“Okay, I’ll act it out. You guess the G-word.” I raised my arm above my head and made my hand a mouth.
“Elephant!”
“That’s an E-word.”
“Giraffe!”
“Yes! Whose turn is it now?”
Breakfast is my new favorite time during the workweek. Dinner is a close second. For years, as a school administrator, I advised parents to eat as many family meals together as possible during the workweek. Folks like Ned Hallowell, Dan Kindlon, and Wendy Mogel have written about the close correlation between number of family meals and good children. Yet, I must admit that as a school administrator I ate only 3-5 meals a workweek with my wife and two sons, ages 7 and 5. All of these meals were dinners.
For breakfast, I usually ate a banana and a Clif Bar while I traveled to work or as I started my first meeting. Most mornings, I would kiss my family goodbye as they were still wiping sleep from their eyes.
Now, we eat breakfast together everyday. Since starting a new chapter in my educational career, I have doubled the frequency of family meals during the workweek. We’re growing into stronger sharers of stories, values, and play. This morning, we played a game to help Jackson, my kindergartener, with his G-words.
Identity is fascinating. Years ago, during a conference, we had to make a list of ten words that described our identities. Then, we had to strip away all but two. One of my words that survived was “Dad.”
I’m grateful to have heard my own advice…finally.
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Bo Adams (@boadams1) is a learner, husband, and dad. He strives for school transformation and serves as Director of Educational Innovation at Unboundary.
[This post was originally published as “edu180atl: bo adams 9.5.12“]
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