Space to think

What’s the long-term effect of quieting down, backing off, and getting out of the way of your child’s growing independence? The effect is enormous and multifaceted. I know because almost three years ago I started doing just that. Charlotte, then six, showed me I was on the wrong path. She pushed for change without even knowing it and I found a way to listen.

So after six years of squelching her independence, rescuing her from all things unpleasant, and barking out orders day after day, I finally stepped back and gave her some space to think.

The change has been like a low, slow, powerful rumble — sometimes loud, sometimes soft, sometimes barely audible. But after almost three years to practice thinking for herself, here’s what I heard last night:

Me: “Fenner, would you be willing to empty the dishwasher in the next 5 minutes?”

Charlotte: “I’ll do it!!! … Fenner, the only reason I’m doing this is to give you an appreciation for me at the next family meeting. So you’d better write it on the board!…Oh, my gosh, tomorrow’s a school day! I need to shower! What time is it? Ok, I have to shower after this and then I’m going right upstairs to bed. But first I’m going to make my lunch to save time in the morning because when I get up I’m usually tired and I like to lie down again for thirty minutes…Mom, I think I need to start going to bed earlier…also, I’ve decided to do my laundry every ten days…”

And this morning:

“I don’t feel like going to school, but the problem is, if you skip, they still make you do the work, so it feels like extra … which I think is not fair if you’re sick because it’s not your fault, but then when you finally get better, you have all this extra work to do. [pause] Anyway, bye mom!”

And she hopped out of the car. Her thoughts. Her choice. Her life.

Example to follow

I work at a college, and not too long ago one of our faculty received a “Professor of the Year” award—and deservedly so. He is one of our most loved and respected teachers, and when I read about the award, a couple of the student testimonials jumped out at me:

“As I discussed the difficulties I was having with my project, he never once supplied a solution. Instead, he provided points to consider, and questioned me until I figured out the next steps in the process for myself. Although I was only just beginning my training, I felt respected for my talents and ideas.”

And this one:

“He realized the team had the potential to take on the larger challenge. Unfortunately, many of us were initially stubborn and somewhat lazy about following his insightful guidance. He reacted with an innovative leadership style. Rather than imposing a greater level of control over the team, he took a step back and simply waited to see how we would respond to his challenge. By doing this, he empowered us to think through each of these challenges and struggle to solve the problems in front of us. He basically forced us to step up to the plate, think critically, and become independent thinkers, all while providing us with a supportive environment. He did this by asking critical questions, framing the key issues in a provocative way and requiring us to work through them. Having been in this situation with him, I was able to grow in my confidence, tackle great obstacles, and push the boundaries of my knowledge.”

Respected, empowered, independent, supportive, confidence—when my girls talk about me ten years from now, I hope they use even one of these words.

Don’t make them wait for college. Start now. Be your child’s teacher-of-the-year.

Hair’em scare’em

A month ago Charlotte stopped brushing her hair. She stopped washing it too. She’s done this before, but it had been a long time and I wasn’t expecting it to happen again. I didn’t mention anything. I dropped that battle long ago.

When my mother started to notice and complain about it, I said to Charlotte, “Would you be willing to take a shower today?” She responded with a flat, “No.” Nothing more. Hmm, I thought. Interesting.

The last time this happened she at least tried to hide it in a tight ponytail. This time her ponytail was half falling out and she left it that way, day after day.

Also about a month ago she started showing signs of frustration with the increased homework expectations of fourth grade. It took me a while to make the connection. Power, I suddenly thought, she’s grasping for power!

I wrote to her teacher: “As I’m sure you’ve noticed, Charlotte’s on a hair-care strike. I’m guessing she’s been feeling a bit powerless around the homework situation and this is one way she tries to get some of that power back in her life. Just guessing, but she’s done this before with other situations.”

I refrained from adding that this could well be Charlotte’s way of subconsciously flipping the bird at her and her endless stream of worksheets. Or perhaps just an outward expression of utter discouragement. Or both.

Her teacher and I met and she agreed to make some changes and provide Charlotte with the support she needs to get more of her work done at school.

All the while I resisted making any comment to Charlotte about the state of her hair.

What happened next, although really not surprising, still amazed me: After just one week of reduced homework stress, Charlotte announced from the back of the car, “I’m going to brush my hair…when we get home I want you to tell me no TV until I do my shower…oh my gosh, it’s hard to even get the brush through. Well, at least I learned my lesson!”

Back at home she looked me in the eyes, “Mom, I’m ready for my shower.” “Ok,” I said, “You can start and get the temperature the way you want and I’ll be right up.” For the last few years, I’ve been ever so slowly extracting myself from her shower routine. Lathering up her head was the only task she still expected me to do (that and wrapping her wet hair in a towel afterwards). I’d loiter outside the bathroom door until she called for me then I’d lather her up and leave—with the plan to hand this last task over to her when she turns ten next year.

I loitered as usual, reading a magazine in the hallway. Then I heard, “Mom! Which one’s the shampoo?” “The orange bottle!” I hollered back. I waited but the call never came. After several minutes I heard the water shut off and the next thing I knew she opened the door and strutted past me, hair washed and towel twisted up on her head.

“Hi mom,” she said as she went by. And that was it. Nine years of my washing her hair for her came to end on a Friday afternoon.

Whether they know it or not, kids send us powerful signals. But often we’re too distracted by our own buttons and hang-ups to get the message.

The next time trouble comes, stay quiet. Stop, look, and listen. Most likely you’ll discover there’s something else going on underneath.

Mum’s the word

It’s worth repeating again and again to yourself: When in doubt, say nothing and do nothing.

I’ve been in doubt a lot lately about this set your own bedtime thing. They’ve been staying up late a lot. Charlotte’s been skipping her homework. My biggest worry is that they’re not getting enough sleep … and it’s all my fault!

Shhhhhh. I consciously told myself. They’re learning. They can do this. Don’t ruin it now.

After several weeks of this, tonight Charlotte suddenly changed her tune:

“Mom. I’m going up at 8:00 because I want to get up early to catch the bus so I need to get to bed early. Right now I’m going to make my lunch. Then I’ll do my homework. I just feel like taking the bus.”

“I want to do that too!” said Ellen.

After Charlotte made her lunch, they both cleaned up their dinner with no reminders and marched upstairs. By 9:00 it was quiet.

Wow. Give them enough time and mum is definitely the word.

Continued tradition

…our first-day-of-school tradition, that is, where I tape my mouth shut to keep from bossing our girls around. Except this year, today, I discovered I no longer need the tape. And the girls don’t need it anymore either as a reminder to figure it out—whatever it may be—on their own. We all just did it naturally.

We were calm. We were early. All three remembered to set their alarms. All three had their stuff together. Charlotte’s only complaint was that she was too early: “The bell won’t ring for 10 minutes? Darn, I like when I get here right when everyone’s going inside. Oh well.”

Then she added, “You know, Mom, at some point I’ll probably forget my backpack…and I’ll probably forget my lunch…and I’ll probably forget to set my alarm.” I smiled and listened quietly for her next thought, but none came. She stared into space for a few seconds and then jumped out of the car. “Bye!”

Those things have happened before and, yes, they might happen again. But no worries. She knows first hand that she can handle it.

Later I felt almost guilty when a colleague asked me how the morning went. He had that let’s-trade-horror-stories look on his face. “Um… it actually went really well, but there’s a whole story behind that.” “Really? What?” I thought, ok, you asked. “Well, I started wearing tape on my mouth for the first day of school a couple of years ago as a way to, you know, foster independence.” He raised his eyebrows and stared at me. “Huh. That’s different.” “Yeah, if you can force yourself to do it, it works pretty well.”

Works like a charm, in fact. Like…a…charm.

Safety zone

The other day I was asked a question that I hear a lot: “So, that parenting program, has it helped?” It always takes me a few seconds to answer because “helped” doesn’t come close. What I usually say after my pause is, “It changed my life.”

I know this sounds like an exaggeration and can be intimidating in its grandiosity. I just don’t know how else to describe the depth of the transformation.

This morning I read about a scientific study that concluded: “Parents who spend more leisure time with their children and who argue less with them have offspring that are less likely to bully each other.”

Doesn’t that sum it up nicely? More time connecting = less arguing = siblings that get along = more time connecting = less arguing = siblings that get along = more time connecting = less arguing = siblings that get along … and round and round we go.

Yes. It changed my life.

Remember Charlotte 2 years ago? Starting fights was her specialty. She was really good at it.

Last month I heard Fenner and Ellen arguing in the living room. I continued to fold the laundry. It started to escalate. I put another load in. I heard Charlotte’s voice chime in. I cocked my head to listen, but the volume had suddenly gone way down and I couldn’t quite hear.

A minute later Charlotte pranced up the stairs, “Ha, my method worked! I said I saw a funny shadow under her arm and now they’re talking about shaving and they’re not yelling at each other anymore!”

She pranced on by as I stood there with my mouth hanging open. The girl who used to pride herself on being good at starting fights had just demonstrated the fine art of distraction to diffuse her sisters’ argument.

By the way, that article went on to say: “We know that experience of sibling bullying increases the risk of involvement in bullying in school. Children who are involved in bullying at home and at school are 14 times more likely to suffer behavior and emotional problems; they have no place that is safe for them.”

No, my statement is not an exaggeration. I found the information I needed to turn our home into that safe place. And that has made all the difference.

Sweet dreams

Those of you who have followed me along the way know that I don’t fight with my kids in the morning anymore. You may also know that I don’t fight with them about homework, or clothes, or the state of their rooms either. As for bedtime, that got a lot better right away through this program, but a sliver of tension remained … until now.

For the past two years, I’ve given our girls the choice of being “on time” for bed. Being on time earned them an extended good night visit from mom and dad: 5-10 minutes of quality one-on-one time when we can talk or read or play a quick game or whatever they want to do before saying goodnight. A missed bedtime meant a missed visit. This worked well for a good long while. But during the last few months, it has slowly, naturally unraveled.

The definition of “on time” began to get looser and looser. I would discuss or announce a different bedtime each night, depending on what we had going on, and then enforce it halfheartedly or not at all. We started having more arguments about what exactly had to be accomplished before they were considered “ready” for bed. Fenner would say goodnight to us in her room only to end up coming back down stairs to use the computer for homework. It took me a while to realize—our family had outgrown the system.

I started thinking: What about handing the whole thing over to them? Are they ready for that? Am I ready for that? What about that first week when they all stayed up late watching TV just because they could? Will they do that every night? Will it drive me crazy? Am I crazy for even considering this?

Vicki’s voice was clear in my head: “Give them practice with setting their own bedtime while they’re at home. Otherwise you’ll spend thousands of dollars for college and send them off and they’ll have NO IDEA how to manage this bedtime thing!”

Right. Makes perfect sense. “Girls?” I said, “I’m going to stop telling you when bedtime is. I want you to have the chance to practice figuring out how much sleep you need to feel good each day and figure out how to get it. And as long as I’m still up, you can get a bedtime visit whenever you choose. Ok?” Half-interested nods all around. They knew we’d been slowly sliding toward this approach for months already.

Still, saying it out loud made me nervous. It helped that Jerry was on board right away. Made sense to him too. I explained the rationale and then shrugged, “I don’t know how it’ll go, but let’s try it.”

The result? Quite anticlimactic. Sometimes they stay up late. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they drag in the morning. Sometimes they don’t. Trial and error and the freedom to learn from it. The other night Charlotte stayed up too late and only made it as far as my office. When I went to bed she was asleep under my desk. Before this I would have carried her to bed to make sure she got a good night’s sleep. No more. Her good night’s sleep is up to her now. And at some point during the night she quietly moved to her bed where I found her in the morning, warm and cozy.

Our evenings are, again, transformed. No more deadline. No more haggling. No more guilt over my own inconsistency. Just trust and calm and space to learn.

Then, the other day, any lingering doubts vanished when I found that Ellen’s blank road-map I printed out for her had recently been filled in:

• Start: “Tired. Bed too late. Waking up too late.”
• middle: “Go to bed a little earlier. Set my alarm later.”
• Finish: “Getting up at 6:30. Not tired. Find a good time to go to bed by myself.”

So once again I find myself wondering what I was so worried about.

In kids I trust

… at least a lot more than I used to. I will continue to nurture that trust. Where does the distrust come from in the first place, I wonder? Society? All that garbage people say? (“They’re ‘just’ kids … Give ‘em an inch, they’ll take a mile …  Kids need tons of reminders …” etc.)

Or is it that as adults, we forget what it’s like to be learning and figuring out the world for the first time? And so when our kids make one mistake, or take several tries to get something right, we assume they can’t be trusted.

I’m finding again and again that it’s simply not true. But still I have to actively remind myself, even as my girls remind me over and over again:

Charlotte skipped school yesterday. She woke up an hour late and said, “It’s too embarrassing! I’m staying home today.” The voice in my head started right away: What will people think? What if she does this again tomorrow? What if she enjoys staying home so much that she never goes to school again?!

Shhhhhhh, I said to the voice. And then I said to Charlotte, “Ok. I have to go to work now. I have my cell phone, and you can walk over to Nana and Papa’s whenever you’d like.” We agreed that TV and computer would be off limits for the day (in big picture terms, no school = no job = no $ = no electronics, which they totally get).

“Bye, have a good day, “ I said and kissed her forehead. “Bye, mom,” she said softly. She wasn’t upset, but I could see and feel her disappointment in herself. No need to rub it in, she was doing that all on her own.

She actually did have a good day though. She played with the dogs. She did an art project with Nana. And then guess what she did today? She got up extra early and went to school. Go figure.

On top of that, on the way in to school I put on the brakes, gave Ellen a look of concern in the rearview mirror and said, “Do you know that we’re not going home today before the birthday party?” I let the car roll to a stop, fully expecting a panicked response from the back seat. But what I heard instead was, “Oh, yeah, mom. Here’s the present, and I have the thing I need and I brought the other thing too, and I remembered the …” etc.

I started the car going again and tried not to look surprised.

Why was I surprised? Why wouldn’t she have all her stuff? Like I said — trust. I’ll keep working on it.

Food for thought

What do you hope your kids would say to this at the age of 20?

[From the Dartmouth Alumni Magazine]

The Parent Trap

From the touching to the hilarious, students divulge insights into their upbringing—and how they’ll raise the next generation.

What don’t your parents understand about you?

What I want to do with my life.

That if I haven’t talked to them in a few days, I’m still OKAY, just a bit busy.

I’m not as smart as they think I am.

That I’m gay.

I lie to them about my drug use.

All of the pressures that I have to deal with as a Dartmouth College student.

My parents are of Asian heritage….They don’t approve of the values I uphold due to my Americanization.

My personal philosophies on life, religion and politics. We never really talk deeply about anything. It’s almost a business relationship.

I am not a virgin.

Why I’ve made some bad choices. (But I don’t understand either.)

My choice of English as a major, my lack of interest in finding a high-paying job and my choice to be an atheist.

Yes, I could be an investment banker if I wanted to…but NO, I DON’T WANT TO!

That I’m, sadly, not their little girl anymore.

They don’t understand that I’ve changed a lot since I’ve been at college.

That pushing myself to my limit actually makes me happy.

My sense of humor.

Why I’m not trying harder to look for a job after graduation.

That I really don’t know what I want to do after college.

Who I am.

That perhaps near the top of the list of things I value in this world is them.

That I am a growing, independent person who isn’t still 10 years old.

Read more …

Her way

These days, I practice do-nothing-say-nothing 95% of the time during our before-school morning routine. We each get up and get busy taking care of ourselves and then converge in the car at the agreed-upon time. Smooth sailing almost every morning! I’m still amazed by our transformation when I think back to the way it was two years ago–the fighting, the frustration, the lateness. It’s all a distant memory now.

During the last few months, Charlotte has taken full advantage of her relatively new autonomy to invent and fine-tune her own morning routine:

• 6am alarm
• 6:05 crawl into bed with mom and snooze
• 6:30 get up with mom
• 6:35 retrieve backpack from car
• 6:40 make lunch
• 6:50 pack backpack and locate boots, hat, mittens, and coat
• 7am crawl on top of the masonry heater and snooze some more
• 7:34 crawl down off the heater, grab stuff, run out the door and jump in the car just as it’s driving away at 7:35

She’s been perfecting that routine for weeks, and I can’t remember the last time she missed her ride to school. When she’s on the heater, I like to reach out and squeeze her foot as I go up and down the stairs getting myself ready for work, careful to keep any comments to myself. Sometimes I still start the car without her and think, uh-oh, maybe not today, and then here she comes, barreling out the door, coat half on, backpack hanging off one arm, just in the nick of time.

Never in a million years would she have had the space to develop that method for herself if I hadn’t backed off. Never in a million years would I have guessed that method would work for her — or anyone else for that matter! And now I think, who am I (and who was I) to presume that I know best … about anything?!

So humbling. So inspiring. Can’t wait to see what they think of next.

ps Did I mention that all three girls have chosen on their own to go to school each and every day for the past 2 years? They know I can’t make them go. That cat’s been out of the bag since the very beginning of this program. I can’t make them pay attention and cooperate and participate when they get there either. They choose their life every day. All I had to do was believe that they would.