Overheard

“My dad complains about wrappers left around the house while he goes around picking them up! Then he nags us about the dinner dishes while we’re still eating, and then starts cleaning those too! We’re like, cool! You can do it all for us!”

Do nothing, say nothing (advanced version)

For the past several years I’ve been living the “do nothing, say nothing” philosophy of staying out of my daughters’ way whenever possible. That includes the “when in doubt, don’t say anything” approach, as well as the “when you feel the urge to help, wait at least 30 seconds” rule-of-thumb.

But I’ve never repeated that first solid week of completely stepping back…until now. Last week I went on a business trip and my girls, now ages 11, 13, and 15, were alone in the house for five days.

As I prepared for the trip, I felt grateful to PoT for showing me how to trust my kids and foster their independence. Because of that, leaving them alone didn’t seem like a big deal. I stocked up on groceries, taped a list of pet care duties to the fridge, and told them which family and friends they could call for emergencies and rides.

Then, after the chorus of nonchalant “bye-mom”s, I drove away.

I called them each evening to say goodnight. Charlotte called me once with a question (that I don’t remember now), and at one point I listened to a short debate about who was going to scoop out the cat box first.

On day four Ellen sent me this photo collage entitled, “Home alone”:

Then she added, “Mom all of the milk in bowls in the sink is sour and clumpy and it smells disgusting.”

I replied, “Hmm, what to do, what to do…” and braced myself for the mess as I headed home the next day.

But after all these years I should’ve known that Vicki Hoefle was right: “Have faith in your children and their abilities – BEFORE they have proven they deserve it.”

And, voila…welcome home.

Walking the walk … of trust

“I indicated that I would not be signing homework logs or reading logs and that I would be giving my child permission to sign my name. And then I told the teacher why. And I was clear about this. I went back to my original statement – I am raising a thinking child and I have no intention of interfering with their thinking by lecturing, nagging, reminding, scolding, bribing or saving them from their first chance at investing in their own educational success. Homework I stated was between the teacher and my child and if there were consequences for not turning in homework I expected the teacher to dole them out to my child. I would support the teacher unless humiliation was involved in the consequence.” —Vicki Hoefle

Last year I said something similar to Charlotte’s 5th grade teacher and after the initial shock wore off, he said, “All right then, I guess we’ll give it a try.”

Later, at a parent conference he remarked, “I must say that the other day Charlotte hadn’t signed her reading log and when I pointed it out she said, ‘Oh…well…I forgot to do my reading last night.’ So, what do you know? It’s working!”

This year, I wrote the following note. Charlotte happily took it to school…

The difference 3 years can make

It’s been approximately 3 years since I cleaned out Ellen’s room for her. She actually likes to keep stuff off her floor and she vacuumed at least once in a while, so it was relatively easy for me to stay out of her way on this one. But she has also enjoyed collecting things, and her bedroom has only so many shelves and drawers. Still, I stayed out of it. Gave her lots of space and time. And here’s what happened last week:

“Mom, I’ve been cleaning out my room. There’s a lot of stuff I don’t want anymore.”

“Wow. What motivated you?”

“I looked around and saw trash everywhere. Plus I could only vacuum small parts of my rug because of all the stuff. I’ve gotten rid of more stuff than I own now. It looks a lot better but I still have more to do. I want to be done by August 26th. I don’t know why I picked that date. That’s just my goal.”

Kids need time and space to get to know themselves. Sometimes a LOT of time and space. Yes it can be messy, inconvenient, and hard to watch. And so, so worth it. Self-knowledge is part of self-love. Give your kids that gift and it will serve them for the rest of their lives.

ps Amidst the piles I also found this note:

Comic relief

Hi readers. I know it’s been a while. I’ve got some posts percolating. Meanwhile, enjoy this little gem:

Quotables, cont.

Fenner, age 15:

“I hate when my friends get whatever they want from their parents. To spend my money I know I have to really want it. If I don’t really want it I don’t get it. My friends don’t take care of their things because their parents will just buy them another one. I’m really thankful when you buy me things because it hardly ever happens! And when their parents pay for birthday presents, I’m like, ‘So your mom paid for that?’ And it doesn’t mean as much. I spend my own money on my friends.”

Ellen, age 12:

“Mom, yesterday my friend was like, ‘You mean your mom doesn’t make your lunch?!’

‘No.’

‘She doesn’t pack your bag?!’

‘No.’

‘She doesn’t wake you up in the morning?!’

‘No.’

‘She doesn’t make you breakfast?!’

‘No.’

‘She doesn’t care what you wear?!’

‘No.’”

Me: “Do you envy her that her mom does all that?”

“No! It feels like her mom’s all in her business!”

Charlotte, age 10:

“Some parents don’t let little kids, like me, use sharp knives, or the oven, or the microwave. You know what that’s like? That’s like saying your kid doesn’t have a brain.”

Wake-up call

Waiting for a meeting to begin, I made small talk with a couple of women I’d just met. We were commenting on the benefits of walking to work. One of the women said, “After waking my kids up in the morning and getting them out of bed, then getting them going with breakfast and all the stuff they need for the day, I need a walk just to de-stress!”

“How old are you kids?” I asked.

She said, “One will be a junior in high school and the other’s leaving for college in the fall.”

O-M-G. I managed to suppress my reaction, but on the inside my mouth was hanging open and my eyes bugging out. Thank you, thank you, thank you Parenting on Track. Because in five years, without the help of this program, that would be me sending my kids out in the world without the slightest idea of how to manage their own lives.

Those poor kids.

So the next day, when the conversation below happened with Charlotte, I was ready:

“Mom! I’m late for karate camp again! When you wake me up, you can’t just do it so my eyes are only a little bit open because then I just go back to sleep! When I use my alarm clock for school, it works because I keep hitting snooze until my brain is totally awake and ready to get up.”

“Oh, hmm. Well, I offered to do it for summer camp just as a special favor, but I think I’m just not a very good waker-upper … I should stop doing it anyway because this is the time for you to practice for when you’re out in the world without me around to wake you up.”

“Yeah, ‘cause Mom then I’ll probably be using an alarm clock!”

Her tone implied the “Duh!” that I added in my own head. I mean, after all this time, how could I have not seen this coming?!

Because sure enough, the next day—as soon as I stopped interfering—she figured out how to be on time for camp.

Attitude adjustment

… mine, that is, not theirs. I’ve been checking myself lately regarding my approach toward contributions. I had been slowly losing my sense of purpose around inviting (ordering) the girls to help more around the house. When I read a recent post from Vicki, a light bulb went on:

1. Who am I doing this for?

Believe it or not, when you train your brain to stop and ask “Who am I doing this for?” you can suddenly find yourself faced with a truth that will alter your course of action quickly and decisively. How many times have you made a parenting decision based on someone other than your child?

2. What is my purpose in doing this?

Asking ourselves what the “purpose” in doing something is, helps clear the crap and provide an illuminated path towards our true purpose. (Is my purpose to get the house picked up because neat houses mean neat families or to help my kids learn how important their cooperation is to the health of the family?)

—from Five Most Essential Parenting Questions

Ah, clarity. Now, when the urge to nag about the mess, the stuff, the spill, the clothes, the dishes inevitably bubbles up, these two questions provide the needed attitude adjustment: Stop. Why am I about to say what I’m about to say? What’s really important here? Sometimes it takes a few minutes, but the shift in the air is palpable. And the odds of getting the girls’ cooperation skyrocket.

For me, it’s socks. If an unexpected solution surfaces, I’ll let you know. Especially if it involves dog slobber.

While I’m on the topic of contributions, I’d like to share another bit of inspiration from an unexpected source: 4 Legs & a Tail: A Magazine for Pet & Animal Lovers. The title of one of their articles caught my eye because in the last few years I’ve noticed quite a few overlaps between improving my relationships with my daughters and improving my relationships with my dogs (trust them, be both firm & kind, when in doubt shut your mouth, etc).

But the moral of the story below turned out to be: question your assumptions, go slow, and stay open to unexpected solutions. (Oh yeah, also: bribes don’t work.) Enjoy.

How to Train a Dog/Teenager

by Tim Hoehn

I always refer to that time between the end of fall foliage and the first snowfall as Gray Stick season. It was on a particular Saturday morning during Gray Stick that I found myself just killing time at the Norwich Bookstore. Sure, I could have been home, knocking off a few from the honey do list. But then, what would I do in February when re-staining dog-chewed woodwork is actually a welcomed prescription for cabin fever.

As I slowly shuffled through the store, I came to heal in the Dog Training section. There were more than a dozen books, all with well-behaved dogs on the cover and smiling pet owners next to them (although, all the humans were very attractive, so they could have been models. Come to think of it, so were the dogs. Is there such thing as a dog model?). Thumbing through several of the books, I found that, although the names of the dogs were different and the profound impact on “Masters” life varied slightly from book to book, the message was essentially the same. All you needed to get man’s best friend to sit, stay and speak is patience and some yum-yum treats.

As a father, I contemplated the simplicity of basic Behavior Modification and realized, if you can train a dog, you should be able to train your adolescent daughter using the same principles…patience and yum-yums. After all kids are smarter than dogs (or at the very least should be, with the amount of property taxes I pay that go to the school district). Kids have more complex communication skills than the family dog. Dog speak is a bark, a ruff-ruff or, maybe a howl. Whereas, with your kid you’ll get a plethora of communications such as: “Ewwww,” “Huh,” “Word” (which is new slang for yes) and the non-spoken “What planet are you from?” gaze.

Yum–yums are the problem. An industrial size box of dog treats is less than ten bucks. I have friends who pay their kid $25 for every A on their report card, plus an additional $50 if they make honor roll. With three marking periods per year, you do the math. Yes, Katie does well in school, but do you think she could put a dish in the dishwasher instead of the sink? The problem is that we live in a high-tech society. Kids are motivated by iPods, iPads and smartphones…a trip to Dairy-Twirl just don’t cut it anymore.

So with patience well in hand, and a gift card for Abercrombie & Fitch, I decided to train my kid. According to the dog book, it is best to start small, with the basics, and work your way up. Pick something that is achievable and will please both master and dog/kid. Easy. My daughter wears her hair long and ties it back with florescent colored hair bands. The only problem is that there are more hair bands lying around the house than in her hair. Hair bands on the bathroom sink. Hair bands on the kitchen counter. We even have dozens of hair bands wrapped around the stick shift in the car. It’s time to train the kid to take care of her hair bands.

And so…it begins. I patiently explain the issue of the hair bands all over the house and car, to which she replies…”Huh?” I then patiently ask if she would like an Abercrombie gift card for picking up her hair bands? Word! At this point, I’m feeling pretty good with thoughts that I might just be the next Dr. Phil.

Unfortunately, that was the high point of my “Great Experiment.” As days turned into weeks, hair bands seemed to multiply everywhere. With positive reinforcement thrown out the window and my patience worn thin, it was time to chuck the book and go to plan B.

As I gathered my composure, I casually mentioned to her one evening that she really needs to take care of her hair bands, because the dog was eating them. As she flashed me that quizzical glance of, “how do you know?” I responded that I have been finding them in the yard when I clean up after the dog. And when she asked what I did with them after, my simple and patience response was, “I rinse them off and put them back in your drawer”.

“EWWWW!”

Needless to say, the hair bands were never an issue again and I re-gifted the gift card. Teenager trained.

…teenager trained and relationship intact. 🙂

Masters of the morning

Remember that first week when Charlotte threatened to punch me in the nose because her lunch wasn’t made? I do. But it seems almost like a dream now. Because now is so radically different.

Now she makes her own lunch, every day. Now she keeps track of her own stuff. Now she decides when to go to bed and when to get up and how often to shower and what to wear and what and how much to eat for breakfast. Now she chooses to take the bus to school with Ellen instead of getting a ride with me.

Now, in the morning, I don’t even see her …

… except if I listen for the sound of the door and then look out my window, then I might catch a glimpse:

So I don’t see Ellen in the morning either. To catch the bus, they have to leave the house at 6:50am. At 6:50am, I’m still upstairs getting dressed for work. Sometimes I’ll call down, “Bye! Have a good day!” And that’s it. End of morning routine.

This has been going on for over a month. They have a whole system worked out that I don’t know the half of. Ellen sets up her iHome in the bathroom to play a certain song so she can make sure she’s out of the shower by the time the song ends. If one of them oversleeps, the other one wakes her up. They’ve discovered they both like to get up extra early to have time to eat, finish homework, or just “chillax.”

Their sense of accomplishment is palpable. I’m guessing it’s part of what has lead Charlotte lately to say this for her self-appreciation at family meeting:

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.