Personal Update: Meditation

I went to a Buddhist center to do some meditating the other night. I'd like to start doing that on a regular basis. I'll give this center a try for now. It's very close to where I live.

This particular center appeals heavily to "Westerners" (I hate that term but can't think of a good synonym for the context) and I was the only Asian there. This may sound like a superficial observation, but I found it bizarre... nobody was really sitting cross-legged! They all had monster foot-high pillows. I don't understand why sitting cross-legged is so hard. I think it's comfortable. I prefer to sit like that anyway if there aren't any chairs around.

This, on the other hand, is nothing but horrible torture:



I'm keeping busy this week with a ton of activities. We recently had a training session with a lot of useful parenting information. The trainer stressed the importance of always giving totally specific positive feedback. I've heard the advice before never to just say "good job" or "you were good", but I couldn't really outline it or give a good intuitive explanation to my husband. The training session nailed it. Now my husband is starting to use it in his tutoring. The refugee kids have a lot of emotional problems, obviously, and the specific positive feedback is especially good for them.

I also enjoyed the rundown of stupid questions parents ask their kids, like "what is your problem?" and "do you want a spanking?" The point was that you have a very limited window of time to draw on discipline techniques to get the desired behavior. De-escalate, distract, redirect... don't ask stupid questions or get into pointless arguments. It was very much a "Cesar Millan" style approach to discipline: the parent changes their own attitudes and behaviors before trying to change anyone else.