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The Conundrum of a Difficult Child

9/10/2015

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My dear dear friend texted me recently and asked me to discuss the conundrum of the difficult child;

“You know what I’d like you to address in your blog?  That a kid’s very nature often prevents them from receiving the love and attention they very much need. An ODD kid, just by their very nature, is not open to suggestions, role playing etc which in turn leads to the consequence of isolating them thereby exacerbating the lack of social skills and relationships.”

How come the child who needs us most, is often the child who is most difficult to deal with?

While my friend is more specific in her description of a child,  I want to make sure we know we are most likely talking about more than one type of child. With gross generalization, but an attempt to help teachers understand differing needs of children in the group, I will often categorize difficult kids for teachers I am working with this way;

  1. The wanderers...who are easy because they require little energy in terms of routine care and supervision, but attract limited meaningful interactions due to their distance from the core of activity.

  2. The buggers...(I know I am taming my use of language, I promise just this once) who just by the very nature of their oppositional or over-sensitive behavior take up so much time that there is little bandwidth left for meaningful interactions.

Exacerbating inherent dispositions or special needs, is a possible family or classroom situation or mismatch of child and caregiver.  Despite all the love and professionalism in the world, mismatches are a very real challenge and I am not going to sugar coat things.  What about the parent who wanted a perfectly behaved child to parade around town and ends up with a child who is loud, messy, rambunctious and prone to meltdowns? The ADHD parent with the ADHD child (or a whole crew of ADHD children) can be too much of a good thing as well. Mismatches come in all shapes and sizes. The parent who thrives on interaction and ends up with a child who withdraws socially? Or even still, the teacher who expects energetic participation, or maybe the complete opposite; the classroom which should always remain able to hear a pin drop. Just what happens when children don’t fit our expectations???

And please, don’t tell me this shouldn't or doesn’t happen, or tell me caregivers should just change their expectations.  No matter how tolerant or patient or appropriate you are as a parent or professional… mismatches still exist. These examples are the extremes on purpose, but the point is, degrees of mismatches do occur, and even when there is not a definitive mismatch, there are children who are harder to like.  

I can just imagine the collective inhale taking place from my last statement.  However, I stand by what I just wrote; even the most well meaning teacher and parent can come across moments when they just don’t like the child they are dealing with.  It is OKAY to have a mismatch. It isn’t the actual mismatch which matters in the end, it is what we do with the mismatch which matters.

I’d love to be the mentor with a magic wand, but we don’t have the saying ‘a worm in a teacher’s apple’, for nothing.  So the first step is admitting the truth.  Sometimes this is both the first and last step if as a caregiver you can give in to the realization; this child will be a challenge for me.  I remember scheduling a whole facilitation appointment around one child, who by the end of his first day at my school, I was ready to strangle with the garden hose.  Yes, I remember the exact moment clearly.  While watering the snack garden at the very end of the day, I was going to lose my marbles, if my little follower stepped on the hose one more time (I had kindly asked him to watch out multiple times).  I remember signaling to my coworker that it was time to relieve me and then, that evening, making a call to my Mentor.  It is a crazy experience to explore as just 3 years later, he was one of my most beloved children of all time.  This is one of those moments where pinpointing an issue and bringing it to my day to day attention during my practice, made the feelings dissipate.

Other times it is not so easy.  Other times I have had to consciously seek out positives about a child in order to make it work.  To really think deeply about the moments we connect and purposely create more and more of those moments.  

And even still, there are times when the difficulty has nothing to do with me and everything to do with the child’s needs within the given environment. This is when, as caregivers, we need to reflect on what a child’s behavior is telling us.  

Let’s step away from the traditional idea of ‘time out’ where we tell a child to “think about their behavior and come back to talk about it”. Ugh.  Half of the adults I know can’t talk about or examine their own behavior, let alone a 3-5 year old child.  Finding meaning includes naming exactly what is happening, thinking about time and place, other times and places it has happened, and who is there.  The goal isn’t to jump right to the why… the goal is to take the most time on the what, the how, the when, the where… in fact, answering the why too quickly is one of our gravest mistakes when working with children.  All too often if you answer the why first, it is a knee jerk, top of the iceberg, plain wrong answer.  Remember, the top of the iceberg is merely the 10% which shows above the surface, below the surface is where we really want to be when finding meaning in behavior.

One of the main principles from pediatrician and my hero, *T. Berry Brazelton, is the idea that ‘all behavior has meaning’.  Another important principle is ‘the Parent is the Expert’.  Only through naming our children’s behaviors can we start to flush out the meanings and get to the expertise which lies within a caregiver's knowledge of their children.

Meanings are not the same as excuses because excuses don’t lead to solutions. Processing the meaning of behavior, even if sometimes inaccurate, opens us up to a bigger picture. The bigger picture takes us beyond words such as whiny, oppositional, controlling, bossy, bratty, difficult, shy, withdrawn, disconnected… etc… and into a realm of wondering about our children and a willingness to adjust, and ultimately, if not fully understand, at least find a space for compassion.  Our own compassion often allows us to tweak the pieces we can tweak, and seek help for the pieces of our children needing more support than we ourselves can handle.  Seeking support doesn’t mean handing over our expertise, it means sharing our expertise with someone who is able to join our journey in search of the meaning of behavior.



Gaining more understanding about the meaning of behavior opens our work with children up to so many different ways of being, including anticipation of how our children may react to future events, environments and circumstance.  Instead of avoiding the real world, we can adjust our own expectations and be ready to provide our children and ourselves with the support we all deserve.

And lastly, when up against the very real conundrum of the difficult child, if all else fails remember what Urie Bronfenbrenner says; “Every child needs at least one adult who is irrationally crazy about him or her.”  

The child who has come to mind over the course of this blog needs some irrationally good crazy love.

So, ask yourself; if not you, then who? If not now, then when? If not known, then how?  Then take a deep breath and go back to work.


*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._Berry_Brazelton




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And Just Like That Summer is Over

8/12/2015

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Picture

It ended just the way it started; it just did.


Unlike other things in life, the school schedule is not based on when I am ready for things to start or end, and frankly, I am never quite sure how I feel when the dates come and go.  Sometimes ready other times not. 
Recent articles about adolescent sleep needs, as well as the ongoing debate regarding elementary school readiness, remind us the system is not based on our individual -or even collective- needs of our children, nor based on developmental science.

I have two of five children still at home navigating through the system… and while it is hard to not consider myself ‘experienced’ with the journey, I am continually left in the same educational dilemmas year after year. Will I stand up and fight for every reform I know is needed to ensure a healthier deeper education, or will I let the little things go in order to pick my battles?  

What will the battle be this year?  
Will there even be a battle? 


Truth is, I don’t know. I can only speculate based on what I know about about me and mine...  

-I live in the State ranked #48 in terms of quality education, there is a recall underway for our State Superintendent of Education, and our Governor is playing politics with the public education funds.

-My kids and I all have ADHD.

-Our mornings are messy, -to put it nicely- someone was already tardy on her first day of High School.

-My son did not get the teacher we expected.

-Against my better judgment, I agreed to my daughter taking ‘zero period’ allowing her to start her foreign language and higher level science so she is tracked for 4 year college...sigh...where exactly was my perseverance and “my kid won’t be overscheduled” demeanor when this happened???

-My kids are known to blurt out answers in order to process their learning.

-Homework is my arch nemesis...as is a consistent family dinner…and bedtime routine.  

-I have serious allergies to the myriad of afterschool activities...which are not my thing in the first place.

-Last year’s Hebrew teacher recommended a tutor for my 3rd grade son. (um, did not happen, his bar mitzvah is still 6 years away).

-Voice modulation skills do not run in either side of our genetic make up.

-I’ve been there and done that, and most everything else, as a school volunteer…auction chair x2, class parent times, like, x100, field trips, class parties, you name it! I will not, will not, will not sign up to help… but I still might.

-I have near road rage moments when other people just can’t remember the drop off/pick up rules and I do.

-I’m tired of the core curriculum debate and want to move beyond the issues and roll out/get on with teaching critical thinking.

-I’ve worn many different hats in the course of my 19 years (so far!) in the school system, including being a teacher and administrator myself.

-I am a progressive education buff; I want so much more than busy work for my kids and yours.  If it were up to me, we’d get our hands dirty, make friends, work in groups, learn about kindness, and love school so much it would be our chosen pastime.

-I don’t have much tolerance for bullies.

-Mental health days are excuse worthy, almost always. (Except to miss a deadline someone should have planned for).

-We have a history of psychosomatic visits to school nurses.

-I don’t need usernames, emails, and codes to know how my children are doing in school.  
-The right teacher for my child is not always the right teacher for me.

-I consider Pokemon cards, Lego directions, comic books, the sports page, People magazine, reading your mother’s blogs, reading/answering my texts while I safely drive the car, as counting towards my kids’ 20 minute nightly reading requirement.  

-Despite our best intentions, lunches, important projects, homework, clean underwear, and events we planned on attending, will be forgotten.  Oops.

-I am not a helicopter parent by any means (in fact, I am what I’ve heard called, a “hummingbird parent”, sipping nectar and zooming in only when necessary).  Although, poke the bear and you might be sorry.

So yeah, back to my original thoughts. The school system is rarely based on our unique timing or needs…and our family systems are rarely based in whole on the school.  Navigating the school system is a lesson in compromise. So, may I humbly suggest we all choose our battles wisely?  Appreciate the gifts, make peace with the short comings we can make peace with, and support the process.  Then, when all your ‘Zen Parenting’ bag of tricks have not worked, -and only then- stand up, kick some butt, and advocate for your child…chances are, you are the only one who ever will.

Make it a great year or not, the choice is yours.

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The Little Engine that Could

7/17/2015

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T’was two nights before camp and he asked to talk about it….again.

Me: “Okay, we can talk, but we are not going to change our mind.”

Him: “I just don’t think I can do it, it is too hard.”

Me: “It is hard, but we all think you can do it.  Abba, Ema, and your siblings think you can do it.”

(yes, I am the weirdo parent who speaks in 3rd person still… sometimes I think it allows some distance from personalizing what I am saying...)

Him:  “Really?”

Me:  “Really.”

Him:  “What if I can’t?”

Me: “Then we’ll figure that out too.”


Puff, Puff, Chug, Chug, Off we go… I think he can, I think he can, I think we can.

(Hopefully, all the toys, dolls and clowns are rooting for him, too...)


Just to complicate matters, I was asked at the last minute to accompany an early morning flight of campers from Phoenix, meaning that I would have to leave him in California without me the night before camp...sigh.  But, of course, by the time I thought about the ramifications for my own kid, it was too late to change my commitment and I now had to put my trust in the camp community to help make it happen.


I think he can, I think I can, I think he can…

BUT can WE?  Sometimes, it isn’t just about the kid, sometimes it is about the dynamic.  I started working hard to compartmentalize my creeping worries.  


The Background:  Homesickness runs in my side of the family (not with my other children) but within my own family tree.  As the story goes, my mother went to camp where her mother was working as a nurse and was still shipped home due to homesickness.  (Grandma Sophie had to stay as it was her job.)  Many decades later, I went to camp away from home too... A camp where my college age sister was head of girls camp...and I was still horrendously homesick even with her presence on site. ...At 13, I was traveling Europe with my Mom and Sister and still have the teddy bear I named ‘Homesick’ on that trip…and even my brother, the other night, told me about being picked up 3 nights into his summer camp experience due to making himself sick, because he was missing home so much.  Sigh. On the other hand, my husband and his siblings spent 9 weeks every summer at camp… his own mother’s happiest part of childrearing, summers without her children.

Sometimes in a parenting partnership one partner concedes.  In my husband’s mind it was indeed time for our last born to put on his big boy pants.  Despite my worries, I conceded.  How bad could it be? After all, I was working the front office to help with tuition costs.  He had a trial run last summer spending days with a cabin and returning at night to sleep with me.  My husband asked multiple times if I was going to give in… absolutely not, I promised.  I promised over and over again.


I think I can, I think I can, I think I can….


I return from my chaperone flight and my little dude was actually excited! ...Wait, could this be?  Only 12 hours ago I had a late night sobbing phone call from his overnight in the Rabbi’s family quarters.  Woo hoo!  It only took one night and he was set! Lice check, fever check, and off he went with his counselors!


I think he can, I think he can, I think he can… and at this point, maybe he thinks he can too…


Not so fast. We still had some hurdles ahead.  By dinnertime, he was teary eyed thinking ahead to his first bedtime within his cabin.  I started negotiating... (I know, I know, bad idea)...  

Me:  “Just try a few nights buddy, if it is really too hard, we’ll know in a few nights.“

Him: “Really? You promise?”  

Me: “Yep, I promise.”

What the hell was I doing?! ‘I promise, I promise’...and for 2 more days I promised!… I even promised we would talk to our Rabbi friend, the Director, to see what we could do. As the next two days went by there was a mixture of tears and happiness. If he didn’t stop to think about it too much, he was having fun, enjoying all the activities, and sharing about how “awesome” his counselors were....But still….

Him:  “It’s hard.”

Me: “Growing up and trying new things is hard, but this is a great place to try, I’m close by, and you are safe.” (This was all okay so far… I was hoping the other office Moms were enjoying my display of calm parenting, I was of course a pro…)

Until…

Him (Tears, pitiful face, and all): “Okay, so how much longer?… I don’t think I can do this… when can we talk to the Rabbi?”

Well, shit. In my attempt to negotiate and make it all okay on the front end, I really hadn’t thought ahead…  I don’t think I can, I can’t, I can’t … I promised, I promised… what the fuck are all these staff members doing in the office? … I don’t think I can...I don’t think I can…whose issue is this?

And out it came...face to face...eye to eye...in a supportive, but final, unwavering voice…

Me:  “Jacob, this is really hard for you, I know, but you just have to suck it up.  I can’t stay and work in the office while you are at camp if you can’t handle it.  You have great counselors, this is a great camp, and I know you can do this.”  

Suck it up? Really?  Did I say that to my kid?! Did five other camp affiliated people just hear me say that?  Do I really call myself a Parenting Coach?  Maybe they didn’t hear me?  Oh, they heard me… they are all just acting like they didn’t hear me… why do I ever use the word promise?!?

I was at a loss for how I was going to make this work. My one last hope, despite my poor choice of words, was to show him empathy while at the same time being clear in attributing the emotions to him. I was okay, this was about him.  

I might have been falling apart inside...feeling guilty for not addressing his attachment issues earlier and better...feeling pissed I had promised my husband… wasn’t I the parenting expert?... why the hell was I letting the other half dictate this?… shit shit shit… yes, I was falling apart inside… I knew I was losing the battle… but, my saving grace was Jake didn’t know.  I was still his secure base even if inside I was losing ground on my own emotions.


Peter Fonagy*,  uses the terms “marked mirroring” and “unmarked mirroring” to describe parent reactions to children’s emotions.  He writes: “We find our mind initially in the minds of our parents and later other attachment figures thinking about us. The parent’s capacity to mirror effectively her child’s internal state is at the heart of affect regulation. The Infant is dependent on contingent response of caregiver which in turn depends on her capacity to be reflective about her child as a psychological being.”

I err on the side of oversimplifying Fonagy’s work by using this limited example. Theory of mind, reflective function, and mentalization, has relational intricacies and  is a very nuanced part of a child’s social emotional development, I encourage you to read his work in more depth.  But, suffice it to say, that in order for a child to organize their own emotions, they need their emotions mirrored, but not joined and escalated.  When we empathize but also differentiate, over time, our children learn to organize self experience.  Supporting the development of mentalization and the ability to think of one’s own emotions separate from others’ is a process that begins in infancy and develops in the course of the ongoing back and forth relationship between child and caregiver and doesn’t hinge of course on one interaction. 

By organizing emotional experience children learn to think about their own thinking. On this particular day, while reflecting, I pulled from Fonagy’s work to keep my parenting and emotions in check.


It is true, I was falling apart inside, I was ready to give in… my own homesickness feelings were creeping in…along with my brother’s story he had just told me about Mom and Dad picking him up from camp after 3 days…but was this about me, or was this about Jake?  Jake didn’t know I was falling apart inside.  I hadn’t coddled and cried with Jake, I hadn’t told him I couldn't handle myself without him, or I was lonely and couldn’t believe his evil father was making me do this. Instead, I chose to calmly listen to him, I supported his feelings, but I seperated from his panic... so he could separate.


I think he can, I think I can, I think we can…

And you know what?  He did.


From that day forward, his visits to the office were all happy.  The day after our meeting, his counselor suggested Jake only visit once per day, and he agreed he could handle that.  We never had to talk to the Rabbi and there were no more tears. There were, of course, more negotiations for a few extra care packages (but intermittent rewards are okay, right?)...this was BIG progress!

(I would think that the boys and girls on the other side of the mountain were very very happy…)

And the Dad at home… that big old black engine who wasn’t sure the Little Engine and his clown of a mother could do it… well, he was happy too!


WE thought we could and WE DID!



*Peter Fonagy, PhD, FBA, is one of the world’s foremost investigators of child development and attachment research. 
One of his most recent publications is  a book entitled; Affect Regulation, Mentalization, and the Development of Self 

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Summer Lovin... Maybe Not.

6/7/2015

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Let’s face it, no matter how counter-intuitive it might feel to some of us, children thrive on well set limits and predictable routines.  Even the "bordering on chaos at all minutes" side of me can't argue with the experts on this one. Limits and routines are even more important for children with special needs or families who swing more toward the permissive end of the disciplinary continuum. I know firsthand about that one, because my family fits this description to a T.

Every year, usually starting mid April, as we inch towards summer break I start to notice more behavioral issues starting up.  I run down my internal checklist – is it something at school? Has there been any family strife? Is it dreaded hormones or annual dis-equilibrium? - it takes me awhile before I have my aha moment; summer is coming, which means change is coming.  Whether we’re talking about camp, staying at home, or traveling, summer inevitably means saying goodbye to teachers and peer groups. It also usually brings with it some type of change in sleeping patterns, routines, and often multiple new or unfamiliar environments.  Don’t get me wrong, I think summer can bring us all a breath of fresh air, but for children, young or old, it has many unknowns and I often think the anticipation of the unknown for children is far more anxiety provoking than any true reality.  

Kids are kids, they can’t always tell us what is the root cause of anxiety.  And we aren’t always the best judge of what is going on.  The one thing I do know about children; their behavior is always trying to tell us something their words can’t.  Often children are unable to separate their feelings into descriptors.  Sometimes they feel their feelings in their body and we see it arise in their behaviors.  It helps to think about times you have known clearly about your child’s anxiety… what was most noticeable? Social withdrawal? Difficulties with impulse control? Meltdowns?

Children often can’t tell the difference between anxiety and excitement, or even pinpoint the worries they actually have.  Even as adults, excitement and anxiety often runs hand in hand.  One of major roles teachers and parents play in the lives of the children we are caring for, is helping them anticipate what happens next.  Many parents look forward to summer because it means vacation, more casual evening routines, more relaxed mornings… but to kids, it can mean boundary changes which leave them feeling unsure and sometimes less than safe.  Our job as parents is to keep our kids as informed as possible about the plans...where they go, when they need to be ready, what things will be like, who they go to for help etc… and usually if we do some of this “calendar of events” infomercials, they start to realize they have questions or concerns they couldn’t verbalize and now that we have started the conversation they’ll finish it.  This is sometimes a tightrope walk because with over information we can let our own anxieties leak out and end up building greater levels of anxiety than already existed. Imagine how many questions you would have, full of where’s, when’s and how’s if someone just started to tell you; “You’ll go to this camp, then we’re going to grandma’s, then back home, they another camp.  It will be SUCH a fun summer”… Really?

To downplay the anxiety, start by anticipating some of the issues that might arise.  Think about how your child tends to handle changes.  Most kids do better with less time to anticipate what things will be like, but at the same time you don’t want to just suddenly be shipping them off to grandparents or a new sleep-away camp.  Give choices when you can, and review any rules which might change during the summer when things are more relaxed. Basically, be as consistent and communicative as you can be to help your kids with the anxiety of anticipation. Last week my thirteen year old MADE me sit down and lay out her next two weeks day by day because she needed the structure and security of knowing.  So the trick of this time of year is, adding the structure the kids need while we remembering to have fun! Summer is a great time to soak in time together, and don’t forget to “bottle” those summer moments of joy to remember when our hectic school year starts back up.
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The Truth About Teacher Appreciation

5/9/2015

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Coincidentally, as Teacher Appreciation Week draws to a close, I just dropped off paperwork to enroll my youngest in his new school which is closer to our new house.  Driving home from his new school I actually got a little teary eyed…I had just started meeting my new best friends for the next year.   After touring 3 different possible schools near us, I decided on the local neighborhood school… why? Because during the tour, I could imagine the staff and teachers as my best friends, 
and that is what it takes for me…

This will be the 9th school -not counting preschool- that one of my children has attended...before you inhale at the thought that I am a crazy school jumping parent, remember I have 5 kids, 3 of which are college age or older. In the course of the last 20 years, if my math is correct, I have navigated 3 school districts, 9 schools, and built relationships with 21 elementary school teachers. Following that, the math gets a bit fuzzy for me, but even a conservative estimate puts me at an additional 60 middle school teachers and 35 High School teachers (we had lots of repeat teachers with all 3 big kids attending the same high school).

A friend once told me a great story I have never forgotten.  It was her first parent orientation at Bing Preschool, the highly regarded lab preschool program at Stanford University.  As a new parent it is always a bit foreboding going to your first parent meeting EVER! (So much so in fact, I wonder who the new student really is).  Anyway, there she was looking around the room when she suddenly had an overwhelming feeling of relief.  In the room, there were a few people who looked familiar to her… not familiar in she actually knew and recognized them… but familiar in ‘I think I could know them kind of way’.  The best part of this story, however, is that when the parents went around the room to introduce themselves, every one of the people she had picked out as her “kind” of a person, every last one of them was one of the teachers at the program.

Teachers ARE my best friends.  Not only because a myriad of my best friends actually are teachers, (hey I rarely hired employees at my own schools who wouldn’t end up my friend as well as my employee), but also because for that one, two, or three years a teacher has my sons or daughters in their classroom, they are my best friend, they are my partner, they know my child in a context I can't dream of knowing them and thus through my child they know me in a context I really don't know myself.

One of my all time favorite teachers who taught 3 of my children during the amazing years of K/1 always ended her Kindergarten back to school night telling parents; “Never let your child see or hear anything you don’t want me to know about, because by the time the end of the school year comes around, I’ll know everything”.   And boy did she.  Sometimes she knew even more than I did, especially when my last was a Kinder and his siblings were all in high school or college…he was sharing stories galore...

Teachers have shared some of our family’s greatest trials and tribulations, and at the same time they have attended or enjoyed hearing about some of our greatest celebrations.  They have played roles in a divorce, a remarriage, three re-locations and the blending of the family.  They were among the first to know and tell my three oldest children that their siblings were born and Mom and baby were doing well. They helped me monitor emotional well being and medication dosages, and even once in awhile made the dreaded call, your kid forgot to put on underwear today.

You might be telling yourself right now that I am making it up, but I’m not… for at least a year at a time, if not for many more years, teachers are part of our day to day life.  I have had the privilege to have my kindergarten teacher from 1972 be my first two kids’ kindergarten teacher in 1996 and 1999 and I have had the joy of trading places with a former parent who ten years after her stint at my preschool she was sophomore math teacher for my 3 oldest.  These 2 particular teacher relationships may have been coincidence of time and place, but the friendships are no fate.  The friendship between parent and teacher is available to any of us when we take just one first step towards relationship building.  Out of the 100 plus teachers we have entered into a relationship with, only 4 and 4 alone, ever caused me to take action to make a change in the best interest of my child or other children in the classroom.  Only 4! The choice is ours.

For one of my sons, the teacher relationships usually started with my late summer warning about how incredibly difficult my child with ADHD might be in the classroom. Every year I’d worry about whether it was better to jump right in and tell them or just let them find out on their own.  And every year I would side with being up-front and honest (because of course they were to be my best friend for a year and up-front and honest was the best policy for friendship)…and every year I was pleasantly surprised to find I had braced them just enough for the fall out that they were relieved the first 3 weeks of school when he appeared the perfect angel.  Of course, by the time the 4th week arrived they were so in love with the little charmer, that when the comfort level finally allowed the ‘real kid’ to show up, all they could do was continue to love and guide him in the way only a lovingly attached teacher can.

It is the same with all my kids, they were never the easiest kids in the class… (okay my step son really was the easiest kid in the class, little guy was lucky not to get my genes, I guess)…but they were well loved, respected for their individuality, and allowed to thrive as the learner they were meant to be.  And as a teacher, myself, albeit early childhood, the same experience happened the other way around. Year after year, parents I could partner with continued to be among my friends… and usually those parents were not parents of the “easiest” kids. (If there really is such a thing, but alas, that would take another whole blog to address.)  And let me tell you, not all of the parents and teachers I call friends, have agreed with me… more often than not we have differed greatly in our approaches… but the communication and respect is what forged the friendship; communication, respect, shared expertise and joint attention on what is most important...the CHILD.  One of my former parents would say “Maybe if we all point at it, it will all go away”, and though it never quite works that way, something magical always happens when kids know parents and teachers are working together.  And it is in our hands, not our kids’ hands, to make it happen.

So, as the annual Teacher Appreciation week comes to a close tonight, remember this week is just a radar blip in a whole year. It is a week which makes us feel better as parents knowing we did something tangible to recognize the individual who often spends more waking time with our child than we do for those precious nine months of learning we never get back.  It is a fun week for teachers as they get breakfast, lunch, and sometimes dinner. (I have even seen a school provide chair massages and latte truck!) But again, this week is only a blip on the radar of a school year, the true appreciation, the true gift, is the gift of friendship and partnering to create the best possible learning climate for your child.  

As Dewey put it:

“All learning takes place in the context of relationship.”  

The best gift you can give a teacher is the gift of communication, and it can not happen just one week of the year… 
it must happen every day, of every week, of every school year…



*In memory of Anne Kyle, 3rd grade teacher 2001-02, Lydiksen Elementary School, Pleasanton, California. 
Anne, I hope you know you changed one gentle giant genius wild boy's life when you gave him My Side of the Mountain to read that year as the winter holiday gift... he never stopped reading from that moment on, and he never learned to stay still in his seat or stop blurting out either... 
but he did grow up and I wish you could see and know him now.    


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The Open Door Policy

4/30/2015

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Children amaze me. I am always surprised about how much more there is to know about our children, and how often I am still challenged to have the right answer. I mean, by the time you get to your 5th kid, wouldn’t you think you’d have all the answers?  

But what would you do if your child told you they were struggling with gender dysmorphia, when they look in the mirror they feel they should see the opposite gender looking back?  As I read Linda Thompson’s blog this past weekend,  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-thompson/bruce-jenner-linda-thompson_b_7080918.html, I was struck with the magnitude of Jenner’s journey and the complexities he and his loved ones faced and will continue to face, brave seems like such an understatement…no?

I’m not sure how my older children learned their sensitivity to and understanding about gender and sexuality differences, but they have, almost seamlessly.  Jake, my youngest, has recently begun trying to understand gender identity following a trip to the ice cream store where he met a person who is transitioning. I am not ashamed to say that while I have taught them basic tolerance of all people they have taught me as much if not more. He came home with his babysitter, needless to say, rather inquisitive. I simply said that it was different than being gay, (he has known and loved many two Mom families), it was feeling you are not the gender you were assigned at birth and wanting to change that. (Okay, I also passed the buck and told him to ask his Dad…and rightly so, as the Doctor I sleep with specializes in women’s health, which, of course, provides him with the specialized parenting duties having to do with sexuality…phew… a good deal for me as I basically deal with everything else.) And just like that, he was done with his questions...at least momentarily. Later that weekend he was watching T.V. and asked me if I thought someone on the show was “transitioning”,  I told him maybe, but maybe not…as I felt a stereotype might be developing in his 8 year old brain. He’s working his thoughts around some pretty complicated ideas and my job now is to take the mystery out of it, and help him understand that gender and sexuality are what they are for people, nothing more.

As he enters this new moment of understanding and inquiry about people, I find myself, more than anything else, incredibly happy about his willingness to talk to me, and this circles me back to an idea, or image really, which has played a vital role in my parenting since the moment it was introduced...

“Leave the door open, even if you can only leave it open a crack…just do it.”

This idea was shared with me by Eileen Ross, a clinician supporting LGBT and questioning youth on the San Francisco Peninsula. To me, Ross was the only one willing to talk straight to the parents gathered that 2010 weekday evening at the old High School auditorium in Palo Alto during the first cluster of teenage suicides.  She was the only one I listened to that night… the rest were well meaning, experienced, and concerned, but with “ leave the door open”, Ross was the only one who had my full attention.  She knew her stuff.  I immediately imagined youth in this world behind a shut door with no one to talk to, and shuddered at the thought.  Ross didn’t just spout statistics, pat herself on the back for the number of kids she supported, or make blanket judgments about “the problem” of teen age depression, she said it like it was. And although she didn’t provide an instruction manual, (wouldn’t that have been sweet?) she told us loud and clear...

“Leave the door open.  Whatever you do, whatever the situation, if your child knows the door is open, even just that little crack… they’ll come to you…or at least know they could come to you.”

What further inspired me about what she said was that she didn’t say ‘hearing things you don’t want to hear is easy’, instead she said ‘no one is totally comfortable with everything.’ Even more specifically, she said no one is totally comfortable with transgender issues. For those of us who pride ourselves on being progressive thinking parents, I hope this is as much a relief to you as it is to me.  I consider myself as cool as they come, and yet, I still have my stuck moments… I wish I didn’t, but I do, and I will… moments of ‘shit! I wasn’t ready for this yet!’  

I want to say the right thing every time, I want my face and my words to always match up, but sometimes I am having a mini panic attack on the inside…’could you just momentarily hold that thought while I take a pill and pull myself together?’...deep breath and remember love conquers all, we have made it thus far… (and yes, I once did that...and it worked).  It isn’t easy to predict our reactions (reactions are exactly that, unpredictable). Perhaps we can actually try to find comfort in this… our reactions can be short lived if we allow the reflection to unfold…our children can find comfort in this knowledge too, because once we can get over initial shock, we can move into acceptance and understanding and discussion.

“Leave the door open, even if you can only leave it open a crack…leave the door open.”

What I took away from this idea is that the mere idea of the door ajar is healing, just picture it in your mind, the imagery alone provides a crack of light.  For a questioning child; a child questioning anything from gender identity or sexuality, to giving up on a long practiced sport or hobby, to taking off a year of college, to knowing they will fail their math exam tomorrow; that crack of light might be all a child needs to feel comforted, to feel that ‘deep in your soul’ knowledge that this too shall pass...the knowing that ‘I have someone open to talking when I am ready, whatever, whenever, if I really need it. I am not alone.’ Having that door ajar does not mean that we, as parents, won’t feel disappointment or have issues of misplaced shame or guilt to work through (which is, of course, our own burden to work on), but it does mean that we are there for the long haul… we are available to join our kids where they are, to support figuring out the hard stuff and to support their journey to their real selves, whatever that means for them. 

I have had a few tricky parenting moments, but the trickiest moments by far are following through on my open door policy.  I had to keep my shit together one night, when after multiple passed curfew phone calls, my daughter finally admitted there wasn’t a safe ride home. I was pissed to say the least… 2 hours of calls, late at night, being put off, coming soon… not my way of doing business with my kids. But I still picked her up, no questions asked, because that was our deal.  I stuffed the dragon mom deep inside (for once) because her safety was really my priority in the end, wasn’t it?

I have also had to remind my adult kids, that while I might be a “pretty cool” Mom, I certainly am not a peer and do not want to hear about their escapades, and if I do get momentary TMI, my almost immediate cue to them is to cover my ears and say “lalalalalala”.  Same rules as preschool, if you aren’t hurting yourself, someone else, or property… this is a need to know basis only, kiddos!

Why do my kids’ escapades sound so much more outrageous than my own? Is it my imagination? I promise that my children aren’t more wild than I was… and yet, some things I just don’t want to hear about if I don’t need to, right?  Even though I know my kids use uber, walk or take private transportation if drinking, and even though they have steady heads on their shoulders (well, most of the time), the “what ifs” are crazy making.  And when it just so happens that the “what ifs” become reality, we confuse our children’s story with our own… we wonder what we did wrong… we allow shame and blame to creep in and replace love and pride.

I know shame… shame has played a big role in my life, as has blame. I’m not sure one can raise children and not feel intense responsibility for who they become, and I long ago became friends with these deep seated core issues.  I couldn’t stop the habit of blaming myself, try as I might… shoulda, coulda, woulda BS is second nature for me.

If only we could “un-friend” or “un-follow” shame and blame, like we can annoying posts, you might ask? Actually, I am not sure I would totally want to do away with these core issues,  as they are a catalyst to my reflective parenting, and reflective parenting is what has made me a better parent.  It was too much work to get entirely rid of shame and blame, so I have learned to sit with discomfort, learned to notice when it arises, and do my best to separate my issues from my kids issues. I let blame and shame join me on my big couch of life...

“No one is totally comfortable with everything.”

...and even in our uncomfortable and ‘stuck’ moments, I believe we can hold our issues in a different place and still move forward.  I think we must learn to hold it and move forward if we are to truly leave the door open...

So, let’s leave the door open, cracked, unlocked, ajar… because if the door is open… there is always a crack of light.  And when there is light at the end of the tunnel there is always at least one direction our children can go to get out of the dark.




To understand more about gender spectrum and our children, I recommend starting with this article.

http://www.tolerance.org/gender-spectrum


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Ice Cream and Mindset... Make the Shift

4/23/2015

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It is standardized testing week and Jake ate toast and ice cream for breakfast today. He’ll milk the week for all he can get, and most likely, I will let him.  I have decided that standardized testing week will now be a fun week in our house.

I don’t opt my kids out of testing , never have and never will.  Every State is different and every State is in a different place in terms of their movement towards more appropriate "smarter" assessment. And although I consider myself a progressive in the area of education, opting out has never seemed the most effective means of shifting educational policy… especially now, when there is finally movement towards a different paradigm.  (Albeit a slow shift, it is a shift, nonetheless.) You read this right, I said a different paradigm is coming...a deeper, more ‘whole child’ way of learning.  Like all paradigm shifts, this shift is awkward and somewhat uncomfortable. Parents, educators, and leaders don’t know where to hang their support.  A part of this shift will require parents, teachers, districts, and eventually institutions of higher education, to view standardized testing as just one of many tools in getting to know our children.  This shift also hopes to create more inclusive tests, allowing for children to show their knowledge in a multitude of ways.  Part of my own paradigm shift through this process is realizing my antagonism has been misplaced, and that the testing itself, is not as much the issue as is the policy and behavior around testing. These policies and attitudes have helped create the monster achievement culture that is now so entrenched in our communities...and when we are stressed about standardized testing at all levels, what effect do our attitudes have on our students; our children?

I am not a standardized testing proponent by any means. If teachers spend their year teaching to the test they are bowing to pressure. Well meaning colleagues lose their way, forgetting to trust what they know about how children learn. I know this pressure well.  As a preschool teacher in a high achievement community I had the pressure of Kindergarten readiness pushing my buttons every step of the way. Sometimes, despite my good intentions, I bowed to pressure; but more often than not, I stayed my course and proved to myself, parents, and colleagues that play based child directed learning prepared my students for kindergarten more fully than other schools of thought. (pun totally intended).

The upshot of testing is just like anything else we do in life...while some kids aren’t very good at it, some kids are  really great at it. Some kids will show poorly on tests, and some kids find standardized tests to be an opportunity for them to show their skills.  Year after year, the AP teachers at my kids’ high schools would spout off about… ‘if your kids get an A in this class, they’ll most likely get a 5 on the AP, a B they’ll get a 4’, and so it went...but not really, because my kid got a D+ in the class, and lo and behold, scored a 4 on the AP exam, because of course, every child is different.  Every child learns differently, tests differently, participates differently, and achieves differently. Despite all the ‘anti this’ and ‘anti that’ campaigning out there, there is room for all of these different ways, and they can all help parents and teachers look more closely at who our children really are. With just a little bit of creativity and thought, we can transform assessment to include all type of intelligences. Testing and grades are such limited pieces of the pie and we can and need to demand more... but we need to do so in ways that make sense both in our schools and in our homes.

So last Friday, the dreaded email arrived, “Reminder: AZ merit testing next week”. Included was the schedule of testing and a plea to eat well, sleep well, and be on time (and no, we haven’t been on time… sigh).  I immediately felt my ‘progressive educator Mom-pissiness’ take over my thinking...why stop there? How about we spend the week toileting and bathing extra well, too? (yes, while I never have my kids miss testing, and I don’t believe in throwing the baby out with the bath water, I am still irked about the amount of time and emphasis testing takes up).

...So, yes, ice cream and buttered toast is my answer to testing week this year.  

As I mulled over the email a bit further, I noticed the teacher mentioned a few things that made me less and less perturbed as the weekend went on.  She asked parents to remind their kids that testing is; hard work,  another way to show what you know, and she asked us to remind our children about the strategies they have learned throughout the year. She did not say that it was going ‘to be easy’, not one mention of being ‘smart’, or of the idea that if they had gotten good grades they would do fine.  Her use of the phrases ‘working hard’, ‘show what you know’, and ‘use strategies’ made me stop and ponder what these words really mean. As parents and teachers, there are so many ways we can approach all kinds of testing. There are ways we can either raise the stakes or alternatively reduce the stress; ways we can talk to our kids about the information that tests (and for that matter, grades) provide, because like it or not, (standardized or not), life is a series of tests, a series of successes and failures. No, not all tests are standardized of course, but tests all the same.

I am the first to admit I battle the achievement culture and have made mistakes talking in front of my children.  Last year my daughter’s test score saw a rather a sharp decline, and unfortunately she heard me discuss it with her Dad.  What she didn’t hear is that I later realized she was still being tested in a more traditional format called “AIMS  testing”, while her curriculum had shifted to be entirely common core.  These shifts make a big difference and I missed a major parenting moment not realizing she needed to be a part of this whole discussion.  I had unintentionally, as well as unknowingly, set me daughter up for feeling apprehensive about testing.  Stupid numeric scores had briefly derailed me.  Since realizing there was angst around testing, (um yeah… when I told her not to worry, the tests don’t matter to me, and she threw it back in my face that they mattered last summer…deep breath).  I have since regrouped with her to talk about how many factors can affect testing; our move to a different State, the fact her teachers don’t teach to the test, the change in curriculum that testing was still catching up to...just to name a few. This experience made me realize our kids need to be more regularly introduced to thinking about their own learning, the factors that affect how they learn, and for that matter, thinking about how they test too… nothing is the end all or be all in life, and most certainly not tests.

Most of you are probably somewhat familiar with the idea of Mindset courtesy of Carol Dweck at Stanford University. Of particular interest to me, is her growth mindset research;

In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits.  They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them.  They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort.  They’re wrong.

In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point.  This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.  Virtually all great people had these qualities.  

It is probably abundantly clear to you, I love to think about learning. From children and parents to teachers and leaders, reflecting on my own and others’ learning has been a mainstay in both my personal and professional life. Learning is, in fact, working hard no matter how someone does it; the biological processes and complexities of the brain alone prove it. Different learning styles make that even clearer, and depending on our learning styles and our own unique processing, we can teach our children to understand their own processes and develop their own strategies. Learning is in the struggle, the combination of challenge and repetition. Smart is a myth. Easy is a myth. Our kids need to know that. Teaching our kids about the different types of ‘smarts’ and talking about ‘gifts and abilities’ can provide a different attitude to fend off the achievement culture and reduce competition.  It takes effort to learn.  Emphasizing hard work is essential to helping children feel more confident in approaching more difficult problems… deep breath… challenge is good… and in order for our children to show what they know, they might just have to learn some new strategies.

With that in mind, may I innocently suggest, that as parents, we help change the paradigm. Instead of participating in the shrouded cloud of doom during testing week, whether that includes opting out or reluctantly opting in, lets create a new reality for our children, by emphasizing a new kind of mindset.  Let’s view testing as another learning moment and for some of us that might mean making it a memorable type week… eat ice cream, skip baths, increase heavy work and physical play to promote focus, watch movies for down time, prolong night time cuddles… let your kids milk it. Let’s collectively view it as another tool for learning about how your child shows what they know… and maybe, just maybe, the stress of testing might just become another hump in our kids’ journey to adulthood. 



... 


You may also want to read;

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/07/new-research-students-benefit-from-learning-that-intelligence-is-not-fixed/


http://edsource.org/2015/new-standards-and-tests-are-worth-the-effort/75380#.VPSfTMYfku0?utm_source=Erin%27s+email%2C+March+2%2C+2015&utm_campaign=Daily_1-26-15&utm_medium=email



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Taking a Closer Look; Magical Moments and Mindfulness

4/15/2015

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If you are a parenting junkie like me, perusing the ‘hip’ parenting sites, or are just ‘hip’ in general, you are probably inundated with the idea of emphasizing mindfulness for your children.

Yeah, yeah… mommy and daddy zen, deep breaths, downward dog that isn’t a pull toy as much as it is a ‘position’…it’s all just one more thing to incorporate into our our busy lives and our conscious parenting.  After 6 months of blogging, I have become mindful of too many things I need to be mindful of… not to mention the ongoing blog popping out of my mouth. Sometimes it is intentional, (as my daughter said recently, “you just sounded like a Disney Channel Mom”), but more often unintentional, as I suddenly realize ‘that’s the lead paragraph I have been waiting for’ which kicks off the 3 hour blog writing session before the universe swallows the moment again.

This particular morning last week, -I kid you not- out of my mouth popped, “Hurry up Ayli, if you get out of the door quickly enough, you can stop to smell the roses on the way to the car”… (I know that the ‘hurry’ part was counter to the idea of mindfulness, but if you knew how slow our morning activation is, you’d understand).... anyhow, when we moved into our new (but kinda old) house 6 weeks ago, I pruned the old dead rose bush along with all the other clean up.  I really didn’t think it was still alive as it was so brittle, but low and behold, a beautiful red rose bush has bloomed. The new blooms are the closest thing to long stem red roses I have ever seen growing on a garden rose bush, and they are, oh, so fragrant. So fragrant, in fact, that I stop to smell the roses at least once per day…so, Mom if you are listening…I am both figuratively and literally stopping to smell the roses these days.  I am also listening to the sounds of the birds, and watching butterflies… no joke, sometimes to stay out of the athlete parent frenzy… I watch butterflies at softball games.

But there was more to this particular morning’s scene, -I still kid you not- Jake suddenly says “shhhhh, it is so beautiful, don’t scare them” as he shifts our focus up to the swallows building their mud nests in our front yard foyer. For one teensy, tiny moment of the busy morning rush, we all sat there staring up at them. When our moment of awe was up, my 13 yr old took out her iphone 6 and captured a photo of a swallow in mid flight, and yes, I also proudly told Jake to tell the attendance lady that the swallows building the nest made us late. (I haven’t had a better excuse for our daily tardies all year long).  I also marked the date of April 4 in my calendar as perhaps the swallows return the same day each year like the swallows of Capistrano. And now, a week later… one swallow nest is complete and 3 more are on the way…

My husband laughs at me, I can find the smallest things in the sand at the beach, and I can identify types of birds, recognize crops, and randomly remember names of wildflowers out the window of the car on our long road trips.  At my schools, I always encouraged casual treasure hunts, creating cubby collections with doodads, and when the world was seasonally not in the mood for natural goodies, I even spent curriculum funds on treasures to sprinkle here and there through the tanbark and sand box.  Many a child had their regulatory need met on their self-directed treasure hunts, brown lunch bags from the art cupboard and their eyeballs were all that was needed for ‘separating from the fray.’  

I rarely didn’t take the opportunity to “look” when a little hand tugged at my shirt and pulled me to see the garden spider web, sprouting bean plant, or gross rotting apple dropped from the tree and was now covered with ants… this was my favorite time with my preschoolers… our quiet moments of joint attention and thought.  In fact, I will profess that these were my most powerful teaching moments, when I didn’t teach at all. These were the moments I built relationships with kiddos, the moments which made them listen to my voice and follow directions during the rest of the day… and this, I believe, was how I taught mindfulness.  It wasn’t a book, or a circle time game (although these things can also support the development of mindfulness) and it definitely wasn’t flashcards, incessant questioning, or worksheets (those were forbidden at my schools).  The first examples of mindfulness we show our children are the shared moments of sensory intake and observation… the moments when we rarely say it, but simultaneously think it… “that is soooo cool”.  And those were the moments I knew who my preschoolers were on the inside… whether it was the sparkles, the plastic mini animals, the gold pirate bootie left over from St. Patrick’s Day hunts 6 months later, or the silly green lady bug who wasn’t red.  Observation begets mindfulness, mindfulness grows our thoughtfulness and thinking, real thinking leads to discovery, and discovery leads to knowledge.  It may sound revolutionary, but do you really know how something works if you haven’t seen it, heard it, or felt it?  Isn’t that the real magic of mindfulness--- taking the time to really know something?  To recalibrate?

I always thought it was just “one of my things”, this ‘random identification’ of the world around me… I am not a savant by any measure, I don’t memorize lists, and it isn’t because I went to an Ag school. Infact, I failed miserably at categorization and classification, (ask my physical anthro and Zoology professors if you don’t believe me). But when I want to, I can recognize dog and cat breeds, flowers and plants, types of birds, reef animals, types of penguins and monkeys, Madame Alexander dolls, types of fine china, Hummel collectibles, and I even know my fair share of art history.  

The funny thing is, I usually know exactly when and where and why I know these things. My random knowledge is based on life’s little experiences. When I point most things out to my kids I have little stories; ‘Grandma used to do this’, ‘my friend taught me this’, ‘Uncle “whatchamadoogie” had an old truck like that’.  And because bloggers start to look for sense in all types of occurrences, (what original spin do I have on this topic???)  I started thinking about this phenomenon and realized most of my stories come from my parents or are stories associated with profoundly important relationships in my lives...the clinking of coins in my Dad’s pocket when he was nervous… the marine bio boyfriend who my nephews and I spent a significant portion of 2 summers tide-pooling with… facts about bugs from my entomologist brother… and my mother… mostly my mother…

My mother was my person.

I haven’t written much about my mother in my blogging yet.  She died 18 months ago at 92 years old.  For me, being the youngest of nine and born when she was 46 years old, she was older and for much of my childhood she was not the “cool” mom. She was stricter, seemed crankier than other moms, and spent most of her time on housework and meal preparation.  But my mother, she was my person.  She is who taught me mindfulness to shut other things out when I really wanted to think, feel and observe. Mom was a child of the depression who raised 9 kids through 4 distinctly different decades she was NOT a Zen Buddhist, in fact, her idea of meditation was telling me to “be quiet and contemplate my navel”.  As I grew older, she’d say “Slow down, you’re doing too much” and warn “you’ll make yourself sick at this rate.”

But Mom was a secret poet...a keeper of scrapbooks and memories…a collector of doodads and dolls… of stray pets and sometimes stray people… of African violets and pussy willow… she taught me about nap taking and walks… (she never learned to drive, so there was quite a bit of walking). There were years she got a little obsessed, like when we found myriads of tiny sand dollars at the beach and she bought us all gold sand dollar necklaces, and the same thing goes for the year she overdid California poppies...but she took note of the simple things… and for most of my childhood we didn’t do things like travel the world… the simple things were right there in front of us...the simple things were how she taught me to slow down.

I learned about aphids, roses, and fruit trees (she had all different types of roses and fruit trees in our non coiffed back yard). We called hummingbird hummers and had a house full of pets. We took springtime walks to see the purple tulip trees throughout our neighborhood… she pointed out robin red breasts and red wing black birds...she’d say ‘a baby’s skin is velvet’, and the smell of babies she’d describe as ‘ashes of roses’. She introduced me to fragrances… lavender for your underwear drawer, wet sidewalk on our walks… we’d check how full the nearby creek was getting on rainy days meanwhile smelling the wet eucalyptus trees. And even though there was rarely a quiet moment in our busy big family house, and even though she was a screamer, she somehow stopped during moments that mattered to enable meaningful joint attention.  Introducing me to descriptors and imagery, to smells and textures, perhaps leading me to want to stop and smell my newborn baby as  many times as I could before it was gone and my time as a young mother was too… feel the velvet skin on my cheek...listen to the ocean...greet the sun with my upturned face.  I am quite certain her way of being, enjoying the simple things, is why I point the simple things out to children, and why I stop to look when they want to point something out to me, to take the moment to remember that the things around us are amazing.  

When I grew up and I studied mindfulness in a class based on the teachings of Jon Kabat Zinn, I realized that mindfulness for me was the ability to stop and sense the world.  To look, listen, and touch without having to do anything more... to really see, really hear and really feel in totality… a whole bunch more isn’t necessary.  But the truth is; I lose that ability sometimes… I forget the truth of ‘less is more’ and ‘the simple things are right there around us’ ...like the taste of your favorite food, the luxury of a warm shower, how it feels to hold hands with someone you love.

So, the swallow nests will stay, even if I have to clean up the droppings, and my kids and I will continue to mark the construction progress. Perhaps they, too, will develop some random knowledge, but most of all, I hope they continue to have moments of pure “oh, that is sooooo cool” thoughts… all in the name of mindfulness…that hip new idea for children that has actually been around for generations!


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18 is our Family’s Magic Number

4/10/2015

3 Comments

 
Not because we are Jewish, not because of any birth, marriage, or divorce date (although we like to use those dates for secret codes as well), and although we once won big at craps and roulette, it’s not even because of a good gambling number.

...18 is our family’s magic number because 18 therapists have been a part of our family’s journey...

18 therapists in almost as many years…for blending, for educational testing, for meds, for keeping us together, for battling type A, for saying goodbye to old feelings, for organization, for communication, for putting out fires, for grief, for keeping us united, for another set of eyes and ears… and though we couldn’t always understand what one another was going through…we supported the need to talk and be heard…

7 is the number of members in our family. Using my handy dandy calculator app, that means about 2.5 therapists per family member, which is more mental health clinicians than dentists, pediatricians and internists combined! Yessirreee, a whole lot of good old fashion crazy around here...and a whole bunch of normal in this day and age.

Yes, 18 is our magic number...there was Carol, Nan, Ken, Barbara, Dr. B (whose name was sung in operatic voice when it was time to go to sessions), John, there was the one who was highly recommended then kind really didn’t work for our kid; there was Mary, Miss. Piggy, Patty, Dr. Bland, Dr. R, Emily, Dr. C, another John, the special master and the guy whose office was one town over. Phew. And at the time each one of these practitioners was part of our lives, they were common household names and our appointments were never hush hush (for that matter nothing much was ever hush, hush, why should it be?). One of these practitioners, had such a way with my son, that my son told me this past year he thinks the guy changed his life. They’d scooter to ice cream and play at the park. This particular therapist tried to teach us “green” (vs. red) language, which was an incredible way of talking to each other about hard things, and though we failed miserably at this particular language immersion; when we moved away, we gave him a Kermit the Frog with a sign that says “it’s not easy being green.”  

Because 18 is our magic number… we spent money we didn’t have; we needed support figuring it out and not a dollar do we regret.   Every once in awhile we heard things we didn’t want to hear like an insistence we not hold hands in front of our kids for the first year of blending (um yeah, that did not go over well, nor was it a directive we followed). We have no regrets because knowledge is power and we sought out the people to help us discover the shit we needed to know. Every once in awhile I still read the psycho educational test reports we had done for 4 out of the 5 kids and it never ceases to amaze me how accurately Dr. B could figure out how each of my kids would learn best…and life has proven him on the mark time and time again. 

Because 18 is our magic number...I carried an imaginary note card in my back pocket which gave me the voice to say “no”…

Because 18 is our magic number...When things get crazy, I envision myself as the roots of a big tree, stabilizing the branches in the wind…

Because 18 is our magic number...We learned that even when we try to put the fire out, someone still plays with fire until they are sure the fire will really stay out…

Because 18 is our magic number...We learned that time heals many wounds but we also don’t ever forget…

Because 18 is our magic number...We know that medication for our brains is no different than insulin for diabetics…

Because 18 is our magic number...We know sunlight lamps, essential oils, body work, meditation, and mindfulness are not to be poo poo’d…

Because 18 is our magic number...We learned to think before we speak (most of the time that is)…

Because 18 is our magic number...We learned that asking for help is a smart and strong move…

Because 18 is our magic number...We learned that tears can be full of joy, anger, pain, grief, and most of all, that tears are cleansing.

Because 18 is our magic number...we learned to laugh at ourselves and to take some things less seriously…

Because 18 is our magic number...We learned that taking a stand can make a difference and that each one of us needs a family member to take a stand sometimes…

Because 18 is our magic number...We learned we are all “beautiful people”, and that grades, degrees, weight and achievements don’t define us. Our gifts are all different and we are all favorites…

Because 18 is our magic number...We learned that one of our kids might not be ready for college and that informed us for the journey we took…

Because 18 is our magic number...We learned there is no immediate cure for all that ails us, and that things really do get better…

Because 18 is our magic number...We learned that families with Medical and Early Childhood Degrees from prestigious universities need as much support to thrive as any other family…

Because 18 is our magic number…We know our magic number will eventually increase… and that is okay because we also know we are all a work in progress...


...So, Why this blog? Why now?

Because I was born and raised in Palo Alto, California… the heart of Silicon Valley and the home of Stanford University. I raised my first 3 children there...and I was a part of the bubble of greatness, of achievement, of hometown pride, and of cluster suicides.  I spent 8 years dropping one or two teens off at Palo Alto High School...on the days of sleepless nights, morning fights, scary tests, or something else not quite right...I feared the worst... I had confidence in my parenting skills... yet I was never complacent...I was scared…God, I hate trains…

And now, I feel bad for having moved away before the real work to transform the ideas of achievement has even started...So, let’s break the stigma...Our family’s magic number is 18… a glorious, wonderful, crazy 18…

What’s yours?

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Reframe, Rinse, Repeat...

3/31/2015

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After my The Rare Unexpected Breed posting, Dr. Ed Tronick posted a comment ending with this query:

“The question though is how did you manage your anxiety?”

At the time I responded with: “taking parenting one day at a time, while believing in my ability to get back on track no matter how off track we got…”  This remains true, I am most definitely a glass half full kind of a parent.  Growing up as the youngest of nine, with an age range of 17 years, I saw developmental struggle unfold x 9, and despite that struggle, I -for the most part- saw success x 9 as well.  Nothing was perfect for us growing up (from both fore and hind sight perspective), and yet all of us can now be considered successful contributors to society, with even greater success in the 21 progeny we have collectively sent out -or are about to send out- into the world.  Experience tells me that child growth and development is both fragile and resilient in nature.  We need to be fearful enough about environmental factors to provide protective features in our parenting, but we also must have a balanced view of the world and know a certain amount of stress is how we become; how we grow and learn.  For the most part, our children can and do survive… and to answer how I manage my anxiety and survive all these phases of life, well,  I laugh a little, I cry a little, and I reframe A LOT.

But there is still more to my reframing than that...with my inherent optimism has come the search for a silver lining -a sometimes faulty search- but none the less, finding the upside has been a big part of my journey.  When the shit hits the fan, I dig deep and reframe the situation.  Sometimes I reframe with optimism, sometimes with professional past experience or developmental studies and research truths, or last but not least, my good friend humor supports me. In fact, Dr. Tronick, one of my favorite reframes is courtesy of your research… when I make parenting faux-pas, I often remember that it takes both rupture and repair to build healthy relationships...and still, when all else fails, I pull out the old: “I only have to be an awesome parent 30% of the time.” (My apologies in advance, I know I may be using a bit of poetic parenting license and butchering your research, but hey, it works for me).  In childrearing, in marriage, and in all personal challenge, the success comes out of struggle…or so my reframing tends to remind me.

 So, without further ado, I will share my top ways in which to reframe.   

Wrapping my head around it. I’ve discovered the difference between “hearing something I don’t want to hear” or “feeling something I don’t want to feel”, and “dealing with that something as part of my work or parenting” is two days. My colleagues always knew it would be fine when I’d say (sometimes pissed): “let me wrap my head around it”...this phrase became the re-frame for “this is challenging, but we’ll struggle through together.” Two days truly allowed me (and still does) the time and space to be thoughtful as opposed to being reactive.

Voice, No, Go.  This is an important one for those of us that take on the fixer or caregiver role.  The basic concept is as follows: members of an organization, whether a business, a family, or any other form of human grouping, essentially have two possible responses when they perceive a decrease in quality or benefit to themselves: they can exit (withdraw from the relationship), or they can voice (attempt to repair or improve the relationship through communication of the complaint, grievance, or proposal for change). If their voice is not listened to, they leave.  Not easy for a parent, right?  Especially not easy in the middle of a power struggle, right?  

When I need to be more mindful with my children, I remember that listening brings you closer even when listening means ‘hearing things’ you don’t want to hear.  Children, parents, and teachers should be heard. At the same time being able to ‘voice’ doesn’t mean you always have to give someone their way.  That is my reframe…listening and hearing someone doesn’t mean I have to take action. Deep breath.

Mantras.  Friends laugh at this. I laugh at this.  And yet my home and mind are filled with mantras!  These mantras aren’t just for me, but also for my colleagues and children.   There are times I just don’t have the state of mind to say the things I want my children to hear, so yes, I have words all over the house to help me along the way. Visuals of how it could and should be. From pillows to wall plaques reading... ‘you are my sunshine’, ‘don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing is going to be all right’, ‘be the change’... to daily rituals, like at school drop off when we say “make it a great day or not… the choice is yours” or “what’s so great about today? It’s a great day to be alive’...these start our days with happy expectations which certainly can never hurt.  And when I don’t have the answer; am not sure I did the right thing I depend on Maya Angelou for reminding what is most important, 'I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.’

Complex Ape Theory.  Granted, this reframe has an inherent silliness, but conversely it has a reality check aspect to it.  (disclaimer: creationists may not agree).  In a nutshell, complex ape theory, as my son explains it to me, is “the fact that we can’t run away from our natural brain, no matter how complex our world becomes, our brains are still reaching from our ape past to make it work.” With that in mind, let me suggest we remember a few of the following ideas…  (then feel  free to reframe with complex ape theory to your hearts’ content, as reframing the little stuff in life really does bring you back “down to earth”).

*Complex apes were not designed to sit still and listen without moving their body. (We all know complex apes use tools.)

*Complex apes were not designed to be indoors all day without swinging from trees.

*Complex apes love grooming each other, so cheer up next time you have to nit pick.

*Complex ape brains were not designed to get 99% right on every assignment.  Nor were they designed to sit and learn in front of a flat screen or piece of paper all day long.

*Complex apes were not designed to have homework, especially after 7 hours. (of what, specifically... school? learning? working? all of it?)

*Complex apes were not originally designed to be watched every second of the day, I would wager a guess that they were allowed to forage by themselves.  

On a more serious note, using this reframe and thinking about our kids and expectations, it is important to remember that most brains don’t learn from rote memorization. Allowing our children to find their own unique systems for learning is one of the greatest gifts we can give. I am a conformist in many, many ways, but my boys are ultimately right; complex ape theory aside, knowing and understanding how human brains are programmed to work is a big step towards better meeting our children’s needs inside and outside a classroom setting. Our world has had geniuses for centuries and has only had compensatory education since some time in the 1800’s.  So, give yourself and your children a break when things aren’t going quite as well as ‘expected’… it might just be that ‘expectations’ are fictional creations our brains have created.  

Taking stock. Gratitude, such a no brainer but do we really stop our busy lives often enough to take stock?  After a recent move I had (and still have) the tedious job of unpacking boxes of pictures.  I was struck by how very far my kids have come in the world.  I know there were people who said it couldn’t be done, blending a family with all the complications our lives had 17 years ago, and yet today our blend is as strong as, if not stronger than any family who started out together.  I admit, there have been moments when the house was on fire… but we’ve made it this far putting out fires and that alone gives me the ability to keep going.  When things are good I have often said I want to bottle the moments.  I am a sappy sentimental person, but I celebrate how amazing life can be after a time of struggle.  Businesses have monthly inventory procedures once per month, maybe families should too.

Whose issue is it?  A good friend and former client told me the most important question I ever asked her was “Whose issue is it?”  So often we parents run around with worries in our heads.  Sometimes these worries are valid, and sometimes they are misplaced.  Being clear regarding whose issue it is when we are worried, is an important way to make sure we aren’t muddling up feelings.  Is our child embarrassed?  Are we embarrassed?  Are we embarrassed for our child?  Are my feelings about the here and now, or something from the past?  Answering this question often brings relief and helps you to pinpoint what you are really worrying about, instead of creating an issue for your child which really only exists for you.

Reframe, Rinse, Repeat… Reframe, Rinse, Repeat… the inner voice of reframing and reflection needs to be your own, authentic for you and your parenting.  Sometimes my reframing will ring true to followers, and sometimes it won’t.  My parenting anxiety is my own, as is yours… there has been a  lot of it so far, and I expect there will be much more ahead.  So laugh a little, cry a little, and reframe A LOT…cause what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. (Did I really end with that?)



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    Tanya Swezey Stabinsky
    Early Childhood Consultant
    Parenting Coach

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