Parental rite of passage

The first fourteen times you send a child to the grocery store on his own, he will call home to ask you where to find the item he came for, even though he's been in that store a hundred thousand times. The fifteenth time he goes he will lose the money. It's just the way it is. Be prepared.

Today we had a different (but equally obligatory) scenario: the child who forgot to call home when plans changed, and whose cell phone was turned off when I called for an update. I was expecting said child home around 1pm, and had promised to take Little Guy to a movie around 2:00. Oy. And I didn't have the child's friend's mother's cell phone number. Oy, oy. And although I know the mother well from hours spent chatting in the ballet studio, I suddenly realized I didn't even know her name. Oy, oy, oy!

I put Andrew on the case of tracking down the ballet mother, and took Little Guy to the movie. By the time the missing child reported in at 2:30, I was learning How to Train Your Dragon. The movie was scarier than I'd generally recommend for a six year old, though it's possible I was a little more attuned to the possibility of violence than usual. Little Guy, who appeared unfazed by the flames and large teeth, commented, "It's funny that I don't get scared by dragons, but I do get scared when people yell at me." Interesting insight... though we'll see if he gets nightmares tonight. Thankfully, my own nightmare has passed, and all is well. 

Our family rule is that children have to call home whenever they change locations. That did happen today, but the kink was that I expected the activity in Location #1 to last about two hours, when in fact it lasted four. So kudos go to the child for remembering the rule. And now off I go to fine-tune it!

Useful words

This morning I was looking up a quote for a piece I'm writing, and came across this:

You don't have to attend every argument to which you're invited.

Ahhhh, now isn't that useful? It's pithy. And pithiness is important when I'm talking to my kids. I discovered years ago that...

1. The fewer words I use, the less likely I am to Rant.
2. The fewer words I use, the more likely it is that I will keep my temper. 
3. The fewer words I use, the more times I can repeat them calmly.
4. The fewer words I use, the more likely it is that someone will, eventually, remember what I say.

When the kids were little I aimed for five words or less. This translated into a mantra of "Hitters get time out" and (on the subway) "You shout, we get out." Nowadays the sayings are a little longer: "Homework is done when it's in your backpack" and "Supper is over when your plate's in the kitchen." The idea is to distill what could be a lecture into something I can repeat endlessly, without getting annoyed.


The repetition part is important. A priest once complained that he said the same thing over and over but people never seemed to get it. I laughed and said, "You're annoyed about it because you're not a parent. You need to assume it will take a huge number of repetitions, like 500,000. That way when you get to 397,262 you aren't as frustrated, because you know you've still got a long way to go!"

I still Rant, especially when people leave an above-average mess or argue about cleaning up. If you have any pithy sayings to help me with those topics, do tell. 

Catastrophes

As an adult, the things that fall into my mental file folder labeled CATASTROPHES tend to be tornadoes and earthquakes and terrorist attacks and a-life's-on-the-line hospital visits.

My kids seem to have a different definition. Today's catastrophes included an accident in which some unused glow-in-the-dark bracelets (the kind you snap to activate the chemicals) were dropped and began to glow, a misunderstanding involving pickled herring, a hair holder that ended up on the wrist of an unrepentant brother, and some obstreperous math that was too hard to handle.

I found myself thinking that adult catastrophes center on problem solving, on working through a crisis (at least when adults act like adults). Kid catastrophes are a whirlwind of finger-pointing, arguing, tears, blaming and the obligatory passing of the baton of anger to siblings. We don't have a lot of days around here that descend into that kind of maelstrom, but today was one. 

These thoughts were percolating through my brain along with self-reminders to breathe deeply when yet one more child whirled into a super-size snit over a microscopic offense. Overwhelmed by the sense that life had spun out of control, I was about to commence some childlike behavior of my own when I thought, Wait a minute! I'm reacting as if this were a catastrophe!

I was so astonished that I stopped feeling frustrated.

Now I'm wondering: what percentage of our less-than-admirable parenting moments arise from perceiving normal challenges in a catastrophic way? It's something to think about.

Oxygen

A while back, during a particularly rough period, I wrote a note to a listserv I'm on for parents of "twice exceptional" kids. (Twice exceptional, or 2E, is a way of saying someone is  intellectually gifted and also has some sort of disability.) I'm on the list primarily because of Big Guy. He's very bright, but has dysgraphia and slow processing speed, so his output is not proportional to what he knows. (If you know a kid like this, take a look at Mel Levine's The Myth of Laziness.) 

There are other kinds of disabilities represented on my 2E list as well: severe ADHD, early-onset schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, Asperger's Syndrome, and so on. The parents tend to be wise-through-weariness types, sympathetic people who are used to dealing with extremely difficult kids. It's one of my go-to places when Big Guy has challenged every ounce of my resourcefulness, and I need help from those who have struggled through similar situations.

In the note I wrote to the list, I outlined several new challenges that had arisen with which I felt unable to cope. Within an hour a half-dozen people wrote back. Their responses were compassionate, heartfelt, understanding. And they all said the same thing:

           Put on your own oxygen mask first.

I knew that. I knew it but had forgotten it, or forgotten where I put my oxygen mask, or forgotten how to turn on the valve.

So in recent weeks I've been thinking a lot about oxygen masks. The first thing I considered was that if I'm living my life in alignment with my priorities, there will be many times when I place the common good (like the needs of my family) above my own desires and needs. That's normal, and important, and healthy. Most of us can afford to 'sacrifice' quite a bit of attention to ourselves without any ill effect.

The second thing I considered was that oxygen masks aren't needed every day. They are designed for emergencies. Oxygen should be a naturally occurring substance in our lives. If it's not, something's out of balance and we have to figure out what that is.

Finally, there's the issue of oxygen flow. When I'm feeling depleted, what is it, really, that takes that grayish tinge out and brings back a rosy hue? This takes significant thought. Knock exotic places to go and luxurious things to do off your list; in a crisis there's rarely major funding (or time) available. Besides, oxygen is pretty basic stuff. 

Oxygen can be found in laughter, solitude, companionship, sleep, glorious art, thought-provoking conversations, exercise, good music, books that stretch your mind, prayer, acts of kindness, or any one of hundreds of simple things. Here's hoping you have an ample supply.

Too much Star Trek?

Last night Little Guy asked me, "How many pages are there in a Dr. Seuss book?"
I was busy, and said absentmindedly, "I dunno. Go count."
This morning he asked, "Can I work on my book for writing today?"
"Sure," I said, "What book are you writing?"

The Captain will be pleased.

Resilience

When Eldest was a baby, she had a friend named Tommy. Or rather, I had a friend named Annette, who had a son named Tommy, and we got together in the park several times a week. Tommy was born at 24 weeks gestation. He was an extraordinarily bright child, cheerful and good-spirited. But Tommy wasn't keeping pace with his developmental milestones, and around his first birthday, he was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. 

I saw Annette the day she got the news, and she was devastated. Yet a week later, she was avidly researching what there was to research, and was already deeply immersed in the slow torture of negotiating insurance coverage for therapies. I was astonished. I sputtered, "How?... How?..." and she replied, "I gave myself 48 hours to cry, and then it was time to move on."

Moving on didn't mean that Annette never cried, or that she didn't continue to grieve. I'm convinced part of the reason God made days 24 hours long is so there's always a 2:00 a.m. for the tears of weary mothers. Annette continued to mourn the life she'd dreamed of for her son. But during the daylight hours, when there were things to be done and progress to be made, Annette focused on what she had to do. Slowly, slowly, slowly she accepted that she could still have beautiful dreams for Tommy, dreams that reflected who he was instead of who she'd thought he'd be. My sister's amazing that way, too.

Many years later I realized that some of Annette's amazing coping skills came from her own serious health problems. She'd suffered from toxoplasmosis for many years, and had had to learn the hard way how to bounce back and keep going. Because otherwise... well, there was no otherwise.

Most of us, I think, learn to rebound the hard way. We weep over minor things until the day we fall down in a busy street and have to choose between sitting there and crying, or dragging ourselves to the curb before getting run over by a Mack Truck. When the options are dramatic, the choices become clear. The key question is whether or not we have the mental muscle at that time to pull ourselves up off the pavement and move.

One of my Mack Truck experiences in life -- Big Guy's anxiety disorder -- has taught me that a lot of that mental muscle is teachable. Most of it comes from self-talk: what we say to ourselves when we encounter setbacks, and what we tell ourselves about why we succeed. I have more than one kid who is a hard-wired self-defeatist, and that's why Martin Seligman's Learned Optimism is on my top-10 list of required parental reading, even though it's not a parenting book. Studies show that resilience is the most important factor in determining success in life. You can be brilliant, creative, witty, or gregarious, but if you can't rebound from setbacks, you're not going to be happy.

I'm no Annette, but I've gotten more resilient over the years. There are times I feel like my younger brother's Popeye punching bag, which would tip back when you whacked it, then bounce up again. But as I think of that image, I realize that Popeye bounced back because Popeye (or at least the punching-bag version) was well-grounded. His center of gravity gave him resilience.

Which leads me to think that resilience and self-talk and being well-grounded are closely related. We have to know what we believe is true and essential in life, or else we can't hold on to it and yearn for it and return to it when we're down.

Playing history

We had a lazy homeschooling day today, emphasizing physical recovery over academics. At one point the kids watched a DVD on Sacagawea. We've been reading Streams to the River, River to the Sea by Scott O'Dell as our read-aloud lately, so that tied in nicely. Good thing I discovered the DVD last night while hunting for the original b&w version of Phantom of the Opera!

Later in the day, Little guy raced in to see me while I was working.
 
Little Guy: Mom! We just noticed that this Playmobil pirate would make a perfect Clark!
Mom (clueless): Oh, really?
Little Guy: See -- if he didn't have this eye patch, his beard and uniform would be perfect!
Mom (still clueless): Oh. Uh, Clark. What do you mean by Clark?
Little Guy, laughing: Like Lewis and Clark, Mom! Clark!
Mom: Oh, yeah. Right!

Good thing I'm the teacher, huh?