KID KOANS III

When is helping not helping?

How can we tell when our conceptions of our children get in the way of clear perception of our children?

Protect or Trust?

POSITIVE PARENTING: FUN!

Just a little example of PP from the Full Spectrums:

Pardner used to be a dawg. Not literally, but – let’s just say he spent his twenties, most of his thirties (there was that...brief first marriage), his forties...even the first part of his fifties, as a single, hunky, zest-for-life-filled, man-about-town chef who had a great appreciation for female beauty of all sorts.

And I do mean all.

When we first started dating, I asked him this highly original question: “What is the most important quality you value in a woman?”

“Fun,” was his simple answer.

Well, I felt very superior when he said that. How trite, I thought. How superficial! And how hard can it be to have fun with no kids, a thriving/rewarding/creative business, excellent health, and that special freedom of the non-married to extricate oneself from any less-fun relationship? A person who thinks fun is the most important thing must be pretty durn trifling, no?

Then I got to thinking about it. Here I was, newly-divorced and unemployed as yet, with two young high-needs kids (neither had labels yet, but the high-needs part was Not Subtle). I was shattered, really, at the time. And yet there he was...into me in a big and, to him, very new way.

Maybe he meant something different by “fun” than I thought.

As we got to know each other, I began to see how fun actually encompasses everything I truly value in life. It dawned on me that a most precious sort of fun was our finding a way to laugh together while courting despite my being in precarious mental, physical and fiscal health.

Fun isn’t just everything always being easy, lighthearted, and effortlessly sparkly all the time; sometimes fun is finding the sparkle in the (heavyhearted, hard, crusty, messy) mud, my friends. It’s choosing to giggle when you get to that giggle/sob crossroad (or at least to gigglesob). As well, fun is exercising our innate capacity to recognize and appreciate that sparkle, that giggle...

Now, we Full Spectrums hold FUN as our High and Sacred Family Virtue. Fun is finding a way to ENJOY each other’s company – even just for a few minutes, even after a crapola day.  Fun is being GRATEFUL for the kids you have and the family you make, whoever and however they are.

Yeah, this isn’t easy all the time; heck, it’s not even happening most of the time. But when it is? That’s fun. Thanks, Pardner!

Positive parentingly,

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

#Positiveparentingday is the brainchild of the Introverted Matriarch. <3

THE F-WORD AND THE B-WORD

As anyone who deals closely with female children knows, young girls can be difficult. There isn’t a whole lot of “sisterhood” in upper elementary school, it’s more “survival of the fittest.” And Z is fit, oh yes, very fit.

Accordingly, that social piece is not a big fear for me, which is nice because for Spectrum Child Sr. it’s worrisome enough for two. But some of my major concerns about Z are nonetheless directly related to girlhood. I see her acting “cute” and using a demanding yet “girly” voice to get what she wants from lots of other people and it makes me uncomfortable. The undercurrent of my very visceral reactions to Z’s “bratty,” “manipulative,” “sneaky,” “spoiled” behavior always seemed to me to be apprehension about her Attachment Disorder and how it might affect her and make her act in these ways. But my darling friend Wise Ayi recognized a deeper source and schooled me on the root of these concerns.

I was telling Wise Ayi about a particular interaction of Z’s that I had observed and how it set me on edge and – I felt – reinforced Z’s unhealthy, Attachment-Disorder-related manipulative tendencies.

“Whoever that was with [Z] isn’t a feminist. That’s what was really getting to you,” Wise Ayi explained. Her words sank in with revelatory force, opening up a full-to-exploding can o’ worms.

I flashed on a big ol’ worm: the memory of being at a celebratory dinner when Z’s brother G got his Orange Belt in Tae Kwon Do. This was a huge occasion for G and I had invited my ex, who at the time was dating a very skinny woman with a 13-year old daughter who’d recently become alarmingly thin. We ordered scallion pancakes and my ex’s ex – in front of both of our daughters (and my son) – started going off about how they were “So fattening” and “all that saturated fat…” 

I was furious! All I was able to spit out at the time was “Some fats are good for you!” but I was steaming for days over the prospect of ex's ex “infecting” Z with that kind of body consciousness. It was my first intense encounter – I live in a very progressive community – with the idea that Z could be indoctrinated into such destructive aspects of “normal” girl culture as healthy girls seeing themselves as (and being seen as) “fat,” as diets and appearance taking center stage in girls’ lives.  

But here in the manipulative, “cutesy” behavior we were talking about demeanor, not exactly appearance – a more subtle thing, but another worm nonetheless.

Wise Ayi was right, as she often is...When Z is “sassy,” when she ends all her statements so they sound like questions, when she strikes a pose after speaking, she is implicitly buying into the construct that that is how girls get what they want. And it makes me cringe, -- partly because of the Attachment Disorder aspect, but much more, I now realize, because I am a feminist. Apparently, these affectations don’t make non-feminists cringe – but I think they should.

We all suffer when one half of the population is taught to be cute in order to get their way rather than owning their power.

Admittedly, in a way, this is a form of misogyny on my part, in that I don’t want Z to use “feminine wiles” to get what she wants. On the flip, non-mysogynistic side of this stance, I want her to succeed on her own formidable skills and merit.

I don’t want my daughter’s power to be gendered any more than it inherently will be by others – especially by her own actions.

“Feminist” should not be a dirty word or an insult, though it is taken as such by many. But “bitch” sure is. The voice of misogyny calls women in power “bitches.” Misogynous culture trains women with one insidious tentacle to be coy and “sassy” -- while with another it slaps them down for just such behavior.

Is it too idealistic or naive to hope that a straightforward, strong person of any gender might avoid the moniker “bitch”?

Perhaps.

Still, I want my daughter’s voice and actions to be as strong as her heart and mind. And I want her to CHOOSE her voice, even to subvert stereotypes -- not be trained by those around her to be “cute,” or celebrated and rewarded for being coquettish or cunning. And if she gets called the F-word or the B-word along the way, I want her to have the true meaning of the F-word – the knowledge (and the endeavor to disseminate this knowledge) that women are equal to men, and deserve to be treated as such – to fall back on… whatever she chooses to call herself.

Something funny happened on the way to this can of worms: I realized that “girly” behavior and Attachment-Disordered behavior have something extremely important in common:

The impulse to get what you need by any means necessary. In case you can’t. In case you don’t “deserve” it. 
So, along with a strong voice, I want for my daughter

the inner knowledge to take root and to animate her voice and heart

that she does deserve

that she can do

…anything and everything.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

Clarification Interlude

This morning I ran into a colleague while having an oil change. I told her I was “pretty excited” about something, I don’t even remember what, because I was just chewing the fat, mmmkay?

“Well, obviously you’re a pretty hyped up person,” she informed me.

And here all these maniacally stressful years I’d thought my hard-won (let’s not call it fake, hey?) positive attitude was coming across as, I dunno, mellow cheer.

Also, my Very Strict Writing Group Overlords have cautioned me that lately Full Spectrum Mama has been sounding a bit “breathless” and overly full of “We Can Do This” attitude, leading to an overall impression that I “have things figured out” and am a “Good Sport.”  Knowing me as they do, they dared to question this state of affairs.

I had a chance to ponder their impressions the evening after our last meeting, as my car overheated on the highway and the Full Spectrum Family’s 3 hour trip turned into 6-plus hours with a special bonus of three roadside diarrhea incidents and one potential car-repair-bill-induced panic attack.

The only Good Sporty part of that whole story was when we finally got to the convenience store and I let the kids pick ANY donut, even though it was well past Dinner Time.

I’m horrified by the possibility of a random reader falling upon this blog and feeling alienated and, possibly, inferior because I come across as a Pollyanna of competence, wisdom and equanimity. Because, do I really have things figured out? No.

So I’d like to clarify.

The following pie chart roughly illustrates a more realistic model of Full Spectrum coping techniques:

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

The Least Popular Kid in the Class – Part One

As we got ready to head back to school this morning after “vacation,” Z was bouncing off the walls: “I can’t wait, I can’t wait, I can’t wait,” she chanted.  G was more circumspect, and his little face was tight.

I hugged him and asked, “Whatsa matter, buddy?”

“I just don’t wanna go back to school.”

Oh, parents everywhere, hear my cry. Wide. Range. Of. Emotions. (W.R.O.E.)

We talked some about it – wonderful teachers…learning, importance thereof…how we can’t just play aaaaaaaaaallllll the time – but still…W.R.O.E.

Since dropping him off (did his sister even notice my leaving? I think not.) I’m stuck on an incident from a few weeks ago:

“I hope you are feeling better,” G’s beloved teacher from third and fourth grade had called out to him as we left school.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Nothing,” G responded, too emphatically.

“Then why did Mr. __ ask you that?”

“Nothing! No reason!”

I pushed. It felt right this time (sometimes it’s better to let go, I know).

At length, this story, as according to G, emerged:

G’s teacher likes to start off the day by asking thought-provoking questions during “morning meeting.” Often, these questions are like koans,* in that there is no “right” answer.

That particular day, the discussion was led by the teacher’s aide (who happens to work with G) and the question was, “What would you do if you we're the least popular kid in class? What would you do if you were the parent of that kid?"

G’s answer? “I think I am the least popular kid in class and I do nothing because I don't care about being cool; I would say to my child, 'Don't worry about it because when you grow up the weird will triumph!'"

His response, so brave and wise, took my breath away. (Mothers are so objective.) Also, the whole thing made me want to throw up, especially after what he said next:

“Then,” he continued, “for some reason, I started crying.”

You know how you’d do anything on earth for your baby (whoever your baby is, maybe it’s your partner, your cat…)? At that moment I promised the universe ANYTHING if it would only show me what to do to fix this situation. 

As we shift into the tween and dread middle school years, I fear social issues can only gather weight. As it stands, we drive hours to play with kids G has really connected with; plus we have carefully sought-out play dates in other local school districts.  And it’s not like G’s no fun to play with! He’s a really fun kid, if sometimes a bit fixated on Pokemon. He’s just stuck in a small school right now, where the particular mix of kids has left him…friendless.

Later, G asked me, “So how did you feel when I told you that?”

I thought about “that” for a minute. “First, I felt proud and happy, because you are so wise. But, also, I felt sad, because you felt that way and you must’ve been through quite a journey to get to feeling that way. I guess I also felt hopeful, that you will be around a more diverse bunch of kids soon.”

I paused and then asked, “How did YOU feel after all that drama?”

“I had mixed feelings.”

“Like what?”

“It’s hard to explain.”

I pressed him a little bit more.

“Stuff.”

…”STUFF???!!!”

Now that’s a “normal” tween answer!

(To be continued…)

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* Merriam-Webster defines koan as, “a paradox to be meditated upon.” The concept arose from the Zen Buddhist tradition.

MILCS

I recently spent a morning meandering and gabbing with a beloved friend. As we walked along a magical, secluded trail, she showed me some special spots where her children play together. “We are here a lot because we can’t be in public right now,” she confided. One of her children is going through a period of strong tantrums and the effort and strain of it in the social scene is just too much. She admitted how ashamed she feels when her child throws a public tantrum and how her fear of getting caught in that situation has vastly limited her social life. How isolating it can be…Having read some of my experiences here (and heard about them in person and seen them in real life), she added, “You know how it is!” Oh yes, Mama, I know how it is.

This conversation reminded me of some instances when I had no choice but to be out in the world while my children were going through changes. Bleak times filled with helplessness, anger, sadness and humiliation for all…Happily, what also came to mind were the times when someone – often a complete stranger – gave me love, peace and strength just when I needed it.

Everybody knows what a MILF is, right? Well, I want to talk about MILCS: Mothers I’d Like to Celebrate. I don’t even know if some of these people have children…But they are MOTHERS, for sure. See if you don’t agree.

Once, Z was having a ghastly tantrum and I had taken her outside to avoid disturbing G’s tae kwon do class.  People kept walking by and either totally avoiding us or looking pityingly at the poor, poor little girl.  Poor, poor little girl was so angry (no idea why, this was a daily occurrence at the time…) that nothing I knew of (not hugs, not threats of Consequences…) would stop the screams of rage. I was near tears.

As I stood there, trying to shrink as small as possible while still indicating that the tantruming child had someone watching her (for what that someone was worth), a woman came up to me and said, simply, “Mom, you are doing okay.” She wrapped me up in her arms and rocked me a little from side to side and then went on her way.

Hey you, lady who just hugged a pariah, you are doing more than ok.

Oh, here’s a good one. You know when someone thinks your child with an attachment disorder has autism and that your child with autism is neurotypical, or vice versa? Yeah, that happens to me sometimes.

I was at this fantastic storefront Aztec-Mexican restaurant in Norwalk, CT called Molcajetes (http://www.ctbites.com/home/2009/9/18/los-molcajetes-seriously-authentic-mexican-in-norwalk.html) with extended family when Z threw one of her most remarkable, powerful tantrums of all time. Full Spectrum Grandmother tried to intervene and got kicked for her troubles…Pardner tried joking her out of it with no luck…

Over the course of the next [period of time, I am not sure how long!] or so I spent with my rocking, growling, kicking, screaming daughter out on the stoop, not one but TWO women with autistic sons walked by at different times and commiserated with me over what they thought was a textbook autistic tantrum.

“Oh no,” I told each kind mother in turn. “The one with autism is sitting inside eating nicely!”

When Z was good and ready she pretty instantly stopped being upset and went inside and, with a big smile on her face, devoured enough food (fresh, garlicky guacamole and soft tacos and just-fried chips with that incredible slightly sweet cabbage salsa) to feed an army, which is kind of what she was. You need fuel for that kind of sally!

When Z was younger, I often felt as if people judged me as a mother for her behavior. I wished I could maybe wear a sign that said, “This is not a normal tantrum. I have tried everything you (or I, or anyone) could imagine to stop this tantrum and many others like it. Yes, my daughter was just hitting me and screaming as if I was hitting her but I was not, actually, hitting her…, as you can see right here with your own eyes. In fact, your staring at us might even fuel this little situation we got going on here. Now, please, I just have to sit here and wait it out so I would be so grateful if you would stop giving me dirty looks.”

Now that Z is a little older, people can tell her tantrums are not just run-of-the-mill. They can see that she is older than a “normal” age for tantrums, and that she is writhing and screaming, extensively, without any input. They seem somewhat less likely to be appalled -- and rather more likely to feel compassion for both the parent who stands helplessly witness to such an event and the child who cannot extricate herself from it – or let herself be extricated...

G has his moments too, whether from his really rare but quite memorable public tantrums to his more common general inappropriateness/cluelessness, not to mention flailing.

One time, after a hard day, I said to G as we were leaving a local co-op, “You have the most important thing, a kind and loving heart. Now you just need to pay attention to the world around you and work on your common sense.” (This is one version of my ad-nauseam-aforementioned Pay Attention to the World lectures.)

We had gotten into the car and had just begun to pull out of the parking lot when a woman with a silver bob wearing a striking purple jacket and lots of chunky silver jewelry waved me down, practically throwing herself in front of the car. Thinking maybe I had forgotten one of my organic, vegan, sustainable, equal-exchange, wallet-straining purchases, I stopped and rolled down my window.

 “That was one of the most inspiring things I have ever heard,” she told me. “It will echo inside me for a long time. Thank you.”

No, thank you, Ms. Silver-Purple Angel-Person. I will never forget you.

I tell these tales not to brag or make it seem like I am doing such a great job that was duly appreciated by these wise women (ha!), but to share that these women actually made it possible for me to Go On. Their simple acts of generosity have resonated in my life for months and years. They allowed me the space and peace in which I could settle my heart back into love for my children instead of fear. They made it possible for me to celebrate my children, just as they are, and so I celebrate them.

Just so, I hope when my friend who is stuck in the woods for now with her clan reads this she will know how truly I honor her finding a way to celebrate her children through it all. In addition, I hope she will encounter surprising (yet very welcome) love and acceptance when she does have to put herself and her family “out there,” just as I did with these MILCS: huge-hearted strangers, generous-spirited everyday angels who just

Went For It.

And guess what? We can all – in some way - do the same.

We all have the mental capacity to recognize opportunities to grow our hearts, to stretch a little or a lot. Sometimes it seems like we don’t have the emotional capacity to execute such acts of kindness and generosity, whether it’s due to emotive stinginess (high on the fear spectrum, no?) or the shyness of those on the awkward end of the social spectrum. It’s probably easier to be surprisingly kind to strangers, as these women were to me, but we encounter countless such opportunities of all sorts every day. And I am not talking about the somewhat trite “random acts of kindness” trope, because these acts are more than random. They are necessary.

You never know when your small action may make a real difference in someone’s life. Plus, I suspect our capacity to be generous and kind grows with the PRACTICE.  Be grateful for any everyday angel you meet…and pass it on!

Lest this seem preachy, I should add I’ve no idea what a generous spirit means to you in particular and no advice beyond the suggestion that choosing kindness at a given moment may resonate more than you’ll ever know.

Thanks and love forever, MILCS, and all you others trying to make sure your heart isn’t several sizes too small, and all y’all who are just plain trying,

Full Spectrum Mama

 

Pay Attention! To the World!

What are the odds that someone would put on two shirts, one over the other, both inside out and both backwards? Sounds unlikely, no?

Actually, Full Spectrum Mama…what ARE the odds? Harkening back to graduate school statistics, I have in fact calculated the random chances that one would simultaneously wear two shirts inside out and backward (*see below): just over six percent. Yet G seems to wear his shirts this way roughly 60% of the time.

Three seasons of the year here in New England, we layer two shirts for warmth -- but we only wear them once. It occurs to me that the odds might be slightly higher in the case of pajamas: you take ‘em off, they are inside out…You put ‘em back on: inside out. Thus, one ought reasonably to conclude that there might be a higher than six percent chance in the matter of the double-backward-inside-out (DBIO) pajama tops. We wear pajamas for a week, barring mishaps, with double layers on top during the aforementioned three chilly seasons. I have in fact calculated that for each of the week’s seven wearings the daily DBIO odds are as high as 14% (*see below). But I would wager that in the pajama realm we are looking at more like a 90% DBIO scenario.

Figure 1: DBIO Pajama Tops, with faint smile



There might be an element of intentionality to this sartorial situation. G invariably smiles slightly when I bring up how remarkable his shirt-luck is…is it pride that tickles him? Or is he sheepish? Is he a rebel with a cause, albeit an obscure one?

You’ll notice I haven’t even mentioned underwear- or pajama bottom-orientation.

If G cares about something, he WILL change it however he sees fit. However he simply does not agree that shirt-orientation is important. He has a point, I know; even so, I would like to see him express his iconoclasm in a way that won’t make the fourth grade girls tease him.

One of G’s earlier, tentative diagnoses was Attention Deficit Disorder. I knew this was completely wrong: he could focus on something he was fascinated by for hours at a time. His internal capacity to concentrate – often on internal topics – sometimes seemed much higher than average. In fact, he’d be near-unresponsive if absorbed in certain toys or a book. That label was discarded for others, deciding not to label, and so on…Some of you will recognize this cycle…In any case, ADD was not a label that stuck.

Caring about something, paying attention, merits awareness about that thing. Here are some other things G doesn’t care to be all that aware of: prestige, the despotism of custom (http://www.victorianweb.org/philosophy/mill/block.html), the coolness-level or age of playmates, sleeping past 5am, order and cleaning of most sorts, safety. Some of these are great (I am never pressured by him to buy the latest trendy clothes, for instance), and some can be challenging. It’s the latter that presents some tough choices for this Full Spectrum Mama. I just wish I could convey – in a way that really made sense to him – those things that would keep him safe and out of harm’s way. Of course emotional harm is a piece of this, but I would start with fundamental survival tips. I have to find ways to make these external things matter to him somehow.

Lately, sometimes several times a day, I find myself holding G’s precious face tightly in my hands and looking right into his eyes. “Pay attention! To the World!” I say. “Please! Look into my eyes and really hear me: You have to be aware of the world around you.”

I’m one to talk. According to an informal survey of “people who walk with me,” I frequently almost walk out into the street at bad times. I (by choice) didn’t get my drivers’ license until my late thirties  (there was a two-week driving salvo in my early twenties that ended with my vowing never to drive again). Granted I am a native New Yorker but it was more about self-limiting: it struck me as neurologically overwhelming, what with all those Factors (Directions! Other drivers! Turning!)! Driving was neither something I thought I would do well or enjoy, and I didn’t start to try until it became an incontrovertible necessity.

Obviously, I am not the world’s finest safety representative. As well, I never thought I would be a bastion of conformity-recommendation but here I am informing my son, “This is the way people do things” (i.e. wear shirts). On the other hand, daughter Z is all-too-aware of her surroundings and of “normal” ways of doing things. It probably goes without saying that she dons all clothing 100% correctly, 100% of the time.

One notion I had when starting this blog was that a useful parenting idea that holds true for Both of my two disparate children might be a useful parenting idea (not suggestion or rule, just idea!) for ALL parents. The topic of paying attention does not seem to generate any such overarching ideas. Here, I parent a very Full Spectrum-Of-Two. For just one example, take driving: I actually believe Z could be a safe and reliable, if, one might say, potentially “strong on the offense,” driver at age six, while G (and, perhaps, I) would best be served by using public transportation in perpetuity.

Balanced attentiveness to what’s inside and what’s outside is not a given around these parts. Manifestations of focus -- chosen and not-chosen, obsessive or “normal,” healthy and less-so – vary widely in our family.

The ways we (all of us) apportion attention are strikingly different. Children with different attention styles need at times to be parented in different ways. How? Hmm. I do at least maintain that the practice of paying attention to what our children and we ourselves are Paying Attention To is important, especially so when we are not dealing with “neurotypical” or “psychotypical” individuals.

When I am giving some version of a Pay Attention Lecture to G, I become -- on my better days -- aware that Z is listening. She is an excellent listener, regardless of whether she chooses to agree with what she is told. I want to say to her, “NO! Not You! You need to pay LESS attention to the world and more attention to your heart and to let go a bit!”

Luckily, I am able to follow up my Pay Attention lectures to G with Anti-Pay-Attention lectures to Z because G is not listening 93.75% of the time.

Love,
Full Spectrum Mama


* I believe one calculates this as follows: there are four options for each shirt if the dresser is paying ZERO attention:
1. backward, right side out
2. backward, inside out
3. forward, right side out
4. forward, inside out.

Therefore, there is a one-in-four chance of randomly donning a shirt backward and inside out (BIO). So for two shirts, since options are not mutually exclusive (vs flipping a penny, for example), we multiply. The chance, then, of wearing two shirts in this way on a given day (DBIO, again, assuming one pays NO attention to proper shirt wearing) is .25 x .25 or .0625. Just over six percent.

As for the pajama-calculation, I estimated with a higher, set rate of inside-out chancedness. In seven possible dressings, I generously eliminated the right side out option for Four, but retained the backwards/forwards measure for those days, resulting in the following calculation: (.0625 x 3) + (.25 x 3) or .1875 + .75 or .9375 for overall chance of the DBIO Pajama Top. I divided this by 7 to get your average chance on a given day: .13392857 or about a 14% chance. From this we may conclude that for a week, random incidence of DBIO-shirt-wearing would be almost assured (93.75%), and not out of the question on any particular day.

Hi! If you are still reading this you might want to ask yourself some questions. Hey, I’m the one who *wrote* it…Just saying.