Serving the people of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee
Shattering stereotypes
Celebrate differences, avoid labels to teach children to accept others
By Donna Pinsoneault - Special to Parenting
My daughter Laura was 9 when she ran headlong into her first gut-level experience with stereotypes.
We'd moved to Houston from Wisconsin and she was having a hard time understanding the thick accent of her Alabama-born teacher. In Wisconsin, Laura had been an eager student. Now she dreaded being called on. Luckily she seldom was, perhaps because Laura's Midwestern accent was equally hard for her teacher to understand.
A semester went by before Laura finally spoke up. During geography class, the teacher announced that the next unit would be about the Great Lakes states. "But we won't have to spend much time on it," the teacher said, "because outside of Chicago, there's nothing up there but cows and Yankee farmers." Everyone in the class laughed.
"That's not true," Laura blurted out. "I came from Milwaukee. We had stores and big buildings, schools and banks and theaters, everything you have here. I hardly ever saw a farmer."
As a result of her outburst, Laura was assigned to write a lengthy report about Milwaukee. When she finished reading it to the class, a boy named Billy said, "My dad went to Milwaukee once on a business trip, and he said everybody there has a beer belly." The class laughed.
"That's not true," Laura said quietly and sat down.
Stereotyping assumes all people in a group have the same characteristics. Laura's teacher used a stereotype when she described all Midwesterners as farmers. Billy used a stereotype when he repeated what he had heard about Milwaukeeans from his father.
Laura's experience taught us a lot. Our family had arrived in the Lone Star State, loaded down not only with our household belongings but also with dozens of stereotypes about what we would have to put up with from Texans and Southerners if we were going to get along with them. Ironically, it never occurred to us that in Texas it was we who would be the outsiders, labeled "Yankee farmers" with the funny accent.
Relying on stereotypes too often means making decisions about what people are like without ever really thinking of them as individuals. In Jesus' time, people were labeled "tax collectors" and "sinners." His habit of dining with such outcasts created tension between him and the people who were used to judging or labeling people without thinking.
When an inaccurate stereotype is used, it can be easy to spot. Like Laura, when we catch someone slapping an unfair label on a group we know well, we may be so moved by the misunderstanding that we seize the chance to respond with the truth as we experienced it.
But when we're the ones using stereotypes to describe others, the mislabeling is rarely so obvious. Our impression of a group may be coming from something so deeply ingrained in our understanding of the world, the stereotype seems entirely normal. So normal, in fact, it seems to be the truth. This is why teaching our children to avoid stereotypes can be so difficult.
My first instinct still, when driving through a city neighborhood, is to reach over to lock all the doors. Why? Because when I was a child (on the farm) my mother always insisted we crank up our windows and lock our car doors when we drove in the city. "Don't trust anybody in the city," she would say. "I heard folks will jump right in your car at a red light, grab your purse, and be gone before the light changes."
Her intention was to keep us safe. But her message was untrue and unfair. The fact is that decades later, even though I know better, I still have to work hard not to react to the world in the inaccurate way she presented it to me. That's why teaching our children to avoid stereotypes is so important.
"We used to say that we all had a tape in our head, a core of things we learned that gives us a sense of our environment and helps us to be successful in our culture," said Maria Borda-Weisner. "Now we say we have a 'memory chip.' That memory chip doesn't change. We can edit it or adapt it, but it's never really gone. The images are there."
Borda-Weisner, a Chilean married to a North American, is the mother of three adult children and a teen-age daughter, as well as grandmother to two. Professionally, she coordinates the Spanish language program in the certificate division of Saint Francis Seminary. In both work and family life, she advises people to recognize, question, and talk about stereotypes they encounter.
"As parents we need to be open and challenge our own attitudes," she said. "By avoiding discussion when stereotypes come up, we are just trying to go around racism and bigotry. When someone speaks ill of someone, we have to teach our children to ask if what they are hearing is really true."
John and Margot Dunn, members of St. Jude Parish in Wauwatosa, agree. They raised their six children to ask questions and to challenge cultural values that support stereotypes. Now adults, several of their children chose careers in which they can work with and directly serve people from varied cultural and ethnic backgrounds.
The Dunns attribute those career choices to two decisions they made consciously as parents. They encouraged exposure to other cultures through travel and service, and they emphasized the basics of faith.
"I always felt strongly about having the children attend church, whether they wanted to or not," Margot said.
"Even when they were older, we expected them to go with the family to be an example for the younger ones," John said. "We also expected them to earn money and to contribute to the family and to the church. We told them, 'If the Lord is good to you, you had better throw some seed back into the soil.'"
In addition, the Dunns never hesitated to take a stand when they came face-to-face with discriminatory practices based on stereotypes.
"I grew up in a mixed Milwaukee neighborhood," John said. "So it didn't make sense to me that my college fraternity would not admit African-Americans. I fought the national (organization) and helped get the rule changed."
On another occasion, when John was in the armed services, part of his job was to transport prisoners to a Virginia courthouse. "The guard who rode with me was a black man who had been decorated with dozens of military medals and honors," he said. "On one trip, when it was time for lunch, we took the prisoner with us into the courthouse lunchroom.
"'Sorry,' I was told. 'You and the prisoner can eat here. The guard can't.'
"I couldn't believe it! Here we were in a courthouse, of all places, and they wouldn't serve the guard. Here was a guy that had served his country well, was still serving his country. But he couldn't eat there because he was black."
"'If he doesn't eat, none of us eat,' I told the woman at the door. We didn't eat."
Stereotyping isn't limited, however, to racial and ethnic differences. Karen Konter, a parishioner at St. John Vianney Parish, Brookfield, had childhood polio and additional complications as an adult. She wears braces and sometimes uses a cane or motorized cart. Konter has dealt first-hand with more than her share of stereotypes.
Children, she said, are much better than adults at interacting with handicapped people. They often ask questions but are stopped short by well-meaning parents.
"It's easier to teach children about stereotypes because they are so open," Konter said. "Adults tend to shy away from you. They don't want to bring the subject (of physical problems) up or ask questions."
If you know someone who is handicapped, let your children talk with him or her about it, Konter advised. Or, when you see a stranger who may need assistance, address the person directly before you try to help.
"Don't assume they can't communicate," she said. "Ask them if you can help and how you can help them best."
With fellow parishioners, Konter is taking action to address stereotypes in her own parish by organizing "Spirit of Inclusion," a group that helps educate the community about what handicapped people experience in parish life. The group took advantage of a proposed renovation project to survey disabled people and caregivers about ways to involve more handicapped persons actively in liturgical celebrations. Not doing so sends the subtle message that certain people can't fully participate.
"One boy really wanted to be an acolyte, but he couldn't because we have no wheelchair access to the altar," Konter said. "His mother explained that, because her son is told 'no' in so many other arenas, it was especially hard to hear 'no' at church."
Unfortunately some stereotypes encountered at church can be even more subtle. Like Jesus, people need to be challenged to interact with others with whom they're not familiar or don't think they will like. Children need to be shown that they can change how they think about people by seeing them as individuals instead of as part of a group. Even stereotypical understanding of God may need challenging.
In her office at the seminary, Borda-Weisner has pictures of Mary, mother of Jesus, that come from several cultures.
"Mary is not a white Mary in these pictures," Borda-Weisner said. "And we have to challenge our images of God as a white male as well as the way we pray. There are other ways to pray, other images of God, other ways to be in a relationship with God."
When encountering people with a set of meanings different from one's own, Borda-Weisner said, it's not necessary to change one or the other so that both can agree.
"We have to ask how we can make sense of both," she said.
Catholic schools, students keeping abreast in fast-paced world of computers
Margaret Plevak - Parenting Staff
Technology rules at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish School in Waterford.
Computers are used to create a school newspaper, from the word processing of students' articles to layout and design of ads. The take-home newsletter is now posted on the school's website complete with a listing of in-service days and field trip information.
Large-screen television sets on mobile carts serve as monitors in classrooms where, when a fourth-grade teacher logs onto the Internet at her keyboard, students in her science class can watch a volcano erupt. And downstairs in the computer lab that features 17 Power Macs, walls are festooned with assignments produced on color computer printers: detailed geographical maps of imaginary lands and essays illustrated with shadow-box artwork.
St. Thomas Aquinas was one of the first schools to apply for a grant from the archdiocesan Elementary School Technology Fund, according to Lou Whitaker, associate director of technology and computers in the archdiocesan Office for Schools. Whitaker believes the school offers a prime example of how technology can be used in today's archdiocesan classrooms.
While her office is collecting data from the schools on computer usage, she said a typical school computer lab contains about 20 computers of relatively recent model age and a mix of Apples and PCs.
"But out of 150 (elementary) schools, we go from A to Z," she admitted.
Her office required all archdiocesan schools to be online as of January 1999, but about 10 schools have not yet connected to the Internet.
Still, all schools have some computer capability and, more and more, computers are being incorporated into the curriculum. At Immaculate Conception Middle School, Sheboygan, students use a software program that simulates activities and documents of a business, giving them a feel for computer job skills they may need in the future, said Bob Krueger, technology coordinator.
Chris Braun, who teaches Spanish at Catholic Central High School in Burlington, regularly includes computer lab time for his students because he expects them to create an "e-portfolio" using Power Point software. Students tackle the textbook chapter by chapter, applying what they have learned in class with new skills on the computer to form a multimedia presentation. In their text's first chapter, for instance, students focus on who they are by digitally scanning their own picture and combining it on screen with a poem they have composed in Spanish that tells more about themselves.
Depending on the school, grade level and work assigned, students may spend anywhere from 30 minutes to three or more hours weekly on classroom computers.
Most schools offer a basic course to familiarize students with computer hardware. Some start as early as kindergarten, as at St. Thomas Aquinas, where children begin to learn computer terminology and build dexterity with a mouse, according to Carol Ewald, technology director.
But Ewald noted that keyboarding classes - which have replaced the old typing classes of 10 or 15 years ago - offered as electives at the high school level may draw fewer students. By the time students reach those grades, many teens already have spent years in front of a computer screen, getting practice on home computers as well as those at school.
In an informal survey, teachers interviewed for this article estimated between 50 to 75 percent of their students had computers at home. Some educational critics argue that children with home computers have an educational edge on those without, but teachers say they try to give each student enough computer time in class.
"Quite a few of the kids are coming in knowing about programming and multi-media projects, but I think of lot of them use the computer for quick word processing, surfing the net or playing games," said Elaine Adam, technology coordinator at Catholic Central. "As far as getting anything more in-depth, I don't think that's learned at home."
Chris Kielhofner, a sophomore at Catholic Central may be a bit more computer savvy than most of his classmates, with three home computers, a network, server and work station where he edits music for his disc jockey shifts at the high school's radio station.
More typical may be Becky Reilly, also a sophomore at Catholic Central who uses her family's computer for homework assignments, research and e-mail.
Adam said some teens have even discovered websites that for a nominal fee, allow students to download and print papers they can pass off as their own assignments. She said one student had been caught doing that.
"I don't think those kids have a clue," she said. "They look for an 'A' paper and they don't take into account that they have been doing 'D' or 'C' work all semester."
Research on the Internet is carefully supervised in the classroom. In many schools, such as St. James School, in Mukwonago, passwords and codes are required to log onto the Internet, said principal Sharon Warsh, but besides that, children are never allowed to use the computer without adult supervision.
Most teachers agree students today are comfortable with computers.
Krueger, technology consultant for Immaculate Conception's elementary and middle schools in Sheboygan, said students there have chosen to skip recess for a chance to work in the computer lab.
Braun said students are usually eager to learn on the computer and using one often allows them to be more creative, but he doubts they learn faster because of technology.
"A computer itself isn't a good indicator of change in learning, it's one factor. It's another option for students, like a calculator, and it certainly doesn't replace the teacher. That's like saying a textbook would replace the teacher," he said. "Computers are only a tool, not the whole concept behind learning."
"Computers are not an island unto themselves, but they have to be incorporated with other types of learning," said Babette Montee, a fourth-grade teacher at St. Thomas Aquinas. "To be able to read and research out of hard-cover books is still an essential skill."
Teachers have grown comfortable with computers, too, although some principals and technology coordinators say a few still show resistance or fear.
Computer training requirements are left up to each school, and most provide some, either with an outside trainer, in local college courses or through their own lab.
Adam, at Catholic Central, who oversees a student staff preparing the school yearbook via computer, also offers teachers mini-courses after school on surfing the Internet. She hopes to soon be able to install grade and attendance software programs for teachers.
The computer lab at the school was installed two-and-a-half years ago, but Adam hopes to upgrade the system eventually with Internet access in all the classrooms and e-mail for every teacher. A "healthy" donation enabled the school to have a digital subscriber line installed, allowing faster transmission.
High-tech generally means high cost. At Immaculate Conception, Krueger estimated that labs for the elementary and middle school campuses cost about $25,000 each, for instance. At St. James, Mukwonago, the computer lab ran over $40,000, according to Warsh's estimate.
Catholic schools generally can't compete with public schools' budgets. Instead, they have turned to grants or discovered other creative ways to finance technology programs.
"If it weren't for grants, we just wouldn't be able to afford the technology," admitted Bruce Gorzalski, principal of St. Thomas Aquinas. He noted that proceeds from Market Day, a food fund-raising program, are also earmarked for a school's computer fund.
Some schools look to local businesses that are upgrading their own equipment and are willing to donate used hardware. Many others turn to technology committees, made up of parents and faculty, for help with everything from looking for the best software deals on the market to actually hooking up computers in the school. Such committees frequently draw up technology plans that serve as the basis for grant proposals. At St. Thomas Aquinas School, the committee even holds regular technology workshops for parents.
James Schnell, father of a sixth-grader and a third-grader at St. Thomas Aquinas who is a network planner for Ameritech, is on the school's eight-member technology committee, whose members also boast a program analyst and the director of network information systems in a Milwaukee corporation.
He found out about the committee at a school open house, and since he joined it almost two years ago, he's developed the design and engineered the entire computer network at the school, helped wire classrooms, and made arrangements for equipment purchases.
"(The school) has a maintenance contract for the computers, but it's limited in what it does," Schnell said. "In my job, I do a lot of designing of computer networks for public schools, and most of them hire all the work out because they've got the budget for it. Here, we have to be more budget-conscious and keep costs to a minimum. Still, we're pretty comparable right now to public schools in terms of computers, and I think all of our kids have an opportunity to be close to the same skill level (on computers) by the time they reach high school."
When it comes to computers and related technology, one of the biggest sources of funding for elementary schools in the Milwaukee Archdiocese is the Elementary School Technology Fund, a grant program started about three years ago. Applications are ranked by need, said Lou Whitaker, associate director for technology and computers in the archdiocesan Office for Schools and Child/Youth Ministries.
This year ESTF reached the $1 million mark in its distribution of funds, according to Whitaker. About $850,000 of that money came from its primary donor, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Support Fund; corporate and individual donations made up the rest.
The program has been applauded by principals and teachers alike as playing a key role in their school budgets - without such grant money, they say, establishing or updating computer technology in their classrooms would have been impossible. But many also realize ESTF isn't the goose laying the golden egg.
"The idea (of ESTF) was to bring as many schools as we could up to the basic level of technology," said Joan Feiereisen, director of major and planned giving in the archdiocesan Department for Development. "But there are so many needs when it comes to school funding, even help in getting kids to be able to get into schools."
Stretching dollars to cover this multitude of needs may mean that ESTF loses out to other projects deemed needier by the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Support Fund in the future, Feiereisen acknowledged.
Whitaker said other money is available to schools, including E-Rate, a billion-dollar federal grant project that helps defer the costs associated with accessing the Internet, and TEACH Wisconsin, a state-funded grant that covers some of the costs of installing and upgrading computer network wiring as well as training staff on the new technology.
All grants require schools to provide detailed technology plans. Whitaker's office periodically holds workshops on creating technology plans and submitting grant application forms. One workshop will be held in December. Call her at 769-3313 for more information.
A virtual world of information awaits on the Internet, where children can view anything from paintings in the Vatican to exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution. But among all the treasures is trash, including pornography sites and chat rooms dealing with sex and violence or peppered with obscene language.
Teachers, principals and computer instructors urge parents to lay down guidelines for their children on Internet usage in the home. Keep the computer in sight, preferably in a den, library or family room - not a bedroom. You'll be better able to keep an eye on what your kids are logging on to.
Establish rules about what they're allowed to do on the Internet. If you bookmark favorite or most-used sites, your children will have a resource at their fingertips.
Lou Whitaker recommends some of the following websites for kids.
Homework Help: www.startribune.com/homework/
Post a question and teacher-volunteers answer it (or provide a site that can answer it) within 24 hours.
Ask Dr. Universe: www.wsu.edu/DrUniverse/
Ask any question you like or scroll through the list of existing Q & As. Answers might take a while. Dr. U says she's swamped.
Ask Dr. Math: forum.swarthmore.edu/dr.math/
Answers to any level math question. Search the archives, or ask a new questions.
Pitsco's Ask an Expert: www.askanexpert.com/askanexpert/
A directory of links to people and web pages to answer your questions. Twelve categories and over 300 sites.
Neuroscience for kids:
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/neurok.html
Outstanding web site! A must for kids and adults alike!
- Resources taken from "Family PC," 1999; also check out its website: www.familypc.com for a categorized list of hundreds of family-friendly web sites.
Patricia Lorenz - Special to Parenting
I'll never forget the day I left my youngest child alone with a baby-sitter for the first time. Andrew was 5 months old and I'd been asked by my former employer, a local radio station, to emcee a fashion show in a neighboring town. I was excited about getting out of the house, being with a group of interesting women and having the opportunity to get back into the limelight for awhile. But on the other hand, I was apprehensive about anyone other than me taking care of my baby. My husband was out of town so I was forced to call on the services of a baby-sitter.
I started typing. I typed three pages of instructions for the baby-sitter. I told her when he needed to eat and what and how to prepare it, how to change his clothes and where, when to put him to bed and how. I discussed his likes and dislikes to the most minute detail of his wiggly little 5-month-old personality.
I presented the list of do's and don'ts to the baby-sitter who, by the way, was my only sister, a college student at the time. Now, nearly 20 years later, Catherine will never let me forget that long, ridiculous "Instruction Sheet for the Baby-sitter."
In my own defense, I was a mother. A full-time mother still nursing her baby. I was anchored in and so finely-tuned to his every move, smile, twitch, and coo, just as I had been with my other three children before him, that I was sure he would surely perish in the hands of someone even as fine a caregiver as my own flesh-and-blood sister.
Recently I received a letter from my daughter Julia who is also a full-time mother of two and pregnant with her third. She made the usual small talk, ending the paragraph with "Ahh, the life of a homemaker. It's a great job but I'll never get all the fame and notoriety of an "Assistant Marching Band Director at the University of Wisconsin" (the job her brother Michael had just accepted) or as an up-and-coming artist in New York City (her unmarried sister Jeanne) or as a writer/speaker like you."
Julia went on to say, "Oh well, it's a real job that requires a humble heart. No fame or headlines for me. Just dirty diapers, mashed bananas on the linoleum and many days spent in my pj's. Nothing glamorous about my life."
I called Julia immediately and asked her to help me define the problems and solutions of what I call the greatest travesty in America - the fact that we do not elevate full-time motherhood to the highest calling in the land. Instead we admire the super mom who not only brings home the bacon, but fries it up in a pan, peruses and makes stock purchases on the Internet, belongs to three women's organizations, jogs every morning, prepares a report on her laptop while waiting in the family van for her two-and-a-half children to finish soccer practice after picking them up at the day care center where they've been since 7 in the morning. That woman is Katie Couric on rollerblades.
We wonder how she does it all and still manages to look smashing in her black velvet dress on the arm of her husband at his company's posh client parties on the weekends. In reality, we know how she does it. Her children don't know her very well, that's how.
Women like Julia who have college degrees and worked for a few years before marriage and children, but who then stay home to bond with and raise those children, are often looked at with pity.
Julia talked about her job as mother. "On the days when I'm down on my knees wiping up spilled oatmeal and I feel that being a full-time mother means no paycheck, no vacation, and no recognition from a boss or outside source, I try to remember that what I'm doing is important work and that this opportunity won't last forever. In five years when my new baby is in kindergarten I'll probably go back to work part time and maybe full time eventually. I'll always be able to get a job, but my children won't always be preschoolers who need me."
Julia continued, "I often ask myself, 'What can I do to make this day more fun?' Sometimes when I'm out of diapers or baby wipes and I have to run to Target, I treat myself to something for the house. I consider my home my office and I have fun decorating it. Instead of spending money on clothes and transportation for work, I'll spend 10 bucks here and there on a new rug for the front door or on holiday decorations. It boosts my ego. Chris (Julia's husband) just laughs when I tell him, 'Look, honey, my boss gave me a $25 bonus today and I spent it on flowers for the patio.'"
The last time I visited Julia in her home I walked in to find her asleep in the big recliner in her living room. Her 9-month-old baby, Casey, was sprawled out on her chest and stomach, sound asleep. It was a picture of pure contentment. No rushing around. No panic to get a hundred things done before the big meeting at work in the morning. No stress. It was motherhood at its best. It was a picture of the most amazing, incredible, most important job anyone can do.
t was a picture of a woman raising her child, the way a child needs to be raised - with most of that child's preschool years in the shadow of the person who brought him or her into the world. It was a picture of pure love.
(Lorenz, who has written for national magazines since 1981, is author of the book, "Stuff That Matters for Single Parents," and a 365-daily devotional called "A Hug a Day for Single Parents.")
James Pankratz - Special to Parenting
This summer my son took a class. It wasn't remedial reading, math or science because, as his T-shirt proudly proclaims, he got straight A's last year. No, this was a voluntary class. It was an acting class.
Every afternoon for two weeks his mother dropped Peter off at our parish, where a drama teacher conducted the class. It consisted of a series of exercises that promoted imagination and improvisation. The teacher encouraged a wide range of personal ingenuity and creativity rather than directing the students to follow the script of a written play. In a word, he encouraged initiative.
Acting, like giving a speech, is an activity that strikes terror in the hearts of many. Acting requires an individual give something very personal of him or herself. An actor motivates himself to take such a risk by fooling himself. He says, "This really isn't me. It's this character I'm playing."
This bit of self-trickery provides the actor with the psychological protection to go out on a limb. And with an actor who is really accomplished, the audience buys into the happy deception, accepting that the actual character lives and breathes in front of them.
Initiative is the quality of doing something you really don't have to do. It's doing something extra. You could really get away without doing it. The world wouldn't end if you didn't stick your neck out here. The extra-credit school project, joining a team, creating a short story - all require initiative. Taking initiative means stepping out of the everyday routine and doing something new.
What stops us from taking the initiative? When I was a teen-ager, there was a phrase for getting unwanted attention ... like when the teacher nailed you for reading Popular Mechanics during history class. Your friends would say, "You got spotted out!" While you were trying to hide in a corner, some adult turned on a big, bright spotlight and pointed it directly at you. You felt exposed, embarrassed.
An actor makes a decision to step right into the spotlight. Each of the kids in my son's class probably thought "What if I stand up in front of the group and make a fool of myself? What if I goof up? What if the other guy or girl is better? What if I freeze?"
So ultimately fear stops us from taking the initiative. Fear of the thoughts and judgment of others. It's the belief that if others laughed at me, I would be devastated. But do others really have that kind of power over us? Suppose someone laughed, and I refused to let it stop me.
There's a story about the world-renowned actor, Laurence Olivier, and how, after decades of performing Shakespeare and other heavy-duty dramas, he developed stage fright. To combat his fear, he worked out a mental strategy to avoid peering out into the dark void of the theater audience and freezing with panic. Did he retire then? No, he kept on acting until the feeling passed.
On the last day of Peter's acting class, parents were invited to the big performance. Moms and dads grabbed their movable chairs and arranged them in a semi-circle in the parish activity room. A feeling of excitement and anticipation energized the dozen young actors and actresses. The teacher began with a warm-up exercise and then launched them into their series of skits.
In one skit, three kids improvised a family situation in which a child had to persuade an unyielding parent. When the actor playing the child gave up too quickly, the teacher coached him to keep on going.
The exercise I enjoyed most involved the children and the teacher sitting on the floor in circle. Each had a wooden stick that looked like a drumstick. The teacher had an additional stick, a green one. When the assistant pressed the button on the cassette player, the music began. While tapping the floor to the beat of the music, the green stick was passed around the circle. When the music stopped, the child holding the green stick stood up and presented anything he or she wished.
We were treated to some amazing poems, stories and jokes. When the same child received the green stick twice, he asked if anyone else would like it. There was always another child who volunteered to take it, including Peter. That was initiative.
What allowed the children to take the risk to reveal themselves in front of the group of adults? The key ingredient was safety. By his enthusiasm, engaging smile and gentle coaching, the instructor had carefully created a safe environment which invited the children to be open.
Actors often say a feeling of being safe is essential to their drawing from inner experience to create a compelling performance. A good director knows how to create that atmosphere on a set. Moms and dads who are interested in getting to know their children as they unfold, rather than always trying to dominate and control them, create a family atmosphere in which initiative can grow. The kids will feel safe enough to be themselves.
(Pankratz is a marriage and family therapist at Catholic Charities' Milwaukee regional office.)
Copyright, 1997 by Catholic Herald, Milwaukee, WI
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