The Door To Possibility by Karen

The Door To Possibility by Karen - June 2013 Scholarship Essay

Attending graduate school (again) means I can help leave a positive legacy on the world. My educational goals have arisen through a period of extended self-discovery and volunteering facilitating grief groups with children who have had a parent or sibling die. Through this process, I realized the biggest gift I can give the world is to alchemize my own feelings of isolation, pain, and shame to help mothers and fathers parent in a way that reduces shame in any child. Shame leads to many other problems – from promiscuity and teenage pregnancy, to bullying, to suicide– not to mention growing up re-creating the same problems for their children, the next generation. The program I selected is a Master’s in Positive Developmental Psychology. This program uniquely focuses on what parents and children are doing right, and how to do more of that, as well as tailoring the choices parents make to children based on the child’s developmental progress. I intend to use this information to create technology based applications/platforms (e.g. phone apps, dvd video, etc.) that can be used on-the-spot with parents and children on the go - running errands, in the car - that can help the child attach and attune to the parent instead of feeling disconnected. This sense in the child of the parent understanding their internal world, is key to the child feeling a sense of support and connection, instead of disconnection, later fueling the development of shame. It is my intention to positively affect future generations in this way and this degree allows me to move forward on that trajectory.