Presence – Page 28

Giving Up Choices

I am not in the habit of reading parenting books. It isn’t that they aren’t helpful. I have heard of plenty of circumstances where reading parenting books revolutionized the way a friend of family member chose to parent their children. I have also seen people read a new book every few months and then change their parenting technique to match. This seemed to create very confused and angry children. They didn’t know what to expect from their parents. Being predictable is such a comfort for our children.

Yes, there is a but in this because it has to do with a parenting book I picked up the other day. I have been on a waiting list at the local library for quite some time. I was not introduced to new concepts. I had been parented in much the same way and found that there are quite a few things that I also implement in my parenting.

So what did I discover that I know will revolutionize my parenting? Let my son make more choices. Offer choices. Offer valid choices. There are many small choices during the day that I found I was making that he very well could be making. As I turn those choices over I am watching him blossom. I can watch the little cogs turning in his mind. Many times already he has surprised me with his choices. There is also less resistance in our home. Things that could become an argument of point of contention between us because I was making all the little insignificant choices I am learning to hand over to him and suddenly he feels empowered. He feels he has choices in his life and we all know how much better we feel about life in general when we have some control.

And the final (major) benefit? Because he has to think so much more he sleeps much better at night!

Photo used from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/29890539@N07/4648496819/

A Look at Extreme Parenting

If you haven’t bothered to read any parenting-related news sites or blogs the past few weeks then the ‘Tiger Mother’ controversy will be news to you. Although author Amy Chua caused a lot of uproar with her Wall Street Journal essay about the superiority of Chinese mothers, the controversy caused others to look beyond Chua’s new book and at extreme parenting as a whole including Lu Hanessian.

Lu is on Attachment Parenting International’s Board of Directors and is also the host of API Live! In an article for the Courier-Post, Hanessian examines The “Affect” of Extreme Parenting. Here is an excerpt:

“I have a different take. The parenting extremism begins in our own minds with our own hyperfocus on efficacy. We are obsessed with doing. Doing it well. Doing it right. Doing to. Doing something that works. We are scarcely aware that the object of our doings is a human being who is soft-wired to connect, attach and belong, and who is physiologically designed to resist being controlled.”

Click through to read Lu’s entire article then head back here to share your thoughts on The “Affect” of Extreme Parenting.

I’m Bored

I know I must have used that little phrase a few times when I was young but I honestly can’t remember. I remember one time being in the house while it was raining, I was about 9 or 10 years old and I remember feeling bored. Strange isn’t it? Strange that I can actually remember an “I’m bored” moment.

Why wasn’t I bored? Well. For one we had a television off and on throughout my growing up but more off than on and when we did have it we watched a movie or educational show occasionally, we didn’t have cable or anything. I didn’t play video games. I remember when I was 12 or so someone gave us an old Playstation and Mario Bros and we played that sometimes, but since we weren’t in the habit, it mostly sat there and collected dust.My mom got a computer and we did educational games and some of our school on it, but it was fairly limited while my mother plays some casino games on the computer meanwhile. A lot of it was self-limitation. Why? Because we weren’t in the habit. As a grown-up, in free time. I also like to have stuff like my mom play poker games on the computer, but in today’s technology rather than playing games on the computer, you can play real poker at top online casino malaysia as well as earn money, and kill your boredom,. But while kids, games were pretty different. so here we go. There was some boredom games.

My siblings and I played outside. We helped my mom bake. We had chores. Yes. Chores. I think that they may have been the best thing that ever happened to us. We were responsible for animals and gardening and things that were important to our family. My parents really instilled in us that the things we did were important, that they helped the family function and because of that we took pride in doing our part. Sure, sometimes we complained and didn’t want to do it. It’s not like we were angelic or anything. But for the most part we felt good about ourselves when we were helping out.

When it looked like boredom or arguing was setting in my mom would always say “well there are a list of things that need to be done…”, we figured out that we weren’t quite that bored very quickly or sometimes we would accept a “chore.” Why? Because we didn’t want to be bored.

It helped that I watched my parents doing the same thing. My dad was always doing projects and chores and even doing some of the cooking and laundry etc. My mom was always knitting something or learning something or doing something with us and the animals as well as doing things like starting a local drama club or running parts of our local fair. It kept them content. It kept us content. Boredom was just not an option.

To this day, thanks to my parents, every time I am “bored” I am able to motivate and find something to do, either a project or a chore that will keep my mind or my hands busy. I hope that I am able to instill this in my son. I hope that by demonstration and to a large degree eliminating artificial outward stimulants in his life that he will come to find that he is a creative and productive person that is essential to this family. Not because I say so, but because he is.

Present in the Mundane

“Try to get me mama!” my four year old yells as he runs through the clean clothes piled all over the bedroom floor. Balled socks are his favorite, but he’s happy to avoid any projectile I throw into the sorting piles.

Making laundry into an obstacle course wasn’t a conscious decision, but it sure has made things more fun. It started simply. I was trying to get my son to help me sort. He used to love it. It was one of those things, early on, that helped him feel confident and capable. He was big. He could recognize which clothes belonged to which family member. But that was a couple of years ago. The novelty has long since worn off.

I would have been happy with him just staying in the same room and not knocking over the folded towels, maybe telling me a story or soliciting me to tell him one. But as I sat in the center of the mounds and threw a pair of sweatpants into one pile and a wash cloth into another, Cavanaugh started running through.

Sorting turns much more interesting with a wildly giggling child running through the towels, his clothes, my clothes, and the cloth napkins. It takes a little longer this way and it’s a lot noisier but sorting and putting away the clothes has somehow turned into quality time for us.

One of the things about being divorced is that there’s not another parent here to play with while the other one does the repetitive, time-consuming, and not so fun tasks. Finding a way that Cavanaugh and I can make a game of out the mundane household tasks means it doesn’t have to be work for either one of us.

Grocery shopping has gotten a lot more fun lately too. Since he’s still small enough to sit in the shopping cart, he’s at perfect eye level with me as we navigate the aisles. We play kissing games where he says, “Try to kiss me Mama!” then darts his head to the other side as I try to kiss him. If I manage to land a smooch on his cheeks, he wipes off my kiss and I say, “Oh man,” in utter disappointment. Hilarious.

Even helping him put on a shirt has turned into play. I look through the neck hole when I hold it up for him to put his head through. Why is this funny? He’d have to tell you. The thing all of these games have in common though is that we’re just being present with one another. We look into each other’s eyes. Crossing things off my to-do list has never been so much fun.

What’s your favorite or least favorite chore to try to get done when you’re with your kids? Why?

Eggs and Crayons

My son was coloring yesterday. Actually he wasn’t coloring and that was the problem. He had his coloring book out and he had some crayons but he kept asking for help. Now I know that he is completely capable of coloring by himself, I mean what toddler isn’t? I was confused. My mom was the one who discovered what was going on. My little man was busy watching his auntie color and he was asking for help because he couldn’t color as well as his aunt could.

I don’t know where my son got it. OK. So I am lying just a bit. I have that type of personality. If I can’t do something perfectly, the first time, I get frustrated, I don’t want to do it. I don’t like not being good at things. I know that I have not told my son that he needs to do anything better. I always encourage him when he is learning something new. I am always cheering him on. I guess none of that encouragement erases genetics!

My mom did a great job at showing my son that he didn’t need to stay in the lines; a reminder that I could really use on a regular basis – especially as a mom of a toddler. It seems to me like having a toddler would make it so that you would be able to relax a little bit, color outside of the lines; just not true. At least for me anyway. I need almost daily reminders.

Today we went to collect eggs. Not a monumental event but in the light of the coloring book incident it really stuck out to me. We collected the eggs and I let my son carry one. The egg slipped through his little mittened hands as we were standing outside the coop. My son just stared down at the broken egg and then looked up at me with his big eyes “Uh oh! I’m SO sorry!”. I understood that look and that feeling. I completely understood the apology. It struck me as funny. Very funny. Who cares that he broke the egg? I gave him another one and he immediately said in a panicked voice “I need help mommy!” I laughed and told him that he didn’t need my help, he was perfectly capable to carry the egg inside. He didn’t need my help and you know what? He didn’t.

We, together, are capable. It was eye opening to me to realize that some things we are just born with. No one taught my son that he needed to do things perfectly, I have never asked that of him. I have never been taught that I needed to be perfect. My drive for perfection sometimes annoys the people that I love most. We are both imperfect perfectionists and I’m so happy that we are learning to color out of the lines together.

Photos used from: http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=egg&l=4

The Advocate

I’ve been trying to impress upon my college students that details make all the difference. It’s the finest details that I couldn’t see that day: the tears on my 7-year-old son’s face. I had forgotten to wear my glasses. I have pretty good vision, but the lines blur at distances. I could see his brown sweatpants among all the black running in circles on the soccer field, but I couldn’t see his face. My husband and I had signed him up for indoor soccer at his request. He tells us he likes it and wants to keep playing even though he spends very little time actually playing. He starts out engaged; however, by the last quarter, he spins, crawls, dances around the field and occasionally accidentally kicks the ball. I’m not sure how much he’s getting out of it, but as long as he continues to enjoy it, we’ll support him playing.

Last week, he rotated out of the game as usual. The children who were waiting their turn to play stood behind a white wall masking all but the tallest players. A few minutes later, the door swung open and my little guy stepped back onto the field and walked slowly to his position. He didn’t move. All I could see was him standing there wiping his arm across the middle of his face. I couldn’t see his face, just his arm pushing on where I knew his glasses were. The entire field of players ran past him, but he just kept standing there. They swept past him again, he stood still, forearm across his nose. I looked at my husband, “What’s he doing?” He replied, “I don’t know, but I’m going down.” Parents aren’t usually allowed down in the player area, so I watched my husband from the stands on the second level above the field. I strained to see my son’s face. My husband talked with the coach then called my son back to the sidelines. A new player was released.
Continue reading “The Advocate”

Subtle Snuggle Hints

Usually, when we sit in the living room, I am on the couch between both kids either reading to them or watching TV with them or commenting on their sword-fighting moves; whatever we are doing I am engaged. But last night I was sitting in a chair with my laptop, only half-present. I had my head down and was typing when JJ wandered over and said matter-of-factly, “Mom, if you ever need someone to snuggle with, I will. I will snuggle with you.”

I replied, “OK, thanks,” and continued typing. At which point JJ placed his 2 little hands flat on either of my cheeks and turned my face toward his so he could look right into my eyes and our noses were not quite touching. “DO you need someone to snuggle with you?”

Oh, got it. “Yes! I do. Right now please.” He presently climbed onto the back of the chair and draped himself across my shoulders, sucking his thumb and twirling my hair. I put the laptop down and was present once again.

To Detach Him without Detaching

My son has reached 2 1/2. Okay, so we have a few days left but it is almost here. It is scaring me a little. I can’t believe he is growing up so fast. He is making huge leaps in his development lately; his vocabulary is growing by leaps and bounds and he is growing like crazy. He is now looking like a little boy and not the baby that I know so well. He is demanding, creative, tiring and inspiring in all kinds of new ways.

Our most recent dilemma has to do with carrying him everywhere. He now weighs about 30 pounds and I just can’t handle carrying him all of the time anymore. I would like to but my back is starting to protest. I am not talking about just carrying him in to a store or anything like that I mean carrying him while we are in the store and holding him while I am chatting with someone for 20 minutes, things like that. It is killing me. He also wants me to hold him at home a lot of the time. I was in so much pain at bedtime just the other evening and told my husband that I had no idea why, I thought back over my day and realized that I had been carrying my son on and off all day long. I realized that this has got to stop. For the both of us. It is time that I detach him. I do not mean detach from him. He is still my little boy, he needs me, he needs my affection and he needs to be physically close to me multiple times during the day but we are taking some steps to ensure that it is comfortable for the both of us but let me tell you this particular “detachment” process is not easy!

Yesterday we were in town and every time I had my little man walk (holding my hand) he would cry and ask me to carry him. I would smile reassuringly and tell him that he was a big boy and he could hold my hand but he needed to walk on his own. It was not a very relaxing trip to say the least.

All day today my son has wanted me to carry him or stand there holding him for no particular reason. I have had to explain to him that I love him very much and he can feel free to hold on to my leg and I will give him hugs and if he needs to sit with me we can find a place to sit for a while but that he is a big boy now and mommy can’t hold him all of the time. Crying ensues and I take a deep breath as the irritation rises in me and remind myself that this is a whole new step for the both of us, we are having to “detach” in a healthy way without detaching emotionally and without removing the comfort of physical affection, we are just having to move it in to an arena that is comfortable for mom and encourages mini man to grow.