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Building
Character with the Beads
At the
beginning of summer my husband and I enrolled our son in
a local YMCA day camp. Apprehensive at first, I
struggled with questions such as, who will look after him
throughout the day, and who will help him make the
right decisions for the choices he faces each day?
Within
the first week of camp, my
son came home with a string necklace that had a few beads
on it. He explained that the
different colors of the beads represented different "things."
I understood what he meant by the "things," or
at least I thought I did. After losing his first necklace
a couple of weeks into the camp program, I escorted him
into the camp director's office to get another string necklace
so he could begin to earn the beads back. The camp
counselor rolled off and cut a new string necklace for him
and laced it with a star bead. I asked why he started
out with a star bead. She answered something similar to,
"we always start the
campers out with a star bead." At the
moment I took her answer at face value and really didn't
think much about it. It wasn't until a few weeks later that
I thought about that starter bead again; I
quietly concluded that somewhere in the history of the Y's
camp program someone came up with this wonderful idea of
"helping" the camper get started along the path
of earning those coveted beads. Most every
day my son reports on his progress of earning more of those
wonderful beads. One day he excitedly reported that he had
earned the soccer bead. What a grand day it was!
Last
week the parents were given a day camp schedule and newsletter.
On the back page of the newsletter there was a short paragraph
about the beads titled, "ASK YOUR KIDS ABOUT
THEIR BEADS!" Here is the paragraph in full:
"Each
summer our campers are given a bead necklace. On a daily
basis they have the opportunity to earn beads as rewards
for their awesome behavior. Every
camper starts out with one clear star bead; this bead
means "I'm a star in God's Eyes."
If you notice a new colored bead on your child's necklace
ask them what they did to earn it.
Each
color means:
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- Black:
Good Sportsmanship
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- Yellow
Speckled: Camper of the Day
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- Purple
Speckled: Honor Huddle
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Each
leadership staff member and chief has also chosen their
own glass blown color bead to give to exemplary campers."
It all
made sense! The various bead
colors really represents character-building traits for the
campers. The color scheme is an easy way
to help the campers remember the character traits they exhibited
for winning that bead. While I'm not certain how long the
bead system has been in place at the YMCA, I am
thankful that someone in the history of the YMCA had the
vision and concern of helping children develop positive
character traits to help them grow into responsible teens
and adults.
Turning
our focus to this month's featured North Carolinian, I'd
like to introduce Karen Ponder
who is president and chief executive officer of the North
Carolina Partnership for Children. The
NCPC is the non-profit organization that governs the direction
of the Smart Start programs across the state at the county
level. I've heard many great comments about
Ponder. The most memorable one refers to her genuine dedication
and concern for the future of North Carolina's youngest
children. For her, "it really is about the
kids." After you read this month's Journal,
I hope you will visit the Smart Start website, read about
the program and the resources available to parents and teachers,
and then really think about
all the value this program brings to North Carolina's youngest
children who benefit from this program.
And finally, I hope you will become
an advocate of the program and also tell others about
it. In the essence of time, I've included some links directly
from the Smart Start site for your quick reference.
What
is Smart Start?
Smart
Start's Impact
Activities for you and your child
Brain
Development in Children
Raising
an Intellectually Healthy Child
Reading
to Your Child
Other
Smart Start publications
Join
Smart Start's e-newsletter mailing list
Next
month it's back to school with North Carolina's teacher
of the year, Wendy Miller, as our featured North Carolinian.
See you then!
Paula
Monahan |
A
resident
of
Raleigh,
North
Carolina,
Paula
Monahan
is
a
past
President
of
the
American
Marketing
Association,
Triangle
Chapter.
With
over
fifteen
years
of
experience
in
sales
and
marketing,
Paula
is
putting
all
of
her
learned
skills
and
talents
to
good
use
in
this
online
publication
for
women.
As
a
way
of
reaching
out
and
connecting
with
women
from
a
variety
of
backgrounds,
her
goal
is
to
create
a
networked
community
of
online
women
readers
who
value
inspiring,
insightful
and
empowering
content.
