“We Had Fun”

 by Sarah Hiner

When I’m not helping adults unlock the happiness inside of them, I tutor young children helping them with their reading, math and other homework, although frankly, my primary objective is to stimulate and support their curious minds to help build their self-esteem.  I am proud of my ability to adapt to individual interests and personalities such that I will read about basketball stars with “Steven” and play rhyming games with “Sandra.” The more kids feel my special attention and know that I can incorporate their interest into the lesson, the more engaged they are, the more successful they are and the prouder they are.  

Of course, adults want the same thing right? We want people to pay attention to us. We want to focus on the things that interest us. And, we want to be successful. Experiencing this creates a fabulous cocktail of hormone release: Dopamine for accomplishment, Oxytocin for connection and serotonin for the confidence of a job well done. It’s the happiness trifecta!

But what do you do when you don’t win the happiness trifecta? When the topic is boring... or intimidating When you fear you won’t succeed. And when you feel like you’re on your own on this little journey?

You flip it. Step outside of yourself and help someone win their trifecta, not to compromise your own desires, but taking a break from your own situation gives your system a refresh from its frustrations and fears. In addition, you get to experience the joy and connection that comes through giving.

Back to my tutoring… As I said, I work really hard to be sure that each kid learns and grows with every session, even if what they learned that day is more a life lesson than spelling or arithmetic.  

One of my kiddos, “Angela,” is a super smart six year old who LOVES to read but doesn’t love math so much. We have a great relationship and she’s usually excited to see me and quite pleased that I read higher level chapter books with her and play games that are not overtly mathematical (though it’s definitely buried in there). That said, last week she was not happy about doing anything… everything was boring or simply not interesting to her. Perennial boredom is something I recall from when my daughters were in middle school but now I see it in many elementary aged kids... everything is boring and all they want to do is lay around and watch YouTube or play video games. 

A whole conversation ran through my head as I felt the stress hormone cortisol rise inside of me… “oh geez, what are we going to do now? I can’t force her to do anything. I don’t want to waste her time or mom/dad’s money. How can I get her engaged? It’s vital that I get her engaged because I don’t want her to go down the path of a bored smart kid who checks out. This is a vital moment!”  As you can see my own worry-head took over as her little life flashed before my eyes. Having kids lose their sense of curiosity and exploration is incredibly frightening to me as we look at a generation suffering from an array of emotional and behavioral challenges.

Since I couldn’t force, I started a conversation:

“What are you interested in?” Nothing.

“What do you like to do?” Nothing.

“What can we do that would excite you?” I don’t know.

Hmmmm brick walls.

“What do you wonder about?” What do you mean?

“ I know that your mind is constantly moving and observing. What do you wonder about? Like I wonder why the birds are able to fly…  or…  I wonder why some things puff up in the oven and other things don’t…”

I then explained that I am there each week to help her explore the world and that we don’t have to read or do math, but we could do whatever interests her, since she does reading and math in school.   

I could see the lightbulb switch on in her head. Her face became animated as she told me about something she was wondering about: if a little parachute toy could support dropping an egg safely to the ground… and what if it were a hard-boiled egg vs a raw egg. Bingo! We decided that the next day we would do her science experiment.

The next day I came prepared with two raw eggs that weighed the same and my kitchen scale. If we were going to do a science experiment then let’s start at the beginning. We re-weighed the eggs, then boiled one to see if the weight changed (it didn’t). Andrea then helped engineer a small plastic bag filled with cotton balls to attach the egg to the parachute. After testing the concept with a plastic toy in the bag, we inserted the eggs, went to the outdoor stairs and started dropping the parachute, measuring the time from drop to ground and checking on damage to the eggs. 

Andrea was so excited as she ran down to inspect the parachute and egg each time it landed. She was proud of the experiment that she created. She couldn’t wait to share our findings with her parents. And, most importantly, she was pleased that she was listened to.  

How do I know the experiment was a success? The smile on her face as she lifted the parachute from the ground... and the note that she wrote in my Angela-notebook that read: “We Had Fun.”

Yes... it was fun. Fun doing the experiment. Fun watching how a young brain thinks and develops. But, the biggest piece of fun for me was in the confirmation of my ability to shift the mood of a person or situation simply by shifting focus off of my own agenda and onto figuring out what makes them happy. Sometimes we get the choice and control. But sometimes more fun can be had by dancing to the music of those we love.