Nov. 2011 -When I'm 84: lessons from life.

This month, I celebrate my 84th birthday, so I hope you won't mind if I share some personal thoughts with you.
First, did I say 84? When did that happen? Neither I nor any of my friends who are in their 80s and 90s can grasp our respective ages. Time seemed to go by so slowly when we were young, and now it rushes by at breakneck speed.
Actress/singer Kitty Carlisle-most likely before your time-described it best when she was once asked how it feels to be in her 90s. She replied, "It feels as if I'm eating breakfast every 15 minutes."
It's true! Time seems to accelerate when one gets old, and every minute becomes increasingly precious.
As I look back, I see how some of my early experiences continue to affect my life today, and I hope that they will shed new light on your children's present experiences-especially those that you think may be difficult for them.
For example, my family moved 14 times during my first 19 years. I believe that having to deal with the painful process of saying goodbye to beloved friends and their families, special teachers and classmates, friendly shopkeepers, and even to the neighborhoods I grew to love prepared me to cope with loss throughout my life.
Also, when I moved to communities with people from cultures other than my own, I felt excluded until I learned to accept and respect our differences. I have no doubt that this engendered the comfort I now feel when working with people from other backgrounds.

Lemons into Lemonade
Parents today are light years ahead of my immigrant parents when it comes to raising children. I can recall only one time that my mother tried to prepare us for an impending move. We were leaving our comfortable four-bedroom house and moving to an apartment behind the storefront of my father's upholstery shop. My mother tried placating us with the promise that we would spend countless hours in a beautiful park nearby. As it turned out, the park was not open to the public, and we never stepped foot in it.
Most often, my siblings and I had no forewarning that another move was imminent. Our parents were too preoccupied with the hardships in their own lives to spend time explaining anything to us, so adapting to the change was left to us. We had to find out for ourselves how to deal with disappointment and loss, pain and transitions.
I found support and solace in my friendships, fleeting as they were. And though it upset me to be uprooted each time, the prospect of making new friends at the next new place was always very exciting. My sister, meanwhile, immersed herself in her artwork, while my brother either ignored his troubles or just toughed them out. Each of us, in our own way, coped.
But please don't misunderstand me here-I am not trying to glamorize my parents' hands-off way of parenting. I simply want to assure you that the more children do for themselves, the more self-confidence they build. But I don't mean to suggest that parents should do nothing. As parents, you can create the setting for your children to find their own answers while you encourage them, show compassion for their struggles, and trust that they have the ability to master their difficulties.
If your children can't get started in figuring out solutions to their problems, try brainstorming with them to elicit their ideas. Then, help them examine those ideas with thought-provoking questions such as: How will that work? Do you feel you can do that on your own? How do you think you can make yourself feel better? What do you think can get you through this bad time? Do you want any suggestions?
We all want our children to be happy. But when life hands them troubles, it benefits them more to triumph over them than to be "made" artificially, or momentarily, happy.
Accepting life on its own terms and developing inner strengths through their own trials and errors make life itself an adventure for them. Your faith in your children may be all they need to have faith in themselves.

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