The Green Blocks approach to life

Coming home Sunday night from the final performance of Honk! (featuring Little Guy in his first lead, and Snuggler in a main character role) I had a mental image of the departure board at Penn Station, with the top listing flicking its way off and all the other train listings moving up a notch. It's not a bad analogy for my life at the moment. Dancer finished her first weekend of Nutcracker performances, and now has only four more to go (I work backstage for most of that). Eldest arrives home on Wednesday. Our annual cookie project is concluding, in which folks from the neighborhood bake cookies which then get delivered to the local food pantry. My mom arrived Sunday morning so she could see the musical; she leaves today, weather permitting.

Ten days (or departing trains?) ago, during my intense busy period of editing six masters' thesis proposals (which coincided with a quarterly project and a monthly project), Eldest hit a crunch: she had three huge school projects due and a trip to California for a job interview. It was an overwhelming to-do list even by my standards.

The situation looked impossible from every angle. Which, however, did not mean it was impossible. We tend to think things are impossible long before they are. And once we start to fear something is impossible, anxiety can easily take over space in our brains that could and should be allocated to actually solving the problem.

Sometimes fear is a bigger obstacle than the actual problem, because fear can paralyze. As soon as you are paralyzed, you can almost guarantee you won't get through whatever it is you have to do. Which is why I live by Winston Churchill's saying, "If you're going through hell... keep going."

I have a method for dealing with impossible situations: I call the Green Blocks approach to life. When my kids were little and made a mess, saying, "Clean up this room!" was less than useless, because the directive was too overwhelming. So instead I'd say, "I need you to pick up all the green blocks." That narrowed the project down to one thing to focus on, and made it do-able.


After the green blocks were put away, we switched focus to the yellow blocks. Then the red blocks. The idea was to do one thing at a time. Whatever was next wasn't even on the to-do list until the first task was done.

In a way this is the antithesis of multi-tasking. Do one thing, and do it with 100% focus and effort. You will have more brainpower to put into it, and you will make progress. Then the problem becomes smaller.

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Worries will creep in anyway, of course. I manage that by setting a specific time when I will allow myself to worry about the next thing. Maybe it's two hours away, or maybe at 8 p.m.  As I told Eldest, it's okay to set aside a worry for a while -- it's not as if it's going to go away if you put it down. When your allotted time for the task at hand is up, you can pick up the worry again... if you want to.

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When you were a kid, hyperventilating at a page packed with 50 math problems, hopefully your teacher showed you how to put a sheet of blank paper over all but the first line, so the task wasn't so overwhelming.

As adults, we sometimes forget that we can still take this approach to big problems. The more successful we are at developing techniques that keep us from becoming overwhelmed, the more likely we are to succeed in getting through the big things. 

You can only do what you can do. Then again, you can do far less when you're feeling overwhelmed. You can do far less when you're worried. You can do far less when you're floundering or running in circles. 

Even if all you can do is put away the green blocks at the moment, do it. If you can't pick them all up, pick up five. Then pick up five more. Or map the number that you pick up to the digits in your phone number (e.g., first pick up 2, then 1, then 2...)  It's not nearly as hard as trying to pick it all up at once.  

Miscellaneous thoughts on miscellaneous feelings

Yesterday I took Dancer to a doctor's appointment. It was at a clinic that's only open in the mornings, so she had to miss school. The clinic, of course, was slow. We needed blood work done. Then I discovered I didn't have Dancer's insurance card, which was okay for the clinic but not okay for the lab. As my brain scrambled, I talked out loud, trying to figure out how to come back without having Dancer miss another morning of school. My daughter said, "Mom, calm down!"

I didn't think I was all that agitated, but then self-perception isn't everything. Sometimes what matters is how your kid perceives your level of worry.

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Long ago I gave my kids permission to tell me to stop if I start to rant. They do this. It helps. There are occasions when I get going and have a hard time stopping, but to have a kid comment, reasonably objectively, "Mom, you're ranting!" does tend to put a cork in it.

There are better ways to express frustration and anger than ranting. They're not easy to think of in the moment, but if someone points out what you're doing (and you don't want to be a ranter), you can usually hold it in until you think of a better way to handle your feelings.

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I hate nagging. To my way of thinking, to nag is the same as to take on the role of being someone else's frontal lobe. I don't want that job. I want others to have their own, functional frontal lobes. I am willing to prompt my kids. I am willing to remind them once, maybe twice. I am willing to work with them to help them figure out how to remind themselves. But I get annoyed if I have to nag.

I would buy supplemental frontal lobes if they sold them, like external hard drives. Wouldn't that be awesome?

Identifying problems, part II

Part one of this post is here.

If I had to make a Top 10 list of parenting skills, the ability to step back and shut up would rank somewhere near the top. Not that I've perfected the skill, of course. But when I do remember to practice it, it does tend to promote sanity, peace, the ability to retain some semblance of self control, and better relationships with my kids.

Learning to shut up is hard. It's hard because we want to be right, we want to have the last word, and on top of that our inner 8-year old imagines we're engaged in a long-ago argument with a sibling.

Another reason it hard to bite our tongues is because we've spent years instructing and correcting and being a frontal-lobe enhancement for our kids: we're in the habit of teaching them. And although we continue to instruct as kids get older, we need to do it in a different way. I think this is because two things happen around the time they are nine or ten.

The first is that -- for most things -- kids already know right from wrong. So when they do wrong we're not dealing with ignorance any more, but with something else. Like what, you ask? Oh, insecurity. Impulsivity. Immaturity. An emerging desire for independence. Self indulgence. Memory blips. Failure to apply a general concept to a specific situation. Hormones. And, of course, rationalization. (Even we adults are good at that. For a fun and interesting read, try Dan Ariely's The Honest Truth About Dishonesty.)

I don't know about you, but I get annoyed when someone tells me something obvious, especially when they imply I ought to know it but was too stupid to remember. Kids feel the same way. They  especially feel this way once they're old enough to realize they know everything and you know nothing. And this is true even when they've just demonstrated, clearly and completely, that they have not integrated the information they know into their behavior.

The second thing that happens when kids get toward tweenage is that we need to shift toward getting them to think through problems on their own. One of the best skills we can give our kids is the ability to analyze a situation and think before they act. But it's a learned skill, not one that they grow into automatically.

How do you teach without lectures? By asking more questions and making fewer statements. We don't need to ask the obvious question ("What were you thinking?") but to give kids prompts that will get them thinking. What will happen if you...? How do you think she felt? Is there a difference between what you want to do and what you should do? Why does what he says matter to you?

You may recall that the first item on my list of 15 Things I Know about Parenting a Difficult Child is this:  You can't always make it better, but you can always make it worse. I'm able to make things worse pretty quickly if I let myself misdiagnose the cause of conflicts with my kids as their inability to listen, rather than my inability to hold my tongue. Both are contributing causes, of course. But I'm the one responsible for what comes out of my mouth. It makes sense to start there.

Forgetfulness

Big Guy and I went to church alone last night. The rest of the family had gone in the morning, but we'd stayed home because of a shower stalemate. That resolved itself satisfactorily in the afternoon, so we went to the 8pm service uptown, and I rediscovered two things:

1. Relationships with teens are almost always better one-on-one, when you're doing something away from home.

2. It's often easier to talk side-by-side than face-to-face. That way you're traveling together, headed the same direction. (Friends who live in the 'burbs tell me their best conversations happen in the car. I believe it.)

I knew both those things. Really, I did. But like an embarrassingly large portion of parenting wisdom,  these insights, these tidbits of insight got lost. I ought to write myself a book of all the pithy parenting things I forget, and refer to it when I want to bang my head against a wall. I might re-learn something.

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For many years I struggled with the story of Adam and Eve, because I couldn't believe they could be so stupid. I mean, it was one tree. How hard is that?! Then one day I thought, What if 'all the law and the prophets' was summed up... could I keep that one rule? Could I hold it in the forefront of my mind all day for a single day? Sigh. No, I couldn't. I forget the basics, all the time. (Sorry, Adam and Eve: I misjudged you. I get it now. Most days.)

Even when we have our priorities in order and work hard to align our days with each with them, we forget. Because, you know, that project is due and the kids are squabbling. Or someone said something hurtful and I'm out of sorts. Or difficulties have multiplied likemanic brooms, and the Sorcerer's Apprentice has set them to sweeping crazily at my composure. Or maybe (probably) because the path of least resistance is broad and easy, and I veer onto it, unthinkingly.

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These are some of the things that I know matter in parenting that I forget:

• touch your children daily
• say encouraging things regularly
• ask questions that show you are interested
• stay quiet if you can't say it with charity
• focus on responding instead of reacting
• know their 'love language' -- and speak it
• assume it will take many times, perhaps hundreds or thousands of times, before they understand and remember basic manners
• laugh as much as possible
• make one-on-one time happen
• remember to notice when they do something right
• spend enough time with them that random thoughts come to the surface
• let them see that you, too, struggle
• let them know what you believe. Often.
• show them how you think through problems
• stories of your (and their) childhood are precious
• new experiences trump new toys

Contribute, please.

PTSG

Periodically, when I'm grappling with a serious problem (I've had a few lately) someone will say, "I'm sure it will all work out!"

I cock my head a bit, smile, and reply frankly, "Yup... Or not."

I have no doubt that things could work out. I'm equally certain there's no guarantee that they will. Maybe it's age, or maybe it's experience, but I tend not to get as frantic about outcomes as I used to. Why? Because whether things work out or things fall apart, I will do something. If there's a disaster, I'll get up again and start over. People do.

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I've been reading Martin Seligman's latest, Flourish. He's the guy who wrote Learned Optimism, which is one of the books I've recommended to at least a hundred people. This new book is about the research on well-being. The part I'm reading is about the program Seligman helped the Army develop to promote strong mental health. He points out that what we all hear about is PTSD, and yet the stats are that a full 85% of people who have been through a traumatic event recover. So he set out to find out what the characteristics are of people who thrive in the wake of difficulty, and what can be done to teach others those skills. He calls it PTSG: Post Traumatic Stress Growth. It's a possibility, you know.

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A week or so ago Little Guy and I had a chat. He was distraught about Big Guy'd downward spiral. "I'm afraid he's going to hurt himself," he said, "I'm afraid he's going to die."

I held him close, and was silent for a moment. "That's a scary feeling," I began, then stopped. After a moment I asked, "What would we do if he died?"

Little Guy looked at me with startled eyes, and shook his head with not-knowing. I said, "First we would be very, very sad. And then we would somehow find a way to keep going. And it would be hard, but we would do it because that's the only real option, and because we love each other, and would help each other grow into strong people even though we were hurting inside."

We sat in silence for a bit. Then I added, "We are doing everything we know how to do to help your brother. We are trying our best, you know."  He nodded.

Getting stuck

I was having a conversation with Eldest last night about life skills and heard myself say something like, "One of the most important skills you'll need in college is the ability to get un-stuck."

Maybe I'm getting inadvertently wise or something. Getting stuck actually is a big theme of adulthood. Sometimes we get stuck in a feeling, other times in a parenting situation we don't know how to handle, and other times we are mired down in life. Learning to unstick oneself is a skill most of us learn on the job.

When I read Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman years ago, I was struck by the connection between feelings of hopelessness (or 'stuckness') and depression. When people feel powerless to change a situation, they tend to give up and sink. Those who succeed find a different way to look at the problem and what caused it.

Research shows that people of my generation have a higher incidence of depression than people who grew up in the Great Depression or World War II. This seems odd. I wonder if part of the reason is that nowadays people expect life to be comfortable, whereas in prior generations people expected life to be hard. Expectations of how things should be affect our hopes, and from there, what causes us to feel hopeless.

There are many ways to get un-stuck: divergent thinking, prayer, resourcefulness, re-directing one's pattern of thought. I wish I could say I never get stuck any more, but life is life, and sometimes I get mired down. I'm not capable of being a perpetual optimist, so I focus on being resilient. What other choice do we have, really, but to bounce back?

Here's a thought: faith is the one thing in the modern world where there's a model for getting unstuck. We sin, we fall, we ask forgiveness, it's granted... and life goes on. We're to strive to be the best we can be, but it's considered normal to mess up. The other day Little Guy was naughty, and when he was caught he wailed, "I hate myself!" I raised an eyebrow, gave him an are you nuts? look and replied, "You don't have to hate yourself. You just have to say you're sorry."