Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 18

finfn parent talk DETROIT FREE PRESS WEDNESDAY, OCT. 7. 1987 2B coping Stay ahead mth Never Agains Ann Lenders An insensitive, world-class clod I1 ilona II wnikhia Say "I can't do until I've done For example, "I can't clean my filing cabinet until I finish all my backed-up reading." Setting artificial and usually impossible conditions for a task you would rather avoid is only a way to put it off indefinitely. If you've put it off this long, how important can it be? Maybe it's just something you think you ought to do. Or you can beat yourself at your own avoiding game: Either eliminate the condition or, if it really is something you must do, set a time and a date to complete both tasks.

Fritter away your high-energy times on non-essential tasks. Identify your best time of the day and devote it to the most important projects. Say "I can't start this until I can finish the whole thing." Use the Drawer-a-Day method to nibble a task to death: Instead of setting aside a large amount of time for a low-priority task, like desk cleaning, give it five minutes a day, during a low-energy time. Begin a task without setting a deadline. It keeps you aware of time and keeps your efforts focused.

Indulge in woolgathering, or using preparation as a substitute for plunging into the main task. Set sub-deadlines to prevent getting bogged down in sub-tasks. When you must begin the task you want to avoid, you can trick yourself by promising, "I'll only work on this for five minutes." After five minutes, you'll probably get interested enough to forget the dread and continue. Allow yourself to be controlled by the latest crisis. When confronted with what appears to be a crisis, evaluate it: Whose crisis is it? Why must it be done before anything else? Who else can do it? How can this crisis be avoided in the future? When did your work get out of control this week? About two minutes after you arrived Monday? To keep work within manageable limits, you must promise to swear off certain actions that perennially subvert you.

(Note: Although described in terms of office work, these Never Agains translate well to other situations, at home as well as at work.) Repeat after me: "I will never again:" Use a work surface as a storage area. If you have a book, file or pile of notes on your desk that you are not currently working with, put it away. Let a piece of paper just sit on your desk. Every paper is like an autumn leaf fluttering onto your desk. If you waited a few days or even a few hours to rake, could you relocate that leaf? Determine the purpose of everything that arrives then put it away.

This one simple exercise forces you to practice two of the best work habits you can ever learn: Making an immediate decision (do it now, do it at a specific future date or pass it off) and forbidding non-essential papers on your desk. Save anything without asking yourself, "Why am I keeping this? Why am I really keeping this?" When in doubt, toss it out. Work on more than one project at a time. What seems like a tidiness fetish is really a way to keep your efforts targeted. End a day without cleaning your desk.

If you are in the middle of a project, return the work to its file. Use this cleanup time to put your work through a mental review. Make a progress note to jog your memory. Arrive late. Learn to anticipate what can go wrong (accidents on the freeway, forgetting an important item) and build that Screw-Up Factor Dear Ann Landers: So many people do the wrong thing when confronted with a grease fire.

I hope you will print this so your readers will know what to do. A friend of mine got some very bad burns on his hands from such a fire. Another friend (also male) nearly lost his home. Strangely enough, more men than women panic and do the wrong thing under these conditions. Please print the instructions.

H.P. in Salt Lake City Dear S.L.C.: Several years ago I was frying some onions and eggs and the grease caught fire. The flames shot up to the ceiling and I was petrified. I remembered reading something about smothering the fire with a bigger pan. It worked.

I haven't been in the kitchen since. Here are your suggestions: How to put out a grease fire 1. Keep calm. 2. Turn off the burner if possible.

If knob is on back of stove, leave it alone. 3. Do not throw water on the flames. 4. Do not remove the pan from the stove.

5. Carefully place a lid on the burning pan. If no lid is available, use a cookie sheet or any large pan to smother the flame. Unless there are curtains near the blaze there is no reason to worry about the fire spreading. Just let it burn while you calmly go about smothering it.

6. Some authorities recommend throwing baking soda on the flames. In more than 30 years of cooking, I have never had to resort to this. 7. Go over these rules with your children and husband as soon as possible.

(Five-year-olds are not too young.) Keep these instructions near the stove. Evelyn Petersen Don't rush gifted child hi QI have a gifted son who is in sixth 7 grade. The school wants me to -enroll him in honors and gifted classes. In the past two years he has been under a lot of pressure adjusting to a new home, school and stepfather. In addition, he is growing rapidly and is in sports, which he loves.

He also plays clarinet in the scnooi nana. If he gets into those gifted programs, he will probably have to give up some things he likes, things that make 1 him feel good about himself and help him feel like he belongs. Am I hurting my son by letting him do what he wants to do and avoid those toughef classes? J.L., Rochester A You know your son best. Your common sense tells you he needs to feel good about himself as a person, not just as a "brain." I would skip the gifted programs for now and let him spend time getting to know himself. Give him the time he needs to feel that he fits in with the other kids.

Those special classes will still be avail- able when he's older. Your son is trying to find out who he is and what is important to him. Lots of confusing feelings and physical changes are going on, too. Pushing adolescents to their fragile limits dur- ing these important years increases pressure and frustration. 1 Too much emphasis is put on the intellectual achievement of gifted children rather than on their total physical' and mental health.

What use is a 4.0',' grade-point average if a child can't; communicate with peers or is in poor physical shape? Gifted children can handle stimulation and activity but for their total well-being these activities should elude more than intellectual chal-! lenges. If children are recognized only for work and achievement, they may end up feeling capable but unlovable or untouchable. Give your son time to find out not only why he is special but how others are special, too. You may want to read me nuuieu vwiu uy uavm cmiuu (Addison Wesley, BABY BOOM Area theaters J.C. Wiall Dlan Keaton Steve Buchner Harold Ramli Elizabeth Wiatt Krittlna and Michelle Kennedy Dr.

Jeff Cooper Sam Shepard A United Artists release. Directed by Charles Shyer. Written by Nancy Meyers and Shyer. PARENTS GUIDE: Rated P3; no sex, no violence; Formulas Us. into your schedule.

Make a habit of estimating how long it will take you to get somewhere then leave 10 to 20 percent earlier. Just sit. When you are early or on hold, fill the time by reading, filing, jotting down ideas, checking your calendar to anticipate future commitments. Whenever you anticipate even a short wait, have something in mind or in hand to occupy you for those five or 10 minutes you'd normally waste. If you are stumped for such projects, use those minutes to think up a few for next time.

You're not always required to do something. You can relax with some deep breathing and muscle relaxation. Perhaps more than any other time-saving technique, filling the deadly 10 minutes can buy you at least an hour a day. Leave your desk without carrying a pencil and a pad for collecting ideas. Read without purpose.

Thumbing through a magazine in a waiting room, you can be scanning for ideas to fill out a project or solve a problem. This is not a plot to strip the pleasure from reading. It's a conscious adapting of the way you read even when you think you're just flipping pages. What invariably catches your attention is the item that relates to something you're already thinking about. Write a note or a phone number on a scrap of paper.

You'll lose it. Use the appropriate notebook, datebook or address book. were in a different closet. And, in the big finale, when J.C. has to choose between becoming a Manhattan millionairess by selling Country Baby to the giant Food Chain Corp.

or marketing the product in the good oP down-home way, you're supposed to think she's made a noble, moving choice. tear Ann Landers: I just read a lettei in your column that really hit homj. It was from a girl whose brother had pmmitted suicide recently, and she' was upset by the thoughtless and cruel questions people asked. I am still going through the same thing. My 19-year-old daughter took her.

own life just last month. She, too, was beautiful, talented and had what everyone thought was "everything going tor her." When something like this happens, there is tremendous guilt among family menibers and everyone close. The most painjul question for me was, "Why did she do it?" Every time I am asked it makes me feel that she would still be witfi us somehow, if only I had paid morfc attention, or if I had stayed home that day, and a million other "ifs." Just thinking about it now makes the pain come back, and it's as bad as the day it happened. What I want to shout to everyone is don't know!" Don't they think if I hid seen it coming I would have movje heaven and earth to prevent it? That girl was my heart and soul. When something like this happens, jnsCbeing there and listening means than anything a person can say.

Please, Ann, tell them. Fontana, Calif. Dear Friend: Anyone who asks the mother of a suicide, "Why did she do an insensitive, world-class clod. The best response is: "I don't have an Jnswer to your question." Sly heart aches for you, dear. I cantot imagine a more devastating blow.

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