Thursday, December 8, 2016

Poop Shake

I was thinking about relationships today. Friends, family members, peers, colleagues... I was thinking about how wonderful it is for me to be surrounded by people in my life who are kind and thoughtful, people who treat me with respect. This hasn't always been so.

When I was younger, I had some experiences that were scary and unsafe. Some people close to me were violent and mean sometimes. I was young; I didn't have much say about the grown-ups around me.

As I got a little older, sometimes I didn't have very strong self-esteem and I didn't respect myself. Sometimes I made choices to allow people to treat me poorly or disrespectfully.


In my adult life, I have learned more about loving myself and having high expectations of how the people that I allow in my life treat me. I recently came across the post below in a parenting blog. I don't remember which one. I wish I could cite the source. I would like to offer this advice to all of my students: Don't drink the poop shake.

Why You Gotta Be So Rude?


I have an eight year old daughter. She has had a persistent problem with a schoolmate who plays rougher than she wants to play -- hitting, pushing, etc. She says "But when he's nice, he's so nice!"

I told her "If I put the most delicious looking milkshake in the world in front of you, and told you 'Drink up! By the way, this milkshake? It has a little bit of poop in it. Just a little! Like. . . one spoonful!' would you drink it?"

"Ew, no!" she said. "Poop is disgusting!"

"What if it was made of really, really good ice cream? Like, the best ice cream you can imagine?"

"No! Blech!"

"What if it had even LESS than a spoonful of poop? What if it had only one SPECK of poop?"

"No, mom, gross. Even one speck of poop is too much."

"Okay," I said. "Hitting in a friendship is like poop in a milkshake. Even a little bit is too much; there is no amount of it that is OK, and no amount of greatness in the rest of the friendship can make even a tiny bit of hitting OK. I know you have fun sometimes and you want everything to always be great, but this kid's friendship is a poopshake. Don't drink it."

Furthermore, t's not just hitting that is poop in a relationship milkshake. This kind of awful, abusive, gaslighting behavior is also poopy. Your relationship with this guy is a poopshake, no matter how great some parts of it are. Dump it out.

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Guest Bloggers

 Two Truths and a Lie
  1. I went to Disneyland when I was younger with my family and we stayed for a week. There were tons of cool rides and it was so expensive. I thought it was like being rich. My mom spent over $1200 for me to have fun and ride the rides. I enjoyed it but it was sooooooo expensive! I mean, you could’ve bought a car for that much.
  2. My mom and I went on a plane to Ireland and stayed for awhile. We packed our bags a little early so we didn’t have to rush and then we left. We saw so many cool items and buildings. My mom enjoyed it more than I did. I would have rather gone to Italy .
  3. I went camping with my mom’s cousins. We had a lot of tents to build. After we built all the tents and ate, we went on a little walk. Then I got to go swimming in this gross water, and I got to see how to do a lantern. We went back to our campsite and got comfy. I got scared because I heard a noise. I thought it was a bear. When I woke up the sun was very bright and everyone was eating breakfast while talking with each other.
Rainhan B.


Question of the week: When you did the Camino de Santiago what were some of your difficulties ?
I asked my aunt Judy this question “When you did the Camino de santiago what were some of your difficulties ?” Judy first wanted me to know more about the Camino so she told me some of the background. I found out that the Camino is a 500 mile walk up spain. Another thing that Judy told me was that you would walk about 18 miles a day to stay at a hostel in the next town. After Judy told me about the some of the background she started to tell me that during the 500 mile walk she had some pain in her left knee and hip. Soon after she started to walk she figured out a technique where she would have her right leg on the higher ground level and she would just drag her left leg behind her. A lot of the time Judy would have to imagine that she wasn’t hurting so she could keep up with her friend. Since Judy was a slower walker than her friend, Pam, Pam would say I’ll meet you in the next town. So Judy would have to walk by herself for about 5 miles. When Judy would get to the next town she would see her friend Pam waiting at a table for her.  Sometimes it was hard for Judy to walk the downhill parts because of the pain in her left side. Judy said that even though she had lots of pain on her left side that she would definitely do it again.

Emma R.

Two Truths and a Lie

  1. I used to want to go outside to play catch with my mom and dad. I was pretty good at catching the ball my dad told me I could play professional baseball if I kept trying my hardest. My mom had something different to say. She said that I could play professional right now if I wanted to, but I was only 6 years old.
  2. I used to play soccer when I was about 7 years old. I was pretty good at kicking the ball, but I was even better at blocking the ball. So instead of putting me in forward, they put me on defense. The first game I played I loved the game. Ever since then I have never stopped playing the game!
  3. I play basketball for my school, and I love it so much. I had never played basketball till my first year of jr high. At first I was a little scared to play. When I heard that they needed more people on the basketball team, I thought it would be good for me to try something new. I went up to the coach and told him that I would like to play basketball if they needed more people. He said, “Yes, and thank you for helping us out.”
Marcos B.

2 comments:

  1. Dump it out. Great advice!
    Thankful every day for the amazing relationship we have, my friend.

    ReplyDelete
  2. No poop shakes! Great advice! Just like there is no trust in a lie!

    ReplyDelete

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