One of my kids refers to herself as the “forgotten” child… here’s why:
She once got locked out of one of our Cruise Staterooms. (We never expected that our big kids would sleep through their sister leaving her bunk.) When a fellow cruiser knocked on the door, we were shocked to find that the toddler in the hall was ours...
And once we forgot she was with us when she slipped into the gas station store to buy a drink. Until of course, we heard the lady yell after us, “Hey, isn’t this your kid?” as we took off down the street…
And once when we left her at the high school following our older son’s graduation...we all thought she was with the other car full of family members...
And once, more recently, a big group of us walked away from her at the zoo…and well, fortunately, she could borrow a cell phone and call us…
And the truth is, she is not even the baby I left at my office when meeting my colleagues for margaritas…he too, was perfectly safe when I returned to the office full of laughter from coworkers timing how long it would be before I returned. Yes, 6 months of therapy ensued after that one.
Feeling like a shitty parent (or teacher for that matter) isn’t fun, but it does come with the territory, no matter how experienced we are. If we offer our children a wide range of experiences, there are bound to be moments of oversight...moments we miss cues or get disconnected. Embracing my perfectly imperfect parenting and teaching has been a life’s journey for me. As a teacher and mother I have found it liberating to “out” myself, because all my worst moments are nothing when I start to think of my best moments. And the best moments are what count the most in the end.
How can the bad moments happen, you ask? That could never happen to me, you say? Research on parent child relationships tells us, we all have our good and bad moments, and even though I hate math, I am pretty sure my probability for these moments increased with each additional child I added to my responsibilities.
When we turned the car around and pulled back into the gas station for my daughter, she just jumped in the car like nothing had happened. First thing out of both my husband’s and my mouth was “Were you worried?” Surprisingly, she laughed and said “No.” It was a little hard to believe, but true. She was totally unfazed and said it really never occurred to her that we wouldn’t turn around quickly. It wasn’t until years later, after the graduation and zoo experiences, she created her own nickname, ‘the forgotten child’, just to rub in her mother’s failings.
I have learned a few things about parenting and our process of rupture and repair with children. I understand that my daughter, despite her mother’s worst moments, has internalized that no matter what bad moments arise between us, our best moments are never too far away. I believe all my children have developed this understanding of relationship. I make mistakes, they make mistakes, and then we find our way back to our perfect space together. (Hopefully, I make far fewer mistakes than they do over the course of our life time.)
One of my favorite researchers, Dr. Ed Tronick of “Still Face experiment” fame, says it like this…
“It’s a little like the good, the bad and the ugly. The good is that normal stuff that goes on, we all do with our kids. The bad is when something bad happens, but the infant can overcome it, after all, when you stop the Still Face, the mother and baby get to play again. The ugly is when you don’t give the child any chance to get back to the good, there is no reparation and they are stuck in the really ugly situation.”
Tronick’s research helped us understand that only 20 to 30 percent of interactions with our children are perfectly in sync...
“The rest of the time is… you’re in sync, you’re out of sync, you’re getting back into sync.” And that is really what he thinks is the key process: “getting back into synchrony”. The back and forth of disconnect and reconnect is not only normal, it is actually positive.
As Tronick also says, “When you reconnect, one of the things that can happen, not always but some of the time, is that you create something new, if you create something new, you grow.”
When our children return to connectedness with us, the relief felt can create a powerful learning moment. When children learn there is recovery after bad moments, their resilience is bolstered. One of my favorite things to say to preschoolers after a hard day at school is “tomorrow will be a better day”. It isn’t easy to for an adult and child to coordinate emotions and attention full time, but it is our responsibility, as the adult in the relationship, to continue to make stride towards this connection.
As parents and teachers we need to remember that no relationship is perfect all of the time. Every relationship is a journey of trial and error. It comes with the territory that we need to set limits, we get distracted, we don’t read our children’s cues for attention, we laugh or joke when our child doesn’t think it is funny, we yell when we could just speak, and we just plain tune out sometimes. I am guilty as charged. I know I miss more opportunities than I catch. I’ve stopped feeling guilty about the worst moments, because I have come to recognize that the times I am perfect, are extraordinary moments for both me and my kids. Those moments when we laugh together, when I have the right words to move them forward, when I show up as the “cool mom”, when we finish each others’ thoughts, those times are banked in our “interactions account”, and yes, sometimes “loans and withdrawals” are necessary. I challenge us as teachers and parents to concentrate on quality more than quantity, quality of interactions more than quality of gifts or activities to fill their time. If we work hard for the 30% perfection, the imperfection will take care of itself.
For more information about Dr. Tronick’s work please see youtube videos below.
She once got locked out of one of our Cruise Staterooms. (We never expected that our big kids would sleep through their sister leaving her bunk.) When a fellow cruiser knocked on the door, we were shocked to find that the toddler in the hall was ours...
And once we forgot she was with us when she slipped into the gas station store to buy a drink. Until of course, we heard the lady yell after us, “Hey, isn’t this your kid?” as we took off down the street…
And once when we left her at the high school following our older son’s graduation...we all thought she was with the other car full of family members...
And once, more recently, a big group of us walked away from her at the zoo…and well, fortunately, she could borrow a cell phone and call us…
And the truth is, she is not even the baby I left at my office when meeting my colleagues for margaritas…he too, was perfectly safe when I returned to the office full of laughter from coworkers timing how long it would be before I returned. Yes, 6 months of therapy ensued after that one.
Feeling like a shitty parent (or teacher for that matter) isn’t fun, but it does come with the territory, no matter how experienced we are. If we offer our children a wide range of experiences, there are bound to be moments of oversight...moments we miss cues or get disconnected. Embracing my perfectly imperfect parenting and teaching has been a life’s journey for me. As a teacher and mother I have found it liberating to “out” myself, because all my worst moments are nothing when I start to think of my best moments. And the best moments are what count the most in the end.
How can the bad moments happen, you ask? That could never happen to me, you say? Research on parent child relationships tells us, we all have our good and bad moments, and even though I hate math, I am pretty sure my probability for these moments increased with each additional child I added to my responsibilities.
When we turned the car around and pulled back into the gas station for my daughter, she just jumped in the car like nothing had happened. First thing out of both my husband’s and my mouth was “Were you worried?” Surprisingly, she laughed and said “No.” It was a little hard to believe, but true. She was totally unfazed and said it really never occurred to her that we wouldn’t turn around quickly. It wasn’t until years later, after the graduation and zoo experiences, she created her own nickname, ‘the forgotten child’, just to rub in her mother’s failings.
I have learned a few things about parenting and our process of rupture and repair with children. I understand that my daughter, despite her mother’s worst moments, has internalized that no matter what bad moments arise between us, our best moments are never too far away. I believe all my children have developed this understanding of relationship. I make mistakes, they make mistakes, and then we find our way back to our perfect space together. (Hopefully, I make far fewer mistakes than they do over the course of our life time.)
One of my favorite researchers, Dr. Ed Tronick of “Still Face experiment” fame, says it like this…
“It’s a little like the good, the bad and the ugly. The good is that normal stuff that goes on, we all do with our kids. The bad is when something bad happens, but the infant can overcome it, after all, when you stop the Still Face, the mother and baby get to play again. The ugly is when you don’t give the child any chance to get back to the good, there is no reparation and they are stuck in the really ugly situation.”
Tronick’s research helped us understand that only 20 to 30 percent of interactions with our children are perfectly in sync...
“The rest of the time is… you’re in sync, you’re out of sync, you’re getting back into sync.” And that is really what he thinks is the key process: “getting back into synchrony”. The back and forth of disconnect and reconnect is not only normal, it is actually positive.
As Tronick also says, “When you reconnect, one of the things that can happen, not always but some of the time, is that you create something new, if you create something new, you grow.”
When our children return to connectedness with us, the relief felt can create a powerful learning moment. When children learn there is recovery after bad moments, their resilience is bolstered. One of my favorite things to say to preschoolers after a hard day at school is “tomorrow will be a better day”. It isn’t easy to for an adult and child to coordinate emotions and attention full time, but it is our responsibility, as the adult in the relationship, to continue to make stride towards this connection.
As parents and teachers we need to remember that no relationship is perfect all of the time. Every relationship is a journey of trial and error. It comes with the territory that we need to set limits, we get distracted, we don’t read our children’s cues for attention, we laugh or joke when our child doesn’t think it is funny, we yell when we could just speak, and we just plain tune out sometimes. I am guilty as charged. I know I miss more opportunities than I catch. I’ve stopped feeling guilty about the worst moments, because I have come to recognize that the times I am perfect, are extraordinary moments for both me and my kids. Those moments when we laugh together, when I have the right words to move them forward, when I show up as the “cool mom”, when we finish each others’ thoughts, those times are banked in our “interactions account”, and yes, sometimes “loans and withdrawals” are necessary. I challenge us as teachers and parents to concentrate on quality more than quantity, quality of interactions more than quality of gifts or activities to fill their time. If we work hard for the 30% perfection, the imperfection will take care of itself.
For more information about Dr. Tronick’s work please see youtube videos below.
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