Author Jeanne Rollins reads Greedy Gracie Shares The Happy book

I met Jeanne Rollins at a parent workshop she held at a church on City Island. She shared a quote that I will never forget: "The perfect parent would raise the perfect child completely unfit for society. So we can relax in knowing that the imperfect parent (if not chronic or abusive) leaves room for her children to grow." Nice to know my imperfection is helpful!

Talking about “Greedy Gracie” from Gracie’s perspective as well as the perspective of the people around her is eye opening. Being asked to help makes you feel valued, needed and capable, and Greedy Gracie types deny their friends those wonderful feelings. So when we ask children to perform classroom tasks, we now invite them to choose a friend to help. And the task takes much less time and it is more fun to do.

When I was running an event at my child’s school I did my best not to be a Greedy Gracie.  I assigned people jobs to do.  I held a visual in my head of me wearing all the hats and I just knew that if I did- they would be too heavy on my head!