Win-Win

An inspiring story from a father looking for a win-win outcome and noticing what he can do in addition to what he can invite from his child. I love the creativity that emerged! This originally appeared at Mindful Parenting.

A little preparation before bedtime confrontation

M was not interested in bed this evening. At 8:30 she was screaming for her brother to be returned from a sleep over. I let her call our neighbors house to get that out of her system. Naturally her brother refused to come home.

While she spoke to him I gathered myself and prepared for a difficult bedtime. I had no goals, and nowhere to go and nothing to do. All that mattered was that I was compassionate to my daughter and had a win-win outcome for bedtime.

She crumpled down on the floor and dug in her heels:
"I am not going to bed no matter what you say."
"M, you are going to bed. You can go walking or I can carry you. I can carry you like a baby or I can carry you by your heels."
"You mean I can walk on my hands all the way to bed?"
"If you can make it. It would be a new family record, I said."
We laughed our way all the way to bed and read a book and M drifted off to sleep, happy as a clam.
Win-Win.


photo by 10secondburn

Next Blog Tour Guest, Kim Hix

The next WOW! Women on Writing author that will visit Educating for Wholeness is Kim Hix promoting her book, No One is Perfect and YOU Are a Great Kid, winner of Best Children's Book for ages 6 and under, Reader Views Award for 2007 Annual Literary Awards. She will write an entry on February 17th. For now I'll tease you with a bit about Kim and her book.

No One is Perfect and YOU are a Great Kid is a lovely book written about Zack, a young boy who struggles daily with ever changing moods. He tries to understand why he gets very sad, upset, discouraged and angry in response to what most would consider insignificant events. Zack often feels different, left out, and isolated due to his moods. He poses thought provoking questions to his audience that can spur some meaningful conversation.

This book will touch your heart and anyone who has a special child in their life who struggles with any degree of emotional, behavorial, or psychiatric disorder.

"My name is Kim Hix and I am the mother of a very special young boy who struggles with emotional difficulties. He has experienced an array of moods from an early age, which include rages, depression, anxiety, and drastic mood shifts. In our journey to find help, we've encountered many specialists and interesting people. During this time, my son dealt with feeling different from his peers, isolated, and at times, rejected. My son would express to me that he felt no one understood him and that he was the only kid in the world with these problems. What started out as a project to help my son, cultivated a desire to let other kids and parents know that they are NOT alone. In fact, millions of children are suffering with mental illness, neuropsychiatric disorders, and behavior disorders. They long to be accepted, to be normal, and just fit in. They suffer, and we, the parents, suffer all the while our hearts are breaking.

"This is why I wrote a book for Zack and kids like him, who struggle with feelings of being different. It is my hope that this story will offer some measure of comfort and belonging to the children who read it."

An Invisible String That Will Stretch and Not Break

photo by D.Hyuk

An amazing story about the bond between a mother and a daughter. I think it's a beautiful analogy that any family could play with.

Meredith has an ongoing story about an "invisible string" attaching her to her mother. This story began in a literal manner, when she at age two would wrap one end of a string around her mother and then wrap the other end around her own wrist and say that they were "connected forever." The string has morphed into an invisible string, that will "stretch and not break" when necessary, such as when she is at preschool. We have come to think of this string as an indication of her internal emotional state and a metaphor for managing separation.

For example, after a long and challenging day recently, she said that the string was very short and would break if her mother left her side. Her baby sister started crying, however, so then she added that her magic wand had turned the string into a "long golden thread that would stretch and not break" while her mother tended to the baby. "But," she warned, "when Rosie stops crying, it will turn back into a very short string that can break easily." She mentions the string every month or two, and we have come to appreciate her use of creativity and abstraction in expressing her psychological state.

~Seattle Mom

'And' Instead of 'But'

In a recent parenting group we had a conversation around the use of the word ‘and’ as opposed to the word ‘but' in certain situations. For example, “You really want my attention right now. And, I am already in a conversation. You can hold my hand and wait quietly until I am finished.” Or “I can see that you don’t like my decision. And right now it is time to get ready to leave. Do you want to put your shoes on here or in the car?”

After the group I was thinking that by using the word ‘and’, we are acknowledging the reality that there are 2 experiences being had. The child is having their experience and the adult is having their experience. Using the word ‘and’ allows us to say that we acknowledge and accept both realities. And… as the adult… we might have to set a limit or be in charge of the direction that is happening next. We are doing this, however, by accepting the reality that the child is feeling something different. If we use the word ‘but’ then we are saying, “I know you feel that way. But this is the real truth.” “You really want my attention right now. But I am already in a conversation. You can wait.” You want my attention, but that isn’t important. All that is important is that I am already talking and you can wait.

This subtle nuance is a way to practice kindness and firmness at the same time. We can be firm by stating and sticking to a limit. We can be kind in our tone of voice, a non-judgmental attitude, and by acknowledging the child’s reality and saying ‘Yes’ to what they’re feeling or experiencing even if we have to say ‘No’ to a behavior.

I'd love to hear other thoughts about this topic.

Age Appropriate Skills for Children

Here's a little article that I wrote for my school's Alumi Newsletter.

Did you know that your five year old is capable of taking out the garbage or sweeping the floor, your seven year old can help change the sheets on the bed or put dishes in the dishwasher, your twelve year old can cook meals for the family or do his own laundry, and your teenager can purchase her own clothes with a budgeted clothing allowance or do heavier yard work.

Many children are denied the opportunity to contribute to their families and communities in such valuable ways. They aren’t given a chance to learn essential skills for caring for themselves and others. Well-intentioned adults do things for children that they are capable of doing for themselves. As a result, the children learn to under-function, displaying trained helplessness and learned incompetence.

In a parenting group we explored age appropriate skills that kids are capable of doing for themselves. Many parents felt the a-ha that their child was capable of taking on some new responsibilities at home. Addressing this change with their child also gave them an opportunity to apologize to their child and admit that they had made a mistake. Children love to hear when adults make mistakes. In addition, modeling making mistakes is a powerful way to help address a child’s perfectionistic tendencies.

Below is one parent’s account of how she surprised her son with an apology and gave him an opportunity to feel empowered and begin taking control of one aspect of his life.

“I had still been picking out clothes for my 8-year-old son every morning. I had tried over the last few years to get him to pick his own clothes (“just pick something – what’s the big deal – it’s just a shirt and pants – your little sister has been picking her own clothes since she was 3…”) but he always acted like it was an overwhelming task and he had no idea what to pick. It made the morning go more smoothly if I just pulled out the clothes for him. After a few parenting classes, I told him that I had learned how much kids can do at different ages. Then I told him that I owed him an apology. He straightened up, taken aback, looking very happily interested in this unusual conversation. I told him that I knew that he was capable of picking out his own clothes and had been for many years, but that I had not been giving him the chance to do this for himself, and that this wasn’t fair to him. He looked honored. The first day after this little talk, I came by and asked him if he had an idea of what he might pick to wear that day. He told me what he was thinking and I said that it sounded like a good choice. Since then, he’s just shown up at breakfast, dressed, without any fuss.”

Turning the Television Off

Personal account from a parent (not me)

We had the typical struggles with our 8 year old son; do your home work, do your chores, practice piano, do some reading. It seemed there were not enough hours in the day. Then we realized that by having the TV on, it was all too easy to watch “just another 15 minutes” which turned into just another half hour and another struggle to brush teeth, get ready for bed and still have time for bedtime reading. So my husband and I made a conscious decision to turn off the TV. There would be no TV during the week on school nights, Friday night was reserved for “family movie night” to watch a movie that we would all enjoy and Saturday morning was our son’s time for cartoons.

Our son moaned about our decision but after only three days he came to me and said that we should have done this a long time ago because now we have more time to spend together. We now have a routine that my son really likes and extra free time to play together which we never seemed to have had before. Everyone is happie

Giving Information Rather Than Nagging

Personal account from a parent (not me!)

A couple weeks ago we were playing outside after school. I was talking with other Moms and my child rode by on a scooter—he’d taken his socks off and was having fun telling us, “I don’t have my socks on!” as he zoomed back and forth.

It was freezing and I called to him a few times to “Put your socks on!” He didn’t. Then, having just read How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk the evening before, I tried, a few minutes later, walking over to him when he was by himself quietly playing in the wood chips. Looking in his eyes I said simply “It’s cold and you don’t have your shoes on.” He didn’t say anything but immediately walked over and put his shoes on. It was amazing!