Bump to baby on the beaten expat track
As families journey through life together they’ll face important, complex questions at each phase. With over a hundred years of experience, it is now an enormous community of birth parents, adoptive parents and families, and adoptees that Monica and her colleagues at Spence-Chapin have nurtured. ..
Read the rest of the article on the Spence-Chapin blog, where it was written for Social Workers Month.
After three years back in the Northeast US, I’m basking in the change of seasons. Spring is so hopeful and romantic, brimming with life and new beginnings. Then there’s Summer – what’s not to love (so says a Pacific Islander)? And Autumn, charming you senseless with its burnt shades of color and kicking off the onslaught of festivities worldwide.
Winter? It took living the past seventeen years in the tropics, without the seasons, to come around to winter’s magic. This year I am all about the dark bleak days of winter and embracing the chill. It’s well into January now, and so far it’s a mild one. But we’re looking at double-header snow systems this coming holiday weekend and I’m crossing my fingers!
Minus winter sports (which I’m not so into, having spent my formative years under hot tropical suns), here are my favorite things about winter:
And lastly, I love my winter pre-dawn runs, when everyone else retreats to indoor gyms or stays in bed altogether :-)
I’m sure more things belong on this list, and I’ll keep adding as I recall them!
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I tried the gamut of meditation apps, and as a beginner my favorites were Headspace and Calm for their easy to digest introduction to mindfulness meditation. Through both apps’ introductory content I was able to sustain a meditation habit for about 20 consecutive days on each one. I was able to see a positive difference.
Both apps are highly rated and popular, but soon their linear approach, limited offerings and voice acting got boring, and that’s when I found Insight Timer. (I am not affiliated in any way to this app except as a user). A couple of things I love about this app:
Its diverse pool of resources (teachers, users, and approaches to meditation)
I love its diverse pool of genuine teachers, music tracks, talks and courses. If you’re a beginner the breadth of options can be off-putting. The focused approach of Calm and Headspace was definitely helpful when I started out.
There’s a large directory of meditation types and origins, and teachers are from all over the world. There are spiritual and science-based approaches, guided meditations and music-based timed sessions. Topics run the gamut – confidence, stress and anxiety, sleep help, athletic performance, pain, depression, love, focus, etc. Customization options are endless.
Users are also similarly scattered all over the globe, similarly-minded folks aiming for more balance in their life. There’s literally thousands of people meditating at the same time you’re on the app. You can reach out to them or to the teachers through the messaging functionality, topic forums and session ratings. The community came together organically, and its diversity was really helpful for me finding the approach that works for me.
User experience
I know you’re supposed to find a quiet and comfortable spot where you’ll be undisturbed for a period of time. But uninterrupted free time is rare! I meditate on the bus or subway during my commute, while waiting in lines, or during my run. That means I can’t close my eyes, sometimes I’m standing in the middle of a packed subway car, and disturbances are pretty common. But these conditions actually make it perfect for me to hone my skills – ask me to tame my thoughts in the middle of a fast-paced high-volume workday now!
A progress tracker helps motivate (much like in DuoLingo if you’re using that to help learn a new language), and functionalities include bookmarking sessions or favorite teachers. There are extensive features to users for free or at low cost (I’ve not had one prompt to upgrade nor are there ads), with premium features for access to courses and downloads. The courses aim for different goals, and lets users correspond directly with the teachers and other users.
The business model supports teachers more than other commercial apps
Most appreciated is that it’s a commercially conscious platform that supports its teachers who contribute such high quality content. Half of all income go directly to the teachers. The business model is aimed at, in the words of its CEO Christopher Plowman, “accelerating the benefits of meditation around the world by harnessing the silent power of this community”.
Where to start?
Don’t know where to start? I still use the the free options. I like the guided meditations. I found I prefer male voices and secular approaches. And my go-to teachers remain these three after cycling through numerous others over the past year:
Meditating with an app is a lot different from live sessions with an expert to guide you, or the 3 or 5 day vipassana meditation retreats I did at the pagodas/wats in Asia. I love that this app supports teachers and that quality sessions continue to be uploaded. I discover so many different ways in my life that meditation can help me with, thanks to the diversity of teachers, topics and group discussions. This is a great app for those who are just starting out or looking to maintain their practice.
The waning moon is still bright, and I think to the Kingdom’s geckos that are starting to tuck in on the other side of the planet. It’s the fifth night sleeping in a chair by my mom’s hospital bed. I look over at her and my next thought is whether it’s Hypnos or Morpheus who rules over the land of eternal darkness, beyond the gates of the rising sun…
Chief Mom Officer recently posted about tax identity and corporate identity theft, followed by a great piece on protecting children’s identity. She posts:
27% of child identity theft crimes are committed by people who know the child – friends or family members, sometimes even parents. The remaining 73% of crimes are committed by criminals who steal the child’s information either through a data breach or good old-fashioned theft. They then create a synthetic identity for the social security number, using the real number combined with a fake date of birth to steal the identity and use it – likely undetected – for years.
The entire post is worth a read: Thieves Are Coming For Your Children – Protect Their Identities.
I recently started looking into securing the kids’ credit files, after we locked ours down following a string of fraudulent credit activity. It was easy enough for us to do, but what a chore it is to do the kids’ (minors). Some of the required documents make me wonder how the credit reporting agencies will use this info. And it makes me so angry that we have to pay fees for preventive steps (TransUnion charges a fee but Experian and Equifax do not)! It’s capitalizing on the front end, and then when a breach of their systems occurs, we get to shell out again for “further protection”!
Anyway, these sites below provide instructions on both obtaining your child’s credit report (minors should not have one) and requesting a security freeze:
Additional tips to protect against Child Identity Theft from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC):
I’m taking the time to do this now, to prevent time-consuming and ongoing paperwork that the kids will have to go through if this ever happens to them. Identity theft leaves a huge burden of work on its victims.