Fifth-grade me is standing at the front of our portable classroom, beet-red and ready to burst. Twenty-five pairs of eyes are staring at me. They are my peers and in no way unkind as I’m about to deliver a presentation, but to me, I might as well have been sized up by Simon Cowell.
Parenting Times editor Tracey Tong at age 10. Photo Credit Frank Tong
I am 10 years old and painfully shy. Back then, annual oral presentations were a mandatory, assessed part of the curriculum in northern Ontario and there was no opting out.
Oh, the end of that story? I managed to squeak out two minutes of something that didn’t even closely resemble what I’d written. To borrow from Joseph Conrad, the horror! The horror!
Three agonizing years go by before I decided that change was needed, because things would be bad if I went through high school without saying anything. I signed up for Kiwanis public speaking competitions, appeared as an extra in a school play and chose drama classes as electives. My parents were shocked, but it wasn’t until it was time to choose a career path that I surprised even myself.
I became a journalist.
According to Verywell Mind, public speaking is one of the most common social phobias out there. Even if that is something you do with ease, there will likely be something else you thought you could never do.
We’re here to tell you that you can. There’s nothing a deep breath, some hard work and willingness to keep knocking on doors can’t solve, which was the inspiration behind the theme of this issue: You can do it.
Fancy yourself a master bedtime storyteller? You can publish a children’s book. Bob McDuff and Nicole Girard, the husband-wife team behind the popular Baseball Bob series and Dianne Koebel-Pede and Dania El Khatib of My Amazing Race Car Brain spoke about how they brought their book ideas to life. Kara Cybanski, editor of DC Canada Educational Publishing, shared some helpful info on how the publishing process works. Check out “From ideas to ink.”
You can care for your family – and aging parents, too. The sandwich generation is currently doing it and more of us will join them in coming years. Sheryl Bennett-Wilson authored this story.
You can learn to swim as an adult. According to journalist (and lifeguard!) Delaney Smith, it’s not too late. You can understand bullying with the help of Bennett-Wilson, who talks to the experts about why “mean girl” behaviour happens.
We have some lessons disguised as adventures. Memoirs of a New Dad’s Chris Hunt gets fit enough to climb Mont Tremblant while Dad’s Dispatch’s Jon Willing learns to play the six string (and his wife Nicole takes on the Rubik’s Cube) – in part, to show their kid what happens when you don’t give up.
If we can do all this (and live to tell the tale), you can, too. We hope this issue inspires you to push aside your doubts and to amaze yourself.
As for me, I enjoy my work as an interviewer and post-secondary lecturer despite not being a perfect public speaker. I improvise. I babble. I sometimes have to picture people in their underwear in order to make it through. But I’m always glad I took this path – not just because I get to meet some incredible, influential people of the moment and have an excuse to ask all those burning, sometimes inappropriate questions that the general public can’t get away with – but because I know I’ve made that fifth grader so proud.
Best wishes,
Tracey