It often doesn’t take a very large parenting shift to make a big difference in a family dynamic. Some recent examples:

In mid-February Link was feeling neglected and unloved at home. He saw all the things we were doing for other kids, but wasn’t recognizing things we did for him. This was in part because we weren’t doing those things in ways that made him feel loved. Howard, Link, and I sat down and had a conversation where we cleared the air on this. Afterward both Howard and I made an extra effort to give Link hugs, to tell him out loud that we love him, to listen when he talked. It was half a dozen small adjustments, but Link no longer doubts that we love him.

Patch sometimes has meltdowns when faced with homework, particularly if the quantity or difficulty is unexpected in some way. These meltdowns have been garnering him lots of attention, which he craves, even though some of the attention is negative. When the homework stress hit, he would take actions to amp-up the meltdown and stress rather than attempting to take power and manage it. To address this I made sure he was getting positive attention and love elsewhere, mostly during a sacrosanct bedtime when I snuggle and listen. Then I stopped responding to his meltdowns. I’d tell him calmly that I was happy to help if he requested it with words rather than distressed noises. I also tried to place a reward on the far side of homework, such as a piece of chocolate. Then I told him he has the power to reach for the reward. As long as he was trying, I would be happy to help. When he gave up then I’d find something else to do until he was ready to try. The process was not fun, but it gave power and responsibility to Patch. Eventually he took both and finished the work. The next homework time was drama free.

Gleek has trouble with transitions. When I need her to stop what she is doing to do something else, like go to bed, she will ignore me, say “just a sec,” or request to do one more thing first. After the additional time or one more thing, she will repeat the request. Each request seems tiny, reasonable. But it is very common to discover that she has reasonable requested her way into an extra hour. If I get in her face and insist, then she reacts as if I am the being unfair, why on earth did I get so mad? She was totally doing what I asked. Except she did not actually move to close the book or quit the game until after I got in her face. To combat this I’m going to have to be really strict for awhile. Step on was to explain to her in a conversation that this is a problem and why it is a problem. Then I picked two small areas: quitting a computer game and closing a book. When I say it is time to be done, she has one minute to comply. If she does not, then she loses that book or computer game for about half a day. I don’t like being the parent who insists my kids must do what I say Or Else, but Gleek has been taking advantage of me. She knows it and I know it. We had a whole conversation during which she admitted as much. Day one of this new plan went well. There are battles coming, I’m certain. I’m not looking forward to them. However this is a small shift we can make which will decrease my daily frustration with her. Decreasing draws on my emotional reserves is pretty important because I’ve been tapped out lately.

Bedtime for the youngest two kids has a predictable routine. First comes snack. This is when the kids are supposed to make sure that they have a last bit of food so that they don’t feel hungry in bed. Then they read in bed. Then it is lights out. Many times I have lectured that they must do all their eating at snack time, because it is very frustrating when I get to lights out and have a kid tell me “I’m hungry.” Lately Patch has been the one doing this. He’ll assure me that he is full. Twice. Then he’ll read in bed for thirty minutes only to realize, ten minutes after lights out, that he really is hungry and he’d only skipped through snack because he wanted to read his book. Some of it is a play for additional attention. Patch doesn’t outright ask for permission to get out of bed and eat, he throws sadness at me: sad eyes, big sighs, etc. He knows I have trouble sending kids to bed hungry. I finally figured out how to turn the responsibility for this over to Patch. If he needs to get up after lights out to go eat, he can choose that, but he’ll owe me an extra chore. Having kids out of bed after bedtime impacts my ability to do other things with the evening, so if he needs to get out of bed, he needs to do something to increase my ability to do other things. That extra chore will happen before school the next day and will thus cut into his free time during that hour. Instead of me being the hero that lets Patch eat, or the villain who makes him stay in bed, I become a bystander while Patch makes his own decision.

Small changes such as these seem so unimportant, particularly when faced with large crises, but I’ve found that solutions applied to small problem spots have large ripple effects. Often it is the same emotional dynamic and need that is driving the larger, more problematic behaviors. Without intending to tackle the big issues, I end up generalizing the new strategies and the kids begin generalizing their adjustments. Sometimes a small shift is all it takes to renovate an entire system.

Humans are inherently social creatures, even those of us who are happiest when we have significant quantities of time alone. Some people are checking around to make sure they fit in, others are checking to make sure that they stand out, but we’re all looking around to see where we stand in relation to others even if we’re trying to adhere to our principles rather than be swayed by popular opinion. Unfortunately this tendency does not really help us establish a true normal, because it is impossible for one person to truly check with all people everywhere. Even more so because there are regional, cultural, and familial variations on what is normal.

This is one of the reasons I have trouble figuring out whether my emotional responses to the stresses of the past month are over reactions or if what I’ve experienced is actually hard. I scroll through facebook and see friends whose kids are battling cancer, traumatic brain injuries, and severe mental illness. Compared to them, my lot is easy. On the other hand I also see friends whose biggest problem is the inability to find a close parking space at the mall. My concerns are weightier than that. So am I justified, or making a fuss over nothing? I can’t make a definitive decision. Instead I have to accept that whether or not my emotions are merited, they exist. I must work through them, which I have for the most part. It is a relief to be coming out the other side where I can look back and figure out what was going on. I can think again. Of course next week will bring new challenges (thus justifying my reactions) or it won’t (thus lending credence to the belief that I was making a mountain out of a molehill.) Either way I’ll deal with it.

One of the fascinating things about this experience with parental grief and guilt has been watching the power of denial. Over and over again I’ve watched as my mind reclassified events or suppressed them in support of the “I’m making this all up” theory. Then I’ll look back at journal entries or be reminded by a friend about the particulars of a conflict. Then I remember how hard it was. In order to avoid painful emotions, my brain wanted to suppress information. I know that repression and denial are important survival strategies. There were some days where they were my bestest friends because they let me keep functioning. But it made sorting things out difficult because facts and emotions were all tangled up together. I needed to keep the facts in front of me and I so very much wanted to bury, deny, repress, avoid all the emotions.

The facts are, Gleek’s anxiety is strong enough that it is disrupting her education and creating challenges for the school. Most of the concerns that the school and I have for her are because the trend line of this anxiety could lead to some very dark places for her. But that is not going to happen because we’re going to use therapy and parenting shifts to re-direct that trend line. Gleek is a cooperative partner in this process. All indicators point toward things being fine again within a couple of months, a which point Gleek will be a stronger person with a well stocked tool box. Stripped of all the emotion, these facts are promising, good news even. After all, she could have had her anxiety crisis after she’d entered the teenage push for independence from parents, or at college without anyone to guide her.

I’ve known all these facts since the beginning of March, yet I’ve been a mess for a month. I’ve cried because my daughter flailed away in stress rather than just sitting down and doing the work. Hypocrisy thy name is mother, or Sandra. I’ll grant that much of the emotional mess was due to simple schedule disruption, lack of sleep, and mental fatigue. There was a lot to process. However, the majority of my emotional chaos was–and is–because this particular crisis manages to hit many of my pockets of parental fear and guilt. I’m left with the contents of my emotional baggage strewn all over the house. The therapeutic solutions are going to require disconnecting some long-standing parent child feedback loops between Gleek and I. They were strategies which saved us when she was a toddler, preschooler, and grade school kid. Now they are like an outgrown pen trapping us both. We need a guide in this restructuring process, hence the therapist. The hardest part for me will be learning when to stand back, trust her good judgement, and not help. I always help more than I should, or maybe I don’t.

Which brings me back around to wondering if the way that I parent is right, good, or normal. I know many people who are both more structured and less structured than I am. I pay attention to the parents around me, watching for useful strategies to apply or for behaviors I want to avoid. I see people with happy and well adjusted families who do things very differently that I ever would. It is tempting to shut my eyes tight and find my own way, except how else can I learn this crazy mothering job except by observing others?

All the pondering aside, I have a plan of action for the next week. It starts with going upstairs and helping Gleek watch a documentary about the Berlin Wall for her history day project. Then I’ll help her plow through all her other work to give her the best chance possible to feel prepared for school on Monday. I may be over helping, which may interfere with her ability to learn how to handle stress, but for now I want to keep it below the level of crisis and this seems the best course of action. Truthfully, all the best parents are just muddling through.