The White Falcon - 30.03.1990, Page 3

A NATO Base "Great American Family"
fg'ive kids equal fun and work for Nances
By J02 Scott Johnson
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Let’s face it, raising a family is hard. But
what do you call it when your family is large
enough to start your own basketball team?
Fun?
Fun is one of the words Petty Officer First
Class Bruce Nance used in describing the
raising of five children with his wife, Mary.
Of course, the other word he used was hard
work.
“The hardest part is trying to interact with
each child according to their personality,"
Mary said. "They’re all so different. One
child might have to be told something five
times, where another child has to be told
once.”
“Giving each child individual attention is
really difficult,” Bruce said. “If you devote
yourself to that, then it gets easier as time goes
on. You have to make time to give each one at-
tention. You have to make yourself available
to them. If you don’t then you’ll probably fail
or regret not doing it. You have to prioritize—
dealing with things that need to be taken care
of first”
ruce, who is a cryptologic technician at the
al Security Group Activity, Keflavik, was
surprised when he found out about his
amily being nominated as a “Great American
Family.”
“I was very surprised when my command
told me that we were nominated,” Bruce said.
“It’s a humbling experience, but it was nice to
be nominated.”
Being nominated has thrust the Nance family
into the proverbial limelight. With that, Bruce
says there is a lot of responsibility. “When you
look around and see people who are looking at
you, you can try to set an example. People can
see if you’re responsible, if you’re good to
your children and active in the community.
“If you set the example, maybe people can
get something from that and apply that to their
own children or their own family life. Not that
we’re so great or that we do everything right,
everyone makes mistakes and there’s no stan-
dard for raising a family. Hopefully, people
can see that there are some good qualities and
maybe get something from that We get ideas
from other people and we’ve learned from
other families.”
The Nances believe in community involve-
ment, but not at the expense of their children.
“There are some families that are so in-
volved in the community that they don’t do
lything with their kids,” Mary said. “Most
lies I see around here are involved with
community and they make it a point to
;ome involved in a couple of their kids
activities. That’s the big thing, because then
you can get involved and not exclude your
children.”
For the Nance household, playing and rec-
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The Nance family: Bruce III, Mary, Rachel, Elizabeth, Vincent, Bruce II and John-Paul.
reation is a large part of their time.
“We try to go on as many trips as we can that
are close to the base,” Bruce said. “We go to
the lighthouse, or to the ocean and collect
shells or the duck pond in Reykjavik and feed
the ducks. Sometimes, I’ll take one or two of
them snow skiing. We try to do as much as we
can.”
“It’s kind of hard for us to plan anything
because Bruce is a shift worker,” Mary said.
“It’s especially hard on weekends because
he’s at work and the kids are home from
school. So, we try to make things fun. Forex-
ample, on Friday nights we play “musical
beds," and the kids can sleep anywhere they
want to. ”
Even though the Nances are serious about
their children’s education, they have fun too.
“We try to work with them as much as we
can,” Bruce said. “We base their future on
their education. Without an education, they
have no future. So we place a lot of emphasis
on schoolwork, but a lot on playing as well,
because they’re children.”
“If the kids ask us a question we don’t know
we get out the encyclopedia and find the an-
swer,” Mary said. “We’re not afraid to admit
we don’t know something, but we’re not going
to say ‘let’s be ignorant about it’ and not find
the answer. We try to makeJeaming fun. We
do a lot of reading. The kids have to read to
play. So, if they want to play computer games
for 15 minutes, they have to read for 15 min-
utes.”
Since life with five children is not always
peaches and cream, the Nances have their fair
share of behavior problems. “We try to deal
with our kids as positively as possible,” Bruce
said. “Not to say that we never paddle them,
but we try to do the positive things first. We
try to see if their acting up just for attention. If
so, then we deal with that with some focused
attention.”
“Sometimes you think that you’re spending
enough time with your kids but you really
aren’t,” Mary said. “Sometimes your focused
attention on them is very little. So we try to
look them in the eye when they talk to us, to
give them our attention and that helps. If you
can spend some time with them individually
or make them feel special, then you don’t have
as many problems.”
“Sure, we lose our tempers,” Brace said.
“But, I try to remove myself from the situ-
ation, regroup and approach the situation again.
I think patience is the biggest blessing in the
world.”
The Nances are devout Catholics and try to
use their beliefs to guide their household. “We
base our family on tradition and the church,”
Bruce said. “We try and ran our everyday
things on our religious belief and the Lord.
We pray with the children at night and in the
morning and do their songs,” Mary said. “We
try to weave it into the fabric of our everyday
life. It’s important to show them that religion
is not just something that occurs on Sunday.”
Besides church-related activities, the Nance
children are involved with other community
functions. Brace HI, 9, and Vincent, 7, are
involved with Cub Scouts, basketball, soccer
andT-ball. Elizabeth, 5, is in the Daisy Scouts
and ballet and her younger sister, Rachel, 4,
takes ballet as well. The youngest Nance is
John-Paul, 9 months. He keeps everyone else
active.
It’s easy to see why this down-to-earth
family was nominated as a “Great American
Family.” Through hard work and fun, Brace
and Mary Nance have strived to develop a
family that is close knit, even if there are seven
of them.
March 30,1990
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