Katherine graduated from Joyschool. She had so much fun, and we had fun having the 4 other little girls in her class here every 5 weeks. Joyschool is a neat program, and I need to decide whether Sarah is ready for starting next year or if I will wait til she's 4. I'm looking forward to having some time just with her next year when Katie goes off to kindergarten. I might just enjoy the next year just with Sarah and then join Joyschool the following year. The year was so successful and the kids worked had, so we took them all out to dinner (Golden Corral, where else?) as a treat. Fun.
So, now we've moved into our summer schedule. Up at 5am each morning to read scriptures and eat breakfast, and then everyone is out the door by 6:30 to do outside jobs before it gets too hot. When we're done outside (by 9:30 if everyone works hard) we come in for a snack and then do inside chores. Lunch at noon, and if the kids have finished their work, the afternoon is theirs. They can play, watch TV, play Nintendo, read, take a nap, whatever. Russ and I figure if they work hard all morning, they have earned the freedom to choose their activity in the afternoon. We have a potluck lunch with friends at a nearby park every Tuesday, and a playgroup that goes to some larger, more coordinated activity every Thursday morning. Last week we went rock climbing and wading. This week will be playing in the Virgin River in Springdale, near Zion's National Park. (See our calendar here http://hurricaneplaygroup.blogspot.com/ ) Anyway, the schedule has worked out surprisingly well this week. I was pretty intimidated by the 5am thing, but I am amazed at what I can get accomplished before noon. As long as I get to bed at a reasonable hour (by 9pm), I seem to be fine. The kids are not finding it too troublesome, either. I put blackout covers on their window wells so when they go to bed at 8pm, it's totally dark in their rooms. After a hard day's work and play, they are asleep in minutes. Well, most of them. Elizabeth and Katherine are in the same room now, and we have to stagger their bedtimes or else we get giggles and girl-fights for an hour. Someday, they say, we'll miss those childish things. I'm not so sure. All in all, summer is off to a great start.
On a personal level, I have been reading an interesting book called Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely. The author explores how we humans think we are pretty rational in our decision making and behavior skills, but we are actually far more influenced by outside factors than we know. Although I have found what I think are flaws in his deduction here and there, I think it's fascinating and would recommend it. But the subject I want to touch on here is a study done by Bargh, Chen and Burrows where participants were asked to unscramble words to form sentences, and then asked to move to a different activity. Subjects whose unscrambling task involved words such as aggressive, rude, annoying, and intrude were actually significantly more likely to involve themselves in a (orchestrated) dispute at the next activity than those whose scrambled sentences included words such as honor, considerate, polite, and sensitive. The words they read actually primed them to a certain behavior, even though the task (unscrambling words) was the same for both groups. In another experiment, the same idea was demonstrated by asking participants to unscramble words that primed the concept of the elderly, using words such as Florida, bingo, and ancient. As the participants left the room after the experiment, those who were in the group that unscrambled the "elderly" words moved significantly more slowly down the hall. Just working with words that were associated with the elderly caused behavior that mimicked a stereotypically elderly pace. Working with words that suggested aggressiveness brought about aggressive behavior. I have been thinking about this quite a bit the last few days. What does this mean to me? What can I learn? The lesson, I think, is one that is well taught in the scripture and by prophets. We are greatly influenced by the environment in which we choose to live, the items/people/entertainment with which we surround ourselves. We like to think we are not, but even scientific experiments show we are. Mosiah 4:30 says,
"But this much I can tell you, that if ye do not watch yourselves, and your thoughts, and your words, and your deeds, and observe the commandments of God, and continue in faith of what ye have heard concerning the coming on out Lord, even unto the end of your lives, ye must perish. And now, O man, remember, and perish not."Even our thoughts affect our salvation. It's so hard to control thoughts, but this study in the book shows me that the way to control our thoughts and thereby our behavior is to control our environment as much as we can. It reminds me of the old phrase "garbage in, garbage out." Only you can modify it. "Less than uplifting in, less than uplifting out." I lament my lack of ability (lack of motivation?) to do better at the things I think really matter, like scripture study, prayer, patience with my kids. Perhaps I am priming myself to struggle at those things because I surround myself too much with the things of the world and not enough with the things of God. So this is my goal this month. To keep myself more unspotted from the world by eliminating some of those things which keep me in a worldly frame of mind (mostly TV, I think) and add more uplifting activities to my free time, especially my reading time. And I intend to make this a subject of our next FHE, so the whole family can be a little more aware of how our thoughts control our behaviors and how our behaviors affect others (because in a family, we are each other's environment.)
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