Mending Holes

 A couple days ago, Bug asked me if he could draw one of his favorite characters on his wallet. Since it's his wallet, of course he could. However I was feeling a little grumpy about it because it was a wallet I'd made him. I didn't like the idea that I'd worked hard on it for it to be drawn on.

Yesterday I was mending some of his pants and got silly with making a monster face and other designs. While doing so I realized something.

I was doing the same thing he had done, embellishing a cloth item. The only difference was our choice of art medium and the fact that I've had a couple more decades to refine my skills (ok, actually my hand sewing skills are pretty lacking). The point being, I thought more highly of my abilities with thread than his with markers. I'm really glad for the change in perspective.

Computer Agreement

 On teenagers and the importance of communication-

Note- I'm still feeling emotional about this, and my writing style is pretty free-form anyway, so consider this your warning about upcoming tangents and ramblings.

To understand this situation I think you first need to know that we've got a system in place in which the boys do tasks in exchange for payment in quarters. They then exchange those quarters for time on electronic devices. Or they don't. They can save the money to buy whatever they please. The system came into being over an hours long family meeting where everyone had input and we all hashed out details together. This is NOT a system we forced on them.

We've been having trouble with Josh (days away from 14yo) using electronic devices outside of our agreement. Agreements are a big deal around here. It's one of basically only 2 standing rules- Don't encroach on another's person or property, and Honor your agreements. It's kind of the foundation of our little family, so naturally this is a big problem.

We talked about it. Honesty. Integrity. Relationships. We covered it all. He still kept using electronics without paying for the time. We put measures in place to avoid those situations; he found ways around it. I was getting seriously frustrated! Like, really, what the hell is going on here? I was feeling put in a place of Josh vs Us and it was really detrimental to the energy of our household and unhealthy for our relationship with him.

Something to know about Josh- He loves tinkering with his computer. He loves gaming. He wants all the latest tech. He's always coming out to show me some new graphics card he wants that costs hundreds of dollars, etc. After the third or forth time, my standard response has become, "Cool story, bro, but we're a single income household putting your Dad through a Master's program without loans right now so.....that's not happening on my dime."

Finally, the point of this post. There was another incident Thursday with the electronics and I was just over it. This clearly wasn't working and we needed to get to the bottom of it. So, after some deep breaths and a cup of tea, we sat down with Josh and asked him what was up. He was very guarded and distant. He didn't want to open up. We were very clear that breaking the agreement was unacceptable and we held him to higher standards than that. We were also very clear that we did not think he was a bad person because of his choices, but we needed to understand his choices in order to move forward and find a system that would meet all our needs.

After nearly an hour of conversation, we finally got to the root of things. He feels he needs certain tools (like the gadgets and upgrades for his electronics) in order to pursue his goals for personal growth. When he would show me things he wanted to buy and my response was as above, he felt I was not supportive of his goals and therefore I wasn't supportive of him. He felt he would have to do it all and get everything himself, which is why he was choosing not to spend his money on electronics according to the agreement. At the same time, we moved over the summer and he has a need to connect with his friends via devices. He was breaking our agreement in an attempt to meet both of those needs, because he did not feel supported by us, which made him feel unloved and unable to talk to us about the situation.

Once I heard how he was feeling it all made so much sense. We discussed putting room in the budget for the tools he wants and finding more ways outside the home for him to make some money too. We made sure to hammer home that we DO support him, and apologized for leading him to believe we didn't. The whole situation reminds me of the idea that it doesn't matter if we love our child/spouse/whoever; what matters is if THEY FEEL LOVED.

Final thoughts- When things aren't working or people are acting out, get to the root of the issue. Find out what needs aren't being met, what connections are being missed, what messages are being miscommunicated.

Broken Crayons

 I've been doing this unschooling thing for 6 years now. When I think about it being almost all of Bug's life, it seems so long, but when I type it out right now that seems so very little time. So, no wonder I'm still not a pro. I still have my days when I feel terribly inadequate and I'm failing the kids. I have days when I fear the kids will resent me when they're grown for not raising them differently.

I battle those feelings by relying on my supportive community, and continually reading and rereading the staples. Most recently I read Free to Learn by Peter Gray. An interview with Peter Gray is what set us on the path to unschooling in the first place. I love his work and highly recommend the book.

The point of the story- We've got a jar full of crayons, no broken ones because I tend to throw them out. I cope with my anxiety by controlling my environment. However, there wasn't a black crayon and Bug needed one. So I stopped at the store and got him a fresh box of 24 Crayola crayons, then added them to the jar.

He drew for a minute, and then proceeded to snap every. single. one. of the the crayons in half. Let me tell you, this STRESSED ME OUT. I bit my tongue and just watched. After a few moments he started talking aloud about how when he broke 4 crayons in half he then had 8. 16 to 32, so on and so forth. He was learning math skills for the low price of a 50 cent box of crayons. The snap each made as it broke was very satisfying to him.

I am grateful for having read Free to Learn when this happened, as it reminded me to just stay out of his way and let him learn. I could have so easily interrupted this situation and robbed him of a learning moment. Our society is more tolerant of infants and toddlers "making messes" to learn, but childhood curiosity and drive to learn through exploration doesn't stop once kids reach "school age".

Lemonade Money

 I got a great reminder from Bug (age 5) today. Yesterday we had drive thru for dinner and he got lemonade. This morning he said he wanted more, and I reminded him he didn't have any money left and didn't get paid again until Sunday. He asked why I bought him lemonade yesterday but wouldn't today, so I told him because it was my responsibility to provide him his meals, but I would be providing him meals at home today. He then asked how much a lemonade cost. I off-hand said $2.00 without giving it any real consideration.

The day went on with no more mention of it until this evening when he got out his bunny bank and counted $2.00 in coins to use for buying himself a lemonade.

The thing that resonated with me was that he'd really been thinking about something I told him off-hand. It reminded me to always be honest and answer questions carefully and sincerely. It reminded me how important it is to be as precise as I can with my language, to be careful using metaphors and be sure to explain them. I was reminded how powerful my words can be to them as they work to put everything around them together and navigate the world. I never know which words will be the ones they mull around and pick apart and make into their inner voices.

I would have felt terrible if we'd gotten to the restaurant and he hadn't brought enough to buy himself a drink. Thankfully it was $1.89. I know it might seem a trivial thing, but I think trust is a delicate thing and I can see how not taking his question seriously could have been a chip away at that relationship.

Little Caregiver

 [Bug] bought himself a stuffed pikachu yesterday, and today he's taught him how to play on the playground, tucked him in for a nap, and bandages his injuries.

My first thought was "awwww, he's going to be great parent some day." Then I thought, well, what if he doesn't want to have kids? He'll be a great caregiver. Maybe he'll care for animals or the elderly.

Then I thought some more. Who knows what he'll do with his life. Maybe he won't want to do any sort of caregiver work. For a moment I was trapped into thinking about him in the future instead of seeing him right now.

He is an excellent caregiver RIGHT NOW. He is fully a human being RIGHT NOW. He is uniquely himself RIGHT NOW.

It is so hard to break the habit of thinking about everything my kids do in terms of how it MIGHT impact their future, instead of seeing them and reacting to them right now, in this moment, without the anxieties and fears of the "what ifs" and the assumptive (often setting up for disappointment) "what could be's".

Thanks for the reminder, little caregiver.

 I wrote this years ago and just stumbled across it again. Perhaps others here have felt the same way.

When we first withdrew Josh from the public school system, we were met with some opposition from family. Out of love, they were concerned about whether we were doing what was best for him.

Now, 2 years later, we are still met with the same opposition as family members bring up their concerns yet again. I used to feel their concerns were out of love, but now I have trouble not feeling offended. I look at our children and think, what on earth do they see in them which makes them feel like we are making poor choices? They are healthy, happy, polite, respectful, courteous, (what others would deem 'well-behaved'). The speak intelligently. We have great dialogues. We don't have to coerce them into learning. We negotiate our problems. There is nothing which should give them the impression we are doing something wrong.

In contrast, when we used to send Josh to school and we would complain, "I got a call from his teacher today, he's acting up in school again. We tried spanking, we've grounded him, taken away his toys.This kid is out of control!" they never questioned our approaches. That was the "normal, acceptable" approach to parenting, so obviously we were doing the best that we could, and it was "normal" to be having such struggles with our son.

Now, seeing how home education works better for us, I think it actually upsets them that we DON'T struggle anymore. They may think- "I see them doing something different, and it works for them. What I did didn't work as well for me. Maybe I made a poor choice. But I don't want to question my choices, because that's too painful. So instead I'm going to question their choices. That's easier for me to deal with in my mind right now."

This situation is very frustrating for me. Home education has been the most positive life changing choice we have made. I can't force them to see that, but I can be patient and compassionate toward them as they hopefully work through their issues. After all, I used to think all homeschoolers were weird and look at me now, advocating for home education. We all start somewhere.

Cumulative Emotions

I realized yesterday how cumulative emotions are. Bug (5) got really upset by something I'd said, and was expressing his upset by crying and yelling and stomping. I sat with him for probably 20 minutes while he worked it all out. That might seem like a long time to be upset about something most people would find trivial, but it's what he needed. And now that he's expressed it fully, he doesn't carry it around with him to add to the next time he feels those feelings.

In working through my own past repressed feelings, I can say it's really hard. And it takes so much time. So much time, because it all adds up. Like rollover minutes, lol. So when you're in the throws of your child's emotions, maybe keep that in mind. You're doing yourself and them a huge favor by holding space for them to safely express themselves. All feelings are valid.

Inception

This afternoon we were in the car. On the radio a song with the lyrics "You saved me from myself" was playing.

Josh asked, "How could someone be saved from themselves?"

I replied, "Well one way could be if they had really negative self-thought, like 'I'm bad, I'm terrible, I'm worthless.' and someone helped them to realize that negative thinking wasn't true."

"So, like, their therapist?" Josh asked.

"Therapists definitely could help their clients eliminate negative self-thinking, but people who love and care about the person could help them realize it too, like friends and family."

"I see."

"The funny thing about negative self-thought, though, is usually it comes from someone else saying those negative things about you first. 'You're bad. You're terrible. You're worthless.' After so long hearing those things your mind changes it to 'I'm bad.' etc."

"So it's just like Inception," Josh said. "Inception /is/ possible."

And there I sat slack-jawed and mind-blown.

But seriously, I love how movies and music and other forms of media help give us launching pads and aids for contemplating abstract ideas.

My Kids are Awesome

Anyone who thinks raising a child without spanking, without chores, without rules, without school, without coercion, without manipulation CAN'T produce a person who is kind, thoughtful, self-disciplined, productive, inquisitive, motivated, and ethical, I wish you could meet my children.

I woke up to this on my bedside table. Josh, 10, got up, took care of the pets, made me coffee, and is now practicing piano. I'm so often overwhelmed by their Inherent goodness.

Interruptions

Interruptions are one of my triggers.

We're driving home from the store. I'm getting hangry. Bug asks me a question. I'm answering, and Josh interrupts me.

I fume, "I was just in the middle of answering Bug's question. I don't like being interrupted."

"Oh, sorry", said Josh.

In my head I'm running through what else to say. " So rude! " "Every time!" "Seriously?!" "How many times do I have to tell you?" I'm really huffing and puffing up there, stomping my foot and everything.

We turn a corner and Bug's book falls to the floor. "Ugh! I can't reach my book!" he grumbles.

"Where is it?" Josh kindly asks. Bug points and Josh gets it for him.

We've all seen the quote "We can't make kids behave better by making them feel worse." (Paraphrased) These 4 years working on parenting peacefully and I just now really understand that phrase.

Josh is a kind, considerate, helpful person. One interruption doesn't change that. My berating him for one interruption certainly doesn't set an example of kindness for him to follow.

Trust and Consequences

I was listening to TED Radio Hour- Trust and Consequences and this part of the interview hit home SO HARD.

Interview with Simon Sinek. He's speaking in reference to companies, but think of it in terms of family leadership.

"What's the connection between feeling safe and trust?

They're inextricably linked. The sense of feeling safe comes first, so when we feel safe trust will emerge, and this is what the foundations of leadership really are. The reason we call someone leader is because they choose to go first. They choose to extend trust first, even before, maybe, any signs have been offered that they should. It's the willingness to express empathy before anyone else.

And presumably that feeling changes behavior?

Absolutely. And when we assess that someone would do that and we see that they have that integrity, they would willingly sacrifice their interests for our lives, we cannot help ourselves. The natural human response is trust. And this is the point, which is, as human beings if those in, especially, leadership positions express empathy for our well being, we reward them with our trust and our loyalty and our love to see that their vision of the company [family] is advanced."

Our kids need this type of leadership.

http://www.npr.org/…/ted-r…/406238794/trust-and-consequences

Reflecting on My Scrapbook

Healing from our own childhoods can be so hard. Making parenting choices vastly different than those our parents made is really, really, difficult if we haven't prepared ourselves in advance.

I'm thinking about this lately because over the weekend I cleaned out a ton of photo albums from my closet. One of the albums was a childhood scrapbook my mom gave me when I turned 19. Each year had a bullet point list of memorable moments from the year. Papa and I were reading through it and laughing hysterically because things like "Had teeth cleaned" and "Drank lots of water" made the lists of highlights. It was really funny. At first.

As I continued reading through (I started at age 18 and worked my way backward) I got progressively more sad. The trend of non-events continued to be the highlights of my scrapbook, with sprinklings of outright negativity thrown in. My parents' divorce, being suspended from school for swearing in a note to a friend, being forced to go to counseling for suspected drug use (suspected by my parents, I wasn't using drugs though).

It hurt to see how vastly differently my mom experienced my childhood from the way I did. None of my cherished memories were in that book. None of my ambitions or interests were recorded. It drove home that my mom didn't, and still doesn't, really know *ME*. My heart aches for that relationship which I don't have.

But the beauty of it is the reminder to stop some of the things I'm doing and go sit with my children, to just *be* with them. To ask them what they think about the world and really listen. To be involved with their interests. To cherish the joy the feel in their accomplishments. To heal my hurt by nourishing my relationship with them. To do all I can to create a legacy of love and connection.

Gardeners Don't Tell Flowers To Grow

I saw this yesterday and it made me think of the idea that a gardener doesn't tell a flower how to grow, or even to grow, they just provide the environment needed for the flower to flourish.

We humans are biologically evolved to be social creatures. Like a flower doesn't need to be forced to grow, our children don't need to be forced to learn social cues. It is in their biology. They are made to get along with their group, to read people, to empathize, to make amends. We simply need to provide the right environment for them to flourish, then watch the beauty of it all unfold.

Making Positive Changes

All of our children's behavior is a direct result of our behavior. They are a reflection of our actions, and they cannot, repeat CANNOT- are completely incapable of- making any positive changes until WE change our behavior and outlook. Maybe that means we do some reading and self-reflection, maybe that means we go to see a counselor, but whatever it is, the focus needs to be on changing ourselves instead of changing our children.

Yes, as parents we do have a responsibility to help our kids become the best adults they can be, but we do that by being a living example to them. Not by trying to manipulate them into being something we're not. (Example, we can't reasonably expect a child to learn patience and respect if we're not modeling that for them every day.)

Inevitably, when we start making positive changes in ourselves there comes the time when we will think, "I've been so positive and worked so hard for so long; why is my child still behaving the way they did before?"

To understand that we need to understand the parent-child relationship is involuntary on the child's part. They are completely trapped in this relationship with us. If they feels unhappy, neglected, abused, etc, they are helpless to leave and too immature to know how to effectively change the dynamic of the relationship. It makes trust a very delicate thing. Try to put ourselves in their shoes. If we were literally trapped in a bad marriage, how would you feel if our partner treated us the way we treat our children and we had no autonomy? For our entire lives this is all we've known.

Now imagine our partner became more respectful, patient, loving, etc. How long would it take to rebuild that trust? How long would they have to continue to act that way before we really believed it was permanent? That is why when we make positive changes to our behavior it will always take much longer for our children to follow suit.

Josh's Morning

A typical morning for Josh (10y) looks like this-

Wake up around 8:30am. Let the dogs out. Feed the dogs breakfast. Do one lesson each in math and grammar workbooks (this is not something he's forced to do). Make coffee for me.

I never asked him to do any of these things. This is how he's self regulated and self organized his morning. He loves his dogs, so he loves caring for them. He likes getting his work done early so he's got the rest of the day to play. And my personal favorite, he knows I'm a happier camper when coffee hits my system as soon as I shuffle out of bed.

EGG-citing EGG-speriments!

In anticipation of Spring Equinox this Friday, we decided to do some egg themed experiments.

The first focused on osmosis, with a bit of chemistry as well.

Materials:
1 egg (fresh, not hard boiled)
clear container
white vinegar
corn syrup
scale

Osmosis is the movement of materials in a solution across a membrane, typically from areas of high concentration to areas of low concentration. An egg has a membrane we can use to see this, but first we have to get rid of the shell.

Before we began we found the weight of our egg on a simple kitchen scale. Ours was 2.25 ounces. We then placed our egg in a glass and covered it with vinegar. The acetic acid in the vinegar reacts with the calcium carbonate in the egg shell to make calcium acetate and carbon dioxide. The bubbles were visible almost immediately.

We left the egg in the vinegar for 48 hours and got this- 

Since the vinegar had a higher concentration of water than the inside of the egg, some water moved into the egg by osmosis. At this point the egg weighed in at 3 ounces. We put it back in the glass and covered it with water to see if it would take on even more water.

After just 30 minutes in water the egg looked like this. The lighting accounts for some of the color change, but not all. At this point the egg weighed 3.25 ounces. 

We then poured out the water and covered the egg in corn syrup. The corn syrup has a lower concentration of water than the inside of the egg, so we're expecting to water to now move out of the egg into the corn syrup.

At this point the egg had been in the corn syrup for about 4 hours. You can clearly see the less dense layer of water which has come out of the egg floating on top of the more dense corn syrup. We left the egg overnight in the corn syrup.

We woke up to this. The egg weighed 1.25 ounces, losing a total of 2 ounces from when it was placed in the corn syrup. 

We had so much fun with this experiment! The boys especially loved touching the egg without it's shell and showing everyone who would look at it in the various stages. 

Peeling Oranges is Tough

Last night I let Bug have some ice cream after dinner, fully knowing he would be a sugar crashing mess afterward. At bedtime he was acting as expected, and wanted an orange. I calmly told him no, and he ended up trying to peel the orange himself. When he couldn't get it, he got frustrated and slapped the orange.

I said, "Peeling oranges is tough, huh."
And he responded, "Yeah. And shirts." (He had struggled getting his pajama shirt on earlier.)

"And pants" (He's just learning about the tag going in the back of pants and often has to take them off to turn them around.)

"And socks" (I've not noticed him struggle with socks, but it does take him time to get them on just right.)

I was suddenly overwhelmed with how many obstacles he faces every day, and he handles it really well considering his emotional immaturity. If I felt half the frustration he does in a given day, I'd be a mess and need to be held while I cried too, which is how we spent the next 30 minutes or so before he calmed down and fell asleep.

Being a kid is tough work. What are your children working through lately?

Praising Hard Work

There's plenty of research now showing that praising your child's hard work instead of their being "smart" sets them up for future success.

I did not follow this advice with Josh (10y). Instead I doted on him throughout his younger years, telling him how smart, special, talented, etc I thought he was. This has set us both up for a lot of frustration. He has trouble handling situations in which he struggles and feels like a failure if he doesn't achieve perfection on his first try at something.

Which leads to one of my worse parenting moments, or perhaps on of my better ones.

Josh was struggling with piano drills. He shut down, threw things, yelled, and told me to leave. I refused. He didn't need to be alone with those emotions. I needed to help him find a healthier way to express himself. But after so much yelling AT me, I snapped as well. I said some harsh things, things that negated all the doting I'd done for years.

It was a sobering moment for us both.

We came up with a mantra- "I will work hard and figure this out." He said it, yelled it, and tackled his piano drills. Practice ended on a positive note. wink emoticon

Later at bedtime we were doing our Best, Worst, and Looking Forward To (where we reflect on our day), and I told Josh my worst was yelling at him. His response was, "That's okay, I needed to hear it."

White Privilege

I just took the boys to the library. Josh wanted to borrow Apollo 13. We've got a movie night planned tonight. Completely unexpectedly Bug fell asleep on the way. I parked at the entrance and asked Josh if he'd run in to pick up the movie, already at the hold desk, and handed him my library card. Off he ran.

In my rearview mirror, I saw a car park behind me. A black mother proceeded to get her four children out of the car, all boys. My mind flooded with the posts I've been reading about Ferguson, about the heartache of raising a black man in this society. I wanted to turn around and call out to her, tell her I know how hard motherhood is, but I can never know the fear she must feel for her children. I wanted to apologize and tell her how beautiful her family is, but I didn't. I didn't know how something like that would be received.

Then Josh came out of the library and it hit me like a slap in the face- THIS is white privilege. I didn't even think twice about sending him into the library alone. Would the mother behind me ever consider that for her sons? Will her sons ever know that freedom without fear? It brings me to tears.

What can I do? It is not enough to only educate my sons. What else can all of us parents do to protect all of our children?

Thoughts While Washing the Dishes

There I am, standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes. The boys are running circles through the house playing tag. The noise and energy levels are much higher than I'd like them to be.

A few years ago I probably would have harped at them to calm down and quiet it, but not today. I've come to the realization that, as long as they aren't encroaching on anyone's body or property, they're not doing anything 'wrong'. The noise level is only loud to me because quiet is my preference. Same with the energy level. The house is just as much their place to live freely as it is mine.

I can certainly voice my preferences to them. I try to do so sparingly. I try to keep in mind how often I get to have things the way I like, and how out of control they are about so much in their lives. When I do express my preference for whatever I may want at the time, they almost always honor it. It's amazing how considerate they are.

And so I decide this moment is not one of the moments in which I'll ask them to be quiet. Instead I do my best to focus on their laughter, and when I do I wonder how I could have ever wanted the house to sound any other way.