Comedians Amy Poehler and Bill Hader met when they worked at Saturday Night Live. They talked to journalist Neil Pond about how their parents’ specific words of praise made an impact on their future.
Hader: “I grew up in Tulsa, Okla. I was maybe 5 or 6, and we drove past Oral Roberts University, and in front are these giant praying hands. My grandmother said, ‘What are those?’ And I said, ‘They’re the praying hands.’ And she was like, ‘Oh.’ And I said, ‘And at midnight, they clap.’ She didn’t laugh; I think she thought I was serious, because I said it very dry. But my mom started laughing so hard. And we got home and she told my dad and he laughed really hard and asked me, ‘You just said that, huh?’ That was a moment I realized, Oh, that was funny.”
Poehler: “What you said about your parents saying ‘That’s funny’ is important, because kids can tell when parents notice that. When a parent says, ‘That was funny’ and means it, that’s the kind of encouragement that can send you on a crazy, 40-year journey.
The human spirit responds to praise relying on specific description.
Eric Sondheimer wrote: “Myrna Rivera was a teenager herself when she became a mother. Now she puts in long hours as an office worker to support her family, and there is little time to rest, let alone collect her thoughts and write a letter to her boy. A request from her son’s football coach coaxed her into describing his character and her feelings for him:
“I admire your efforts to be a better person. I am happy to have you in my life, though I know sometimes I may get on your nerves, but I just want you to know that all your dad and me want is a better life for you.”*
Another mother, receiving the coach’s same request, wrote in Spanish, “I’m very proud. You’re the nicest kid I’ve ever raised and during hard times you don’t ever ask for anything.”
The coach passed out letters to all his players at practice one July day. “What happened next took everyone by surprise. For the next 15 minutes or so, wherever you looked you saw players sobbing—against walls, in corners, bent over in chairs.”
A family activity teaches young kids how to give descriptive praise
The Sprinkler Wand: Young children will delight in a wand with streamers hanging from it to sprinkle family members with kindness. Teach the children what can and cannot be sprinkled on each other. Practice phrases such as, “good for you,” “you did it.” Show them how to sprinkle appreciation in the form of joy, humor, peace, happiness, brain power, safety and love. (Conscious Discipline)
Tweetable: The human spirit responds to praise relying on specific description more than on a “good job!”
All kids are by nature creative. But if you have highly creative kids in your life, you might recognize these common traits identified by Carolyn Gregoire and Scott Kaufman, authors of Wired to Create:
an openness to one’s inner life
a preference for complexity and ambiguity
an unusually high tolerance for disorder and disarray
the ability to extract order from chaos
independence
unconventionality
a willingness to take risks
The big surprise
The big surprise in a creative kid’s imagination network may be that an openness to one’s inner life shows up as the strongest of all the common traits.
Child-centered spirituality nurtures the inner life of a creative child.
Here are some specific ideas for different age groups.
AGES 2-5
Praise originality. Turn off the talking toys once in a while and help the child make up silly voices for plush toys, action figures or dolls.
When an ambulance or fire truck speeds by, help children think of a way to express empathy in their own words to communicate good thoughts or prayers for anyone sick or hurt.
Book: Have You Filled a Bucket Today? Valerie Deneen suggests here that filling a kindness bucket is a creative way to visualize how the child’s actions affect others.
AGES 6-11
Mealtime game: Alice Honig suggests putting out 3-4 objects on the table; then ask, “Which one of these would you give up if you had to give one back? Why? What could you do with the other two things? Could you use them together? How? (Note: adults should participate as a player, not as an authority figure.)
Picklebums gives us Dress-Up Glasses as a way to choose to see everything in a positive or negative way. After creating the glasses, do several role plays discussing what “being optimistic” means.
TEEN
Suggest that they document their gratitude through art. What things are you grateful for in your life? Have you ever had a spiritual experience in your life? Document it through making a film, writing, painting, making a playlist of music, creating a collage, etc…. any type of work that represents these things.
Make something for someone else. You will honor those around you who support you. (Note: Both of these ideas from Fritz Perlz.)
What activities can you share with our readers to strengthen their inner life? Feel free to list them in the comments below this post.
Tweetable: Ideas here that engage a child’s spirit in creative activities. Click to Tweet
A grandmother in our blog community shared her birthday request with us. She asked her teenage grandsons (currently in foster care) for a special gift that she would appreciate more than any kind of present — a letter telling her how they feel about her.
She told them that the letter could be short or long, handwritten or emailed. With permission, here are lightly edited excerpts from one boy, meant to encourage each of us as we seek to do the best for the children we love.
Dear Grandma,
From Day One you have been there for my brother and me, never giving up on us. Even if we make mindless decisions, you believe there’s good in us. I couldn’t believe it myself a few years ago. Things have changed a lot between the last 4-5 years, for better or worse, but not you.
You’re still involved in our lives, still reminding us to strive for greatness. I don’t understand how you do it. I truly don’t. Your job as a parent is done; you raised two children already and worked more than half your life. Your hip is not what it used to be and you’re still able to come out to our football games and track meets. You really show us the meaning of family.
We live with people who care for us, sure. They have a role in our lives that’s important. The point is they get paid to house us and provide us with the basic things we need. You never got a thing for what you’ve done for me. It’s a small fact that goes without being said, but it makes all the difference.
I don’t need to remind myself of my situation or my past. My world has had pain in it, has had addictions in it, and it has had hate in it. I regret too many things I’ve done, things that shape who I am today.
But I know what kind of person I want to be, what kind of future I see for myself, and everything I have accomplished already wouldn’t be possible without you. I drive you insane most of the time, but nothing is stronger than the bond we have. Grandma, I will love you forever.
Tweetable: Ask & you shall receive. Smart grandma asks teen grandson for birthday letter instead of gift and wow!Click to Tweet
I received many expressions of sympathy after my mother died last year. One of the most meaningful (pictured) came from a child in my life. Her parents said it was her idea. But behind the scenes of that child’s loving act was parental support facilitating her idea to find its way into my hands (and my grieving heart).
The spirit’s domain
Most of us long for more harmony, unity, and kindness in our world. Intangibles like these flow from our innermost being and some of us sense the presence of God through them.
Show children how to lift a person’s spirit in their everyday life.
One of our readers offered an example from her family: While getting donuts at the local donut shop, Tyler and I noticed a homeless person walking through the parking lot. We were late to a baseball game my husband was coaching so we hurried to our car.
I looked at Tyler who was putting our leftover change in the console between the seats. “We should do something for that guy.” Tyler said “Why don’t we give him our change? It’s not much but it’s something.” Tyler gathered the change and walked over to speak with him and [lift the man’s spirit].
When a child shows us the way to lift a human spirit and we are humbled.
How can we amplify acts of kindness so children’s perspectives focus outward more often — on the gifts they have to contribute to the world? On the good they can do for others? On understanding the feelings and perspectives of others?
Tweetable:
Applauding adult involvement when children want to do good toward other people. See examples here.Click to Tweet
How we make the world a better place when we let kids do something nice for others even when it is inconvenient. Click to Tweet
What does spiritual discouragement look like in children? No hope for a way out of a tough situation? The faith (or nonfaith) they are growing up with not aligning with what they read, hear, see or feel in school and the world around them? Tired of rituals that do not resonate?
In the depths of their spirit they might hurt because of bad religion or no religion. Maybe a young person is seeking to understand new sensations that “something other” is nearby, hoping, if they focus on that mysterious presence (of God?), it will manifest itself in their life. Or maybe they’re running away from religion or it just doesn’t make sense to them now in their current stage of life.
One man I interviewed gave four ideas for encouraging discouraged kids.
I went to religious schools—one of them in particular stunted the possibility for spiritual growth in me by putting a crabby, nasty, angry, judgmental face on God. They masked God to the point where I could no longer derive comfort from him.
Then another religious school (it was Mennonite, which is not my own faith tradition) dismantled that false, ugly face for me. Through their gentle words and humor and fun and acceptance, they drew me back to the Shepherd.
I cannot overstate what a difference this made to me: If I had continued in the other school I can conceive that it might have taken many years to journey back to the God of love. There is a distinct possibility I would have never returned to a spiritual path that includes the Christian tradition.
Gentle words, humor, fun and acceptance
Our best friends and our favorite people do all these with us when we’re discouraged! It is the same with children. When we’ve listened without judgment to their distress or doubts and returned gentle words, haven’t we sensed them “melt” into the wonder of being heard and accepted? Humor can relax our discouraged spirits, and sometimes it’s just the fun of letting laughter wash over us that can bring refreshment and a wider perspective.
Tweetable: What does spiritual discouragement look like in kids? And the encouragement they’re looking for. Click to Tweet
Passing along spirituality to others can be fraught with many pitfalls and misconceptions. We must never try to force or convince, yet must still be open to those who are curious and seeking– especially when the seekers are the children in our lives.
Notice the approach this parent chooses with her preteen.
Recognizing spiritual development is an ongoing process, here’s a story about how one mom handled a difficult question from her 12-year-old. Your answer, and any alternative viewpoints you cite, might have been different, as you’d be speaking from your own beliefs.
“So Mom, do you think there’s a hell?”
The question came out of nowhere, as far as I could tell. We had a movie on and it was paused for a bathroom break. This is when my son decides to ask me about hell.
Although we periodically attend a Protestant Christian Church, I don’t have very formed ideas about hell. It is just not a subject that comes up much. So I first decided to see where the question was coming from: “Why do you ask?” “Well, Max from church said that people who are bad go to hell.”
Okay, I thought to myself, so the question is theoretical and not related to anyone specific dying. Now how do I answer when I’m not sure myself? Here’s what I came up with:
“Honestly, I am not really sure.
“I can tell you what I think, but I may be wrong. I do think heaven and hell exist, but I think that God would not force anyone to be with him in heaven who didn’t want to be with him. If someone didn’t want to be with God, they could choose not to be. Hell—I think—is the absence of God rather than fiery flames. Now some people think hell is literal fiery flames, and some people think it doesn’t exist at all.
“What do you think?”
My son then went on to think out loud about the idea of hell being so horrible, but also about the need to punish bad people, like Hitler. He seemed conflicted, and I could see that this conversation—like many other spiritual topics—would need to be an ongoing one as he thought through what he believed. I committed then to try to serve as a safe sounding board for him as he would think things through over the years. Then maybe in the future he would serve as a safe sounding board for others.
Tweetable: One mom does a good job handling her 12-year-old son’s question about hell. Here’s what she said. Click to Tweet
Comedians Amy Poehler and Bill Hader met when they worked at Saturday Night Live. They talked to journalist Neil Pond about how their parents’ specific words of praise made an impact on their future.
the praying hands.’ And she was like, ‘Oh.’ And I said, ‘And at midnight, they clap.’ She didn’t laugh; I think she thought I was serious, because I said it very dry. But my mom started laughing so hard. And we got home and she told my dad and he laughed really hard and asked me, ‘You just said that, huh?’ That was a moment I realized, Oh, that was funny.”
A family activity teaches young kids how to give descriptive praise
All kids are by nature creative. But if you have highly creative kids in your life, you might recognize these common traits identified by Carolyn Gregoire and Scott Kaufman, authors of 
AGES 2-5
AGES 6-11
TEEN
A grandmother in our blog community shared her birthday request with us. She asked her teenage grandsons (currently in foster care) for a special gift that she would appreciate more than any kind of present — a letter telling her how they feel about her.
You’re still involved in our lives, still reminding us to strive for greatness. I don’t understand how you do it. I truly don’t. Your job as a parent is done; you raised two children already and worked more than half your life. Your hip is not what it used to be and you’re still able to come out to our football games and track meets. You really show us the meaning of family.
I received many expressions of sympathy after my mother died last year. One of the most meaningful (pictured) came from a child in my life. Her parents said it was her idea. But behind the scenes of that child’s loving act was parental support facilitating her idea to find its way into my hands (and my grieving heart).
What does spiritual discouragement look like in children? No hope for a way out of a tough situation? The faith (or nonfaith) they are growing up with not aligning with what they read, hear, see or feel in school and the world around them? Tired of rituals that do not resonate?
Gentle words, humor, fun and acceptance
“So Mom, do you think there’s a hell?”