The very nature of reading encourages the brain to work harder and better. “Typically, when you read, you have more time to think,” says Maryanne Wolf, EDD, director of the UCLA Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice. “Reading gives you a unique pause button for comprehension and insight. By and large, with oral language— when you watch a film or listen to a tape—you don’t press pause.”

What if you are (or someone you know is) a poor, or even a dyslexic, reader who feels as if you’ll never be able to read enough to reap these benefits? A book can fix that problem too! Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University studied children ages eight to ten who were below-average readers. One hundred hours of remedial reading classes significantly improved the quality of their brains’ white matter—the tissue that carries signals between areas of gray matter, where information is processed. The researchers’ conclusion: The brains of these children had begun to rewire themselves in ways that could benefit the entire brain, not only the reading-centric temporal cortex. (Reader’s Digest, March 2019)

So, what can you do as a parent to encourage reading in your home?

• Get your child/youth their own library card and make weekly trips to the library. Build in the habit of connecting with books.  Combine the weekly trip with doing something else special like playing at a nearby park or getting a treat together afterwards.
• Signup for summer reading programs at your local library.
• Model reading-the newspaper, a good novel, travel books for places that you want to visit, etc.  Have a basket for books in your living room or put them on a coffee table.
• Have a “Drop Everything and Read” time in your home. It could be a special occasion once a week or every evening after dinner. Gather together in the living room and everyone reads their own books for 30 minutes.  For those who don’t yet read, parents or older siblings can read to them or they can listen to an audiobook with headphones.
• For children and youth who struggle with reading, listening to audiobooks while following along in the book helps to support their developing skills.  One of my sons loved “Boomerang,” the monthly audio magazine for kids ages 6-12. www.boomkids.com/
• Reading, being read to, and listening to audiobooks broadens our imagination by stimulating the right side of our brain. Neuroscientists at Emory University discovered that becoming engrossed in a novel enhances connectivity in the brain and improves brain function. It is important to recognize that watching these same stories on a device (tablet, phone, computer, etc.) does not allow the imagination and the brain to be activated in the same manner.
• My children used to love to listen to an audio story as they drifted off to sleep. There are many stories available that are downloadable or available online. One of our favorite storytellers was Jim Weiss. www.jimweiss.com/storytelling-recordings-by-jim-weiss/
• Make reading fun, not a chore. Go outside,  spread out a blanket and read together. Find a series that your child is interested in. Read the books that movies are based on and compare the similarities and differences. Tie reading to playing online games--reading xx number of pages before playing a video game. Read or listen to stories about a historical place that you plan to visit. Be creative and think of more ways that you can get your family engaged in reading.
• If you are taking a family vacation that involves driving together in a car/van, I highly recommend downloading stories, joining Audible, or checking out the audiobooks on cd at your library.  Listening to books/stories together keeps everyone engaged and helps the miles roll by more quickly.
• For both young and older children, I love the books:  Children Just Like Me (UNICEF) www.amazon.com/Children-Just-Like-Me-celebration/dp/146545392X/ and Material World: A Global Family Portrait. www.amazon.com/Material-World-Global-Family-Portrait/dp/0871564300The photography is beautiful, it creates opportunities to be exposed to people from varied cultures and provides opportunities for numerous discussions.

“Reading fiction not only develops our imagination and creativity, it gives us the skills to be alone. It gives us the ability to feel empathy for people we've never met, living lives we couldn't possibly experience for ourselves, because the book puts us inside the character's skin.”  Ann Patchett