What I Learned From Dr. Tal Ben-Shahar: Assume the best. Rest. Appreciate your friends. And be grateful.

Goldie Portolos Nam (Parent of Tyler, 6th)

On Tuesday, October 26th, Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph.D. spoke on “Positive Psychology: the Science of Happiness” to a crowd of over 250 San Francisco parents as part of the SPEAK speaker series. I am proud to be a founding member and chair of SPEAK which is a coalition of San Francisco independent schools that have joined resources to enhance parent education. The San Francisco School is a member of SPEAK.

Dr. Ben-Shahar told us that his favorite song, believe it or not, is Whitney Houston’s, "I Will Always Love You", and his second favorite song is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Now he asked us to imagine them being played together at the same time. A Cacophony of noise is what you get, he exclaimed! And this is what we do to ourselves every day when we multi-task. We inflict it not only on ourselves but on our families, friends and co-workers. Multi-tasking is stressful to the point of causing illness. 45% of college students said that they experienced stress to the point of severe depression and 94% reported that they are overwhelmed by all they had to do. Are they the extreme at multi-tasking? It turns out, yes.

Stress is not actually the problem in and of itself. Stress is often good, it helps motivate us, helps get things done, it is a survival instinct, and it can make us stronger. The problem lies in the lack of recovery time. We need to recovery from the cacophony. J.P. Morgan famously said, “I can do the work of a year in nine months, but not in twelve.” We need built in recovery time.

The levels of recovery are:

• Micro: minutes, hours, mini-breaks. Three deep breaths, yoga, meditation
• Mezzo: getting a good night sleep, taking a day off now and again
• Macro: time off. Vacation. Retreat. Real time away.

What does it truly mean to be happy?

1. List what is really important. Be ready and willing to give something up in your life that is too hectic. It is better to have quality time with your family than to be shuttling kids from one activity to another.
2. Aim for the “good enough life.” Don’t chase perfect. Ask yourself “Is this good enough?” It usually is.
3. Set aside a no email time when you are with your family. Stay away from checking email all day long and especially in between important tasks. Be careful with your emails. Don’t use them as a weapon. Don’t share personal information on the social network sites.
4. Exercise. No excuses. It is essential to health and wellbeing. The natural endorphins we get while exercising has been proven to be more effective than depression medication in the long run.
5. Time affluence. Make time to play, time to reflect, and time to keep a gratitude journal and time to have family meals. When a child says, “I’m bored” be a role model for how to use quiet time to nourish ourselves. Get bored with dignity.
6. Give yourself permission to be human. Don’t hide your emotions as this closes us off.
7. Breathe. Deeply. Change your focus. When coming to a red light use that time to take three deep breaths. See the difference it makes.
8. Simplify. Do less not more. Reduce multi-tasking. We lose 10 IQ points when we are emailing while doing other tasks that require concentration.
9. We are more creative and more productive when we reduce multi-tasking and have greater satisfaction in what we do and enjoy it more.

His many books on happiness sold out at the SPEAK event. If you want one, just Google him and go to his website. Then start doing the things he recommends for you. After all, don’t you want to be happy?

Visit SPEAKsf.org for upcoming events. Hope to see you at the next SPEAK event, with Alfie Kohn!

Elementary Parent Education Night – This Wednesday, November 10th
Please join us at the Elementary Parent Education Night tomorrow, Wednesday, November 10th from 7 to 8:30 PM! The primary focus of this evening is the TERC Investigations Math Curriculum. If you need childcare on campus, please sign up by 6 PM tonight at the Front Desk.

Conference Sign Ups

• North Class DOLPHINS Parent Teacher Conferences: Please sign up on the Parent Portal this week. Registration will close Friday.
• South Class ALLIGATORS Parent Teacher Conferences: Please sign up on the Parent Portal this week. Registration will close Friday.
• Elementary Parent Teacher Conferences: Please sign up on the Parent Portal this week. Registration will close Friday.

First SFS White Affinity Group Meeting of the Year
Uprooting Racism: How White People Can Work for Racial Justice, by Paul Kivel, is our reading for this year. Our first meeting is tomorrow, Wednesday, 6:15 PM, at Hazel White and Matt Plut's home (513 Scott Street, between Hayes and Fell). The group is open to all white-identifying staff and parents. Our focus is on whiteness as a racial category, our own whiteness and privilege. Our goals are to practice talking about racism and privilege to help our children understand them, and to figure out how best to take our place in a multiracial community. Call Hazel (437-9826) or Paloma at SFS, for more information.

8th Grade Annual Thanksgiving Pie Sale
Announcing the annual 8th Grade Thanksgiving Pie Sale! New this year, we are taking pre-orders online. To order your pie or dessert, please visit http://bit.ly/borbZb. All proceeds from this sale will help fund the Class of 2011 graduation and other 8th grade end-of-year activities. Should you have any questions, please contact bake sale coordinator Elsa Ceballos (Amanda '11) at ceballos18@comcast.net. All orders must be placed by Wednesday, November 17, or until we are sold out! The San Francisco School Class of 2011 thanks you!

Congrats to Our SFS Bears!
SFS Cross Country and Volleyball wrapped up their fall seasons this past week. All teams had great seasons and have shown much improvement. A special congratulations goes to our Boys' Varsity Cross Country runners who took home the SFAL Team Championship. Go Bears!

Sibling Applications Due December 1, 2010
If you have a child you are interested in enrolling for the 11-12 school year, please submit an online application before December 1st. Online applications can be found on our website at www.sfschool.org/admissions/apply. Please put "SIBLING" in response to the question "how did you hear of SFS?" and your preschool room preference in the "date of visit" field. If your child is currently enrolled in a school or day care program, please also have his/her teacher complete a teacher evaluation form before the December 1 deadline and have him/her send the form directly to SFS. If your child is applying for grades 1-8, we will also need grades and test scores from his/her current school. All forms can be found on our website under Admissions: www.sfschool.org/admissions. The preschool sibling assessment and interview will take place on January 4th at 3:30 PM. 1st-8th grade assessments will take place in February. We will let you know more details as the date approaches. Feel free to contact Paloma Herman with any questions or concerns (pherman@sfchool.org). Thank you!

We Are So Close to Our Walkathon Goal!
Thank you for all the amazing pledges and donations that have been collected and turned in over the past couple of weeks! Donations can be mailed to the school, turned in at the front desk, or donate directly online at www.sfschool.org/walkathon. There is no cut-off date for Walkathon donations, so we are happy to continue to collect these in order to make our goals! Please contact Emily (egarlock@sfschool.org) with any billing questions or if you would like her to follow up with your sponsors to collect pledges. Thank you!

Public Purpose and Diversity Committee Meetings: Thursday, November 11
Please join us for thoughtful, constructive and engaged conversations at our Diversity Committee (DC) and Public Purpose (PP) Committee meetings, Thursday, November 11, 6 – 8:15 PM in the SFS Library. Everyone is invited! We will begin with a potluck dinner and conversation together at 6 PM in the SFS Library, then we will meet in our two committees. While the Diversity Committee will be focusing on our action items for the year, which include our work with affinity groups, parent education nights and our Equity Index self-study, the Public Purpose Committee will continue its work of supporting the school's service learning efforts and fostering parent and student involvement in social action. Childcare is available; please sign up early, so we can guarantee coverage. $5 - 20 per family (sliding scale). Sign up at the bulletin board across from the Front Desk or email frontdesk@sfschool.org. If you have any questions, please contact Chris Yin for Diversity Committee (cyin@lwhs.org) or Ellen Fey for Public Purpose Committee (ebfey@mac.com).

The Parents We Mean To Be
MCDS to BATDC member schools invite you to join Richard Weissbourd, Harvard psychologist and author of The Parents We Mean To Be. Thursday, November 11, 7 – 8:30 PM in the MCDS Performing Arts Building. In his own words,

“The widespread desire of parents to be closer to their children – a heartening trend in many ways – and their intense focus on their children's happiness and achievements can turn children into self-involved, fragile conformists. How did we get to this point? When did our intention to be "positive parents" go too far? Why are parents praising their kids constantly? Is all this praise good for a child's moral and emotional growth? When and why did our focus on our kids' morality slip from our top priority?”

These are just a few of the issues tackled in The Parents We Mean To Be. His research has led to concrete strategies for raising moral and happy children that avoid the extremes of too much or too little involvement. His most heartening finding: parenting itself can be a tremendous source of moral growth for us as well as our kids.

Access past editions of Tuesday Note Home here