parenting

One of the ways that I help myself focus on being a good parent is by making lists. Every three to six months I spend some time watching my children and figuring out what developmental task they have in front of them that I can be assisting. Then I write lists of what my kids need and create action plans for helping them. Sometimes the same item stays on a child’s list for a very long time. “Help Link learn to ride a bike” stayed on his list from age seven until the day last spring when he just got on his bike and took off down the street. Other items only make the list once because they’re no longer needed by the time I make the next list. Having the list helps me see how the needs can be fit into the family schedule.
Here are today’s lists:

Kiki: Needs someone to sit down with her and look over her Personal Progress book to decide where to start on earning this church award. Needs more things to keep her busy in the afternoons so that she is tired at bedtime instead of taking afternoon naps.

Link: Needs more time reading aloud because it helps him internalize the rhythms of speech, thus improving his ability to speak. Needs someone to help him tackle scouting goals, particularly the ones which involve writing. Needs more physical activity to improve large muscle development and fine motor co-ordination. Needs time limits on video game time so that he doesn’t spend all day in front of the screen.

Gleek: Needs home support for the “Star Card” program that we’ve negotiated with her teachers which will hopefully improve compliance with directions at school. Needs more immediate and strict with enforcement of limits because she is in a pushing-the-limits phase right now. Needs more healthy snacks and fewer treats to prevent sugar crashes. Needs more quiet time to help her settle herself.

Patch: Needs more stories read to him. Needs one-on-one time to practice reading. Needs quiet times during the days because he gets overwhelmed with too many people and too much noise. Needs a stable bedtime routine.

All kids: Need to be doing more chores, both so the chores get done and so that the kids learn how to do them.

The length of the lists vary. This time Link’s list is longest, but each child has had a turn being the one with a long list of needs. Once I see the list laid out, I’m suddenly able to see how some of these needs can solve each other. It is parental judo. If I have Link read stories to Patch I have solved both the reading aloud and the need for stories. Kiki needs more to do in the afternoons and she also has a list of things to accomplish for the Personal Progress award. Now I can see what I should be telling her to do when she’s sitting around bored. Or maybe I could set Kiki on the task of making healthy snacks in the afternoons. I can also have Gleek do some reading to Patch which would again give him more stories while supplying both with valuable quiet time. Link’s tumbling class helps to address the muscle development, but if I also make sure that his chores are physical ones, like vacuuming or scrubbing, that can help both needs.

Not all of these solutions I’m spouting will work out, but at least I know where to start and I don’t feel completely overwhelmed because I don’t have enough time and energy to meet all the needs of my kids.

Dear Child,

Today you called me the meanest mom in the whole world. I’m sorry to inform you that your words did not have the intended effect. I’m neither hurt, nor inclined to repent of my ways. You see, I’ve heard those words from you and your siblings often enough that all the sting has gone out of them. If I truly were a mean mother, you would not dare to speak such words directly to me. You have no idea what “mean” really looks like and I intend to keep it that way.

It would be so much easier to just give you what you want, to let you play all night, or supply you with endless piles of treats. You believe that if I were to do so, you would be happy. I have lived longer than you, and I know that buying short term happiness this way is a certain path to long term grief for us both. I must teach you lessons about temperance and self control while you are small. Later teachers of these lessons are much harsher than I am. So I choose the harder path, the “mean” path, because I love you enough to work for your long term good even if it crosses your current desires.

I know my choices make no sense to you now. Your mind is not yet developed enough to plan as far ahead or see as complexly as I can. I am not surprised that you assess my current actions as “mean.” I can only hope that as you grow and mature, you will judge my actions more kindly. In fact I have evidence that you will. Later in the day you informed me that I was your “most perfectest mom ever.” I’m afraid that pronouncement is not accurate either, but I’ll not argue with a lovely compliment.

I love you and somehow I suspect we’ll muddle through together.
Love,
Mom

Last week I did two interviews about Hold on to Your Horses. Both interviews were very complimentary to me and to the book. It was heady to have so many intelligent people telling me how amazing I was for creating this book for my daughter and then sharing it with others. Yet, after both interviews I could not wait to get home and change back into my mommy clothes instead of my professional clothes. I was subtlely disturbed by something about the interviews and it took me awhile to figure out what it was.

The cumulative message from the interviews was “we know you’re an amazing mother because you wrote this book.” As if writing a children’s book is a good measure of parenting prowess. The fact that I wrote a children’s book and shepherded it through publication says things about my writing and publication skills. It says nada about me as a mother. I would be much more comfortable receiving praise about my mothering skills from someone who watched the hours I spend snuggling and cooking and remembering food preferences and dropping off at school and supervising homework. Those are all tasks that will never win me a television interview, but they are far more important to being a good mother than writing a book is. In writing Hold Horses, I’m only doing what hundreds and thousands of other parents do every day. I am using the resources I have to help my children grow. It seems wrong that I’m getting praise and attention merely because I’ve got a flashier set of resources to turn to the aid of my child.

It feels wrong for me to seek out this praise and yet the praise is an inevitable part of promoting this book. I need to continue promoting the book. I still want to be able to pay Angela what her work is worth. I still believe that this is a story that can help other families as well as mine. I guess I just have to keep going, but I wish I could share the praise with other mothers who work even harder than I do with less reward.

Sometimes parent teacher conferences are nothing more than me and a teacher smiling at each other and agreeing that we both like my child. That means everything is going well. Other conferences consist of me and the teacher puzzling over a problem and outlining a solution. Then there are the conferences where the teacher and I spend time commiserating, but neither of us knows how to get a handle on the issue. In today’s conferences, I had one of each. Patch is taking to kindergarten like a fish takes to water. Link has been marking time at school without working so that he can get home and do the things he really cares about. His teacher and I have figured out how to corner him and require him to work before he plays. Gleek has two teachers who love her like I do, who see the same issues that I do, and who are as baffled as I am about how to help her with them. The rapport is nice, solutions would be nicer. Unfortunately I think that the solution is ultimately developmental. As Gleek matures, today’s major issues will disappear. They’ll probably morph into tomorrow’s issues, but if I spend time pondering that I will curl into a ball and cry.

In short, I’ve now got a newly expanded parenting “To Do” list. The thought makes me tired.

Some days I really focus my full attention on the children. This is when I remember what fretting really feels like. With the kids in my full gaze, I suddenly see hundreds of things that I could be doing to help nurture them. I could be limiting video game/TV time more. I could be looking up cool science projects and doing them. I could be teaching the kids to cook. I could be requiring chores regularly. I could be taking them on more outings. I could be leading them in exercise so that their musculature develops before they’re done growing. And then there are all the things I could be doing for each individual child. My brain compiles these lists and I start looking at my calendar to see how I can fit it all in. The answer is that I can’t. Not only that, but also that I shouldn’t. One of the things my children need is the space to grow and develop into individuals. That would be impossible for them to accomplish if I am hovering over every developmental step to make sure it is done right.

Today’s hyper focus on the development of the children was precipitated by observing Link’s tumbling class. Link is not as physically advanced as his peers. He does not have the muscle strength or balance that most boys his age do. I drove home with my head full of plans to require him to practice physical skills and maybe look into occupational therapy.

Today’s reality check was precipitated by old family videos. Kiki needs to use the camera for a school project and I discovered an old tape inside it. The tape was five years old and brought back a flood of memories. I remembered what life was like back then. I remembered all the things I fretted about in the development of the children. Then I realized that not one of my five-years-ago fears has actually developed. All those things I fretted about and hovered over back then, are completely irrelevant today. Some of that is because I did some necessary assisting, but most of it is just that the kids grew up and grew out of whatever was concerning me.

Link is not as physically agile as his peers, but he is continuing to develop at a steady pace. He’s going to catch up, just as he did with speech. Meanwhile he’s far ahead of his peers in math capabilities, and in the ability to craft a complex game out of almost nothing. I do need to pay attention, but I don’t need to fret. Instead I need to trust in my son, for he is capable of amazing things.

First off, thanks to everyone who commented on my last entry. I now have a list of books longer than my arm which I can try on Link. I’m sorry I can’t respond to all the comments individually, there were so many wonderful suggestions. Unfortunately I’m swamped just now with incoming book orders and customer support emails, oh and all that housework that I really should be doing. So one thank you is going to have to suffice for everyone. Thank you! Now I need to make a trip to the library and then I can toss books in front of Link and see which ones stick. ( It’s like the spaghetti test. You throw the spaghetti against the wall and if it sticks it is done. I’ve never actually gotten this test to work on spaghetti, but I’m optimistic about literacy.) I also decided to add an incentive plan to the project. (It’s like adding olive oil to the spaghetti. Sort of.) I told Link that if he could read a 100+ page book that had no pictures, then I would buy the family a pizza dinner. This prospect was greeted with excitement. The long term plan was for me to gradually increase the required page count necessary to earn pizza.

The plan was lovely, but then Link was telling Kiki about the plan. She grinned at him mischievously and said
“I have the perfect book for you!” Kiki then grabbed Robert Jordan’s The Eye of the World and thumped it down in front of Link. The Eye of the World is over 800 pages long with very small print. It landed in front of Link like a brick. Kiki had recently been required to read over 1000 pages for a class assignment. I’d given her Eye of the World because I figured she could knock off most of those pages in one go. She loved it. She loved it so much that she spent her lawn mowing money to buy the next book in the series. She was joking when she handed it to Link, but she was serious when she said what a good book it was.
Link’s eyes got wide. Then he looked at me. I laughed and said
“Link, if you read all of that book. I won’t just buy you pizza, I’ll buy you a video game.”
Link’s eyes lit up. “Really?!” he said.
I looked at him and at the book. 800 pages of complex vocabulary and characters. If Link can wade his way through that, he will have earned a video game. I may regret those words, since I’m trying to get the kids to cut back on video game time, but I decided not to take them back.
“Yes really.” I answered.
Link snatched the book and ran off to read. So far he likes it. The prologue is in medias res and includes a madman, sword fighting, and big magic. We’ll see how he does when he gets to the more expository passages. So now I’m left to wonder if I’ve set him up to fail, or if I’ve caused more trouble for myself because Link will get bogged down in a story that is too difficult for him. That could make him more convinced that reading is hard. But there is the chance, the hope, that he too will fall in love with Robert Jordan’s story. If only I can get him to love a story enough to read it, the battle is over. The chance is slim, but it is there. We’ll see. I’m still going to make that trip to the library. I can get him to take breaks from reading for video game to read something easier for pizza.
Hopefully soon I will not have to bribe him to read text-only books. Hopefully he will break through his belief that reading is work. Then reading will become its own reward.

Link has a mental block about reading and writing. He does just fine once he gets started, but he always views the project with dislike. I was therefore, delighted to discover that Link will devour some manga. Give him Kingdom Hearts, Full Metal Alchemist, Naruto, or Pokemon and he’ll sit on the couch reading all afternoon. I responded to this discovery by giving him more manga because I figured that even though there were far more pictures than words, Link was still reading.

This decision of mine was supported by an article in a recent scouting magazine that talked about why boys don’t like to read as much as girls do. According to the article this is because boys are less interested in relationships, feelings, and dilemmas than girls are. Boys are far MORE interested in farts, adventure, fights, and physical humor. Boys also tend to be more visual. There are genres which cater to both interests. Girls can find Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prarie, Magic Tree House, Harry Potter, and a plethora of princess or fairy themed books. Boys can find animorphs, manga, comic strips, comic books, and pulp-style adventure stories. Take a look at those two lists. Which list is most likely to be recommended by librarians and teachers? Over and over again boys are told that the kinds of things that they like are not worthwhile. The comic books are snatched from their hands and replaced with Magic Tree House books. Don’t get me wrong. We love Magic Tree House here. Kiki went through them all. So did Gleek. Even Link read a bunch of them, but he did not love them. For Link they were tolerable, even enjoyable, but he would never give up a video game to read Magic Tree House. He regularly does when he has a new manga to read.

So I patted myself on the back for being an enlightened parent and I kept supplying manga. All would be well and good, except that today Link’s teacher confiscated the manga and told Link that in 5th grade he needed to be reading books that were not comics. I’m not upset with the teacher. The teacher is very nice and earnest in his desire to help Link. I love what the teacher has got planned to help Link learn to love reading. But the event has me re-thinking my attitude. There is nothing wrong with Link reading manga. I will continue to supply it, but I also need to help him branch out a little. There is a world of wonderful books out there and most of them do not have pictures. Link doesn’t have to choose to read them, but I do not want him to be intimidated by a page full of nothing but words. The only way I can see for him to overcome that intimidation is through practice. So, I’m going to have to quest to see if I can find some books with no pictures that Link can love. I want to find the book that Link will give up video game time to read. I don’t know if it exists.

I always knew I wanted to be a mother someday. I was not a girl who ran around borrowing babies, or playing with young kids. I did not even enjoy babysitting much. And yet all my plans for my future revolved around my intention to have children of my own someday. Naturally I intended to be a good mother. Even in my teen years I was watching parents and either deciding I should do the same, or thinking though how I would handle it differently. Not all the time, of course, I was a normal teen, far more focused on peers than on parenting. But I was beginning to define the kind of parent I wanted to be. I exited my teen years with the feeling that I wanted to be one of the “cool” parents. I wanted to be a parent who remembered what it was like to be a child. I wanted to be a parent who would play with her kids. I wanted to be the mom who could still do cartwheels.

I’m now more than 13 years into this parenting gig. It has been years since I’ve done a cartwheel. I am not the parent I pictured myself being. This is in part because my teenage view of parenting was romanticized and unrealistic. I pictured charming, well-behaved children. I pictured joyful picnics in the park. I pictured family vacations to exciting places. I pictured myself as Maria Von Trapp from The Sound of Music. I never once pictured vomit or snot. I never pictured a red-faced child ready to scream, kick, and bite because there were no more crackers. I never pictured myself 8 months pregnant trying to catch a naked, giggling toddler who was intent on never wearing clothes again. Reality was not exactly a shock. Part of me was expecting reality to be different. But reality was far more mundane and real I could have imagined before I was a parent.

After years of viewing parenting from the other side of the fence, I now understand why so many parents stop doing cartwheels. Yes there is the sheer physical factor of aging joints and probable weight gain, but there is more than that. Parents have learned the vitally important skill of energy conservation. Children and teens will run full-tilt until they physically collapse. I can’t afford to do that. If I use up my energy and cheerfulness doing cartwheels on the back lawn, then there will be none left to make sure that bedtime runs smoothly. If I sit and give my full attention to every stream of childhood babble, dinner would never get cooked. I’m not always a “cool” parent in the way I’d envisioned as a teen because I can’t be and still be doing my job.

That said, some parents take it too far. They spend all of their time and energy on being responsible, making sure bedtimes happen, making sure money is earned, making sure homework is done, making sure groceries are bought, and meals are cooked, and chores are done. These parents are over-worked, over-stressed, and over-whelmed. They’ve forgotten how important it is to take time to play. I’ve been such a parent all too often lately. I know I have because when my kids see me dancing to music in the kitchen, they are surprised. It shows in other things too, small comments that the kids drop which tell me that they consider it normal for a mother to spend hours holed up in her office asking to be left alone. Part of that is a result of all of us being home all day all summer long. Part of it is a symptom of the scrambling that Howard and I have done this last year to put out merchandise. Part of it is because of the hectic convention schedule during the past 9 months. But no matter what good excuses I have, the reality is that my kids consider mom playing to be a rare event. I need to fix that.

This next year should be slower. Howard will be at home far more and our focus will be here. Yes, we’re planning to crank out books, but with the kids in school, I can do most of my work while they’re gone. This leaves the after school hours available for me to focus on the kids and to play more often. And maybe I’ll even take up cartwheeling again.

Disciplining a child when other adults are watching is harder than when the child and I are alone. With other adults around, part of my brain is worried what they think of my disciplinary tactics. This can be particularly true when the other adult is Howard. I worry what he thinks about my management of the little person who is also his child. Howard and I do a pretty good job of agreeing on acceptable disciplinary tactics, but those tactics have to shift and change at a moment’s notice in response to what the child does. We can not possibly discuss in advance all the possible disciplinary contingencies. Inevitably one of us uses a tactic that makes the other uncomfortable. One thing we have learned, is that interfering with the other parent mid-discipline makes a big mess. We only do that if we feel that the other is way out of line, and if at all possible we pull the other away from the kids to do so.

Yesterday Howard had to discipline Gleek. Part of that discipline was sending me away from the situation because I seem to serve as an emotional control security object for Gleek. She has been on the wild side this summer and we’re trying to help her learn how to bring herself back under control. When I’m near, she lets me do all the work of bringing her under control rather than doing it herself. Walking away was hard for me. I went outside so I couldn’t hear. It was hard for Howard to have to stay there with Gleek and require her to calm herself before I could come back. While I was outside I thought about the situation and realized how far Howard and I have come as parents. I trust Howard enough to walk away and let him deal with a screaming kicking girl. I trusted him to keep his cool. I trusted him to be as kind as he could be while still requiring better behavior. I did not always have such trust in Howard’s parenting skills. When Kiki was small, I hovered. This was unfortunate. It robbed both Howard and Kiki of the chance to do all the learning, and loving, and hurting, and forgiving that make relationships strong.

Howard and I are still learning how to be parents. Every time we think we’ve got it figured out, the kids change and we have to learn something new. We have many more conferences ahead that start with “was how I handled that okay with you?” I’m very glad we’ve come to a point where we trust each other enough to step back.