October LIM Family Challenge

Dear Families,

This month our school is focusing on becoming proactive. Being proactive helps us
understand that we are in charge of ourselves and our choices and actions. Talking
about your feelings and actions help you understand the consequences, whether good or
bad, that come from these actions. Changing our language can help make a paradigm
shift and see our situations in a different light.
Reactive language

• There’s nothing I can do
• He makes me so mad
• That’s just the way I am
• I have to do that

Proactive language

• Let’s look at the alternatives
• I control my own feelings
• I can choose a different approach
• I will choose an appropriate approach

Being versus having

The verbs we use to describe a situation are a good measure of how proactive we are.

Just have a look at the difference between the following sentences:

• If only I had more obedient kids

Vs.

• I can be more patient towards my kids

Stephen Covey suggests some points of attention if we want to work on being proactive.

• Don’t suffer from the mistakes you made, be proactive and correct. Accept that you made a mistake and take action.

• Make promises, set goals, even if they are really small ones. It builds the feeling of integrity and awareness and feeling of self-control.

The Family Challenge for October is an M&M activity (see accompanying directions).
This activity will help our students talk about their day and the choices that were made.
We are challenging you and your family to complete the M&M activity during the month of
October. If you do the activity make sure to send a note with one of your students and we
will put you in the monthly Leader In Me Family Challenge. Prizes will include fun family
board games, coupons to local food establishments and stores. We hope that this will be
a fun way to connect with your kids!!

M&M Game Rules: (You can choose to do either the Anger Game or the Feeling Game or
if you are an overachiever you can do both. If you do both you can get 2 tickets to the
prize drawing!! Just make sure to tell us that on the note you send in.

Give each student a fun size pack of m&m’s®. If you have one large bag, give each child
10-15 of them making sure they have at least one of every color. The students will then
sort their m&m’s® according to color. Students will take turns sharing their answers for
each color. If a student has two orange m&m’s®, he or she will share two things that
make him or her angry. (This is according to my sample. Your color order can be
however you choose.) As the students share they may eat their m&m’s.

Click HERE to open and print the October Challenge.