Youth leadership, parenting education and community connections … cultural celebrations, mental health support and substance abuse prevention wouldn’t exist without Wilton Youth Council; and if you’ve ever attended a WYC event, you know WYC wouldn’t exist without Kim Hall. As executive chair of the WYC, she’s done a lot, seen a lot and sometimes endured being completely covered in that chalky dust you can never quite manage to extract from every inch of your life no matter how hard you try. Ah, yes, the Color Run. Showing up matters and if there’s anyone who shows up most for our kids and WYC, it’s Hall. When they met up last Wednesday for a cup at Tusk and Cup, Lesley Gyorsok was reminded that, from free play initiatives to PGP, there’s nothing this mom of two can’t do and always with an affable smile.
1. What originally brought you to Wilton?
Kim Hall: We moved here in 2005. We had a toddler and we really wanted a bigger yard. He just needed to run. He loved being outside and he just needed more space. I didn’t really know what went into a good school but I looked and saw this was highly rated. We had to be commutable to the city — my husband worked in the city.
Lesley Gyorsok: Were you instantly drawn to the town? Did you feel some “feeling” when you got here or did that come later?
Hall: It came later. At the time, I worked outside the home and it made it very hard to connect with people when my child was that young. When I got here, it felt like almost nobody worked outside the home. Almost no mothers did, so it was hard to feel connected. Preschool helped a lot; and kindergarten.
2. Can you tell me a little about your work with Wilton Youth Council?
Hall: I had been a fan of some of their work, particularly some of the parent programs that they had done. My kids loved the ski trips with Wilton Youth Council and the Color Dash and I really appreciated that the goal was around youth development and that it actually incorporates the community.
What prompted me to join in part was the Coalition for Youth, which brings together 30 youth-serving organizations, from the Wilton Library Association to the Wilton Police Department — all of these different places; and it looks at how we can work together more effectively and efficiently. No one program is going to serve all kids. It’s all the different things we bring to the table, working together. Also, if we can save each organization time or resources by partnering, that’s amazing. We can help make it easier for each other by being aware of what each of us is doing so we can collaborate when it makes sense.
3. What do you think some of the risks and rewards are to raising kids in “the Wilton bubble”?
Hall: To me, some of the benefits to growing up in a place like Wilton is the way you can feel a sense of home and a sense of connectedness. You’ve got families that are generally pretty engaged. They’re showing up for their kids. There’s a lot of showing up. There’s a lot of effort and a lot of resources to put into the effort.
I think what’s tricky is that all of that doesn’t mean everything is smooth sailing and that sometimes I think our kids benefit from having the space to figure things out on their own. If a kid comes home and is telling you their problems, the urge to try to fix it is so strong. So how do you shift to not fixing them but instead supporting them to approach and navigate their own challenges? I think what builds stronger adults is figuring out how to navigate friction, whether that friction is conflict with another person or not getting the playing time you want in the field; whether it’s having to learn a new piece of music that’s really hard, you can find friction in almost any situation. But today we take so much of the friction out. You don’t like the song on the radio — you change it, right?
That’s one thing that resources can actually make harder to build, because it’s easy to avoid. They have to figure it out and once they figure it out, that skill translates. You can’t just pretend it doesn’t exist.
Free play helps you figure these things out. You figure out how to navigate the rules of a game; what you’re going to do or when you’re going to do it. It’s that kind of stuff, those skills. It’s so important. How are you going to play? What are the rules? What are the consequences? I think it’s easy to give into the temptation to make things better, to short circuit the discomfort of learning those things for all of us.
4. It’s hard not to interrupt other people’s lessons. In a similar vein, what’s the one piece of advice someone gave you that still sticks with you?
Hall: People see you how they are, not how you are. I grew up in the military so I learned that through practice. When you move sometimes you would be seen in one way and then you move a year later and you’re seen completely differently.
In a place like Wilton, the way you’re seen seems more permanent, and understanding that was something that I found tricky with how to parent because I never stayed somewhere long enough to have that experience. You often bring who you are with you, and who you are and how you’re perceived are often two very different things.
5. Yeah and sometimes it’s hard to start over where you are, right? Last question. Do you believe in fate?
Hall: I believe sometimes you can make good choices and bad things still happen and that you make poor choices and everything can be okay. I think you increase your odds of having a favorable outcome, that you can influence it but that you’re not in control. I don’t think of fate as a singular thing but I think we do travel in patterns and can make the same mistakes again and again. I believe effort matters. Showing up matters. What you do matters. You have to have intention.