Family

Children go through regular developmental stages where they are pushing limits and challenging those around them. It is a natural response to brain development. The brain growth lets them view the world in new ways. The new perspectives lead them to ask knew questions and to wonder if that limit is really a limit, or if it can be bent. As with any living system there is variation, but these challenging periods are approximately 3-6 months out of every twelve. I try to keep this in mind when one child is driving me crazy while another is a delight. In a few months they’ll probably have swapped spots.

Last Fall I had three kids hit “challenging” all at once. It was something of a perfect storm and about all I could do was batten down the hatches and hope to navigate through. We all survived. Life has settled down quite a lot for both Kiki and Link. Gleek is still struggling. In fact the level of challenge seems to be increasing rather than tapering off. Which has me laying in bed at night and worrying that maybe the last four months have actually been the calm ones. I hope not. I really hope not. Because I don’t want to have to deal with harder. I don’t want Gleek to have to deal with harder, she already feels lost, caught, and lonely.

Two months ago I decided to have Gleek write in her journal before bed. The idea was to give her a tool to sort through her tangled emotions. It was a great idea and it worked for about 3 days. After that she started writing Mad Libs in her journal and then she lost interest completely. I shrugged and let it go. I knew we could always pick it up again if necessary. I think I’m standing in the middle of necessary. Gleek needs something. I know she needs something. But I also know that whatever it is that she needs, I can’t be the one to build it for her. She needs to find her own strength that she can carry with her rather than having to flee to me as her only support.

This independence from me is something that I am working on with all of my kids. My natural reaction to problems, particularly those of loved ones, is to stretch myself to fix it. This sometimes solves the problems, but it leaves me plugging the leak with with my finger. Eventually I run out of fingers and there are still leaks to be plugged. Since last fall I’ve been focusing on helping my kids build structures for their lives where I am a useful support, but where they do their own maintenance. I’m attempting to teach them how to man their own leaks. They don’t like it much. It was much more convenient to them for me to plug the leaks. But until they stand there themselves long enough to get thoroughly tired of plugging leaks, they don’t understand why everyone is much happier if leaks are prevented rather than plugged. Long term this is better, short term it is exhausting.

This is the net with which Gleek and I managed to catch a better day yesterday. I’m glad it worked the way we hoped.

As for everything else, today is Friday. I’ll think about it later.

Yesterday was a bad day for Gleek. It was an epically bad day. It was a day which resulted in a calm down time in the principal’s office, a visit to the time out room, a phone call home, and her teacher walking out to the car to speak with me for a few minutes when I came to pick Gleek up from school. She was not naughty, but she reacted to each small problem with an overflow of emotion that the staff at the school worked hard to help her manage. Since she has been generally doing well in school, we’re all pretty certain that yesterday was a random rogue wave in her sea of emotion, rather than the front edge of a hurricane. But we’ve got folks on the watch towers just in case.

One of the hardest parts about emotional break downs in public, is going back out into public where the people who witnessed your break down can see you again. Since hiding in our house forever is not a good option, I knew that Gleek needed to go back to school today. I also knew that I needed to do everything in my power to make today go well. The only thing harder than going back after a break down is going back after two break downs.

The first thing I did was to let Gleek sleep in late while I got the other kids off to school. Then it was Howard, Gleek, and I in a quiet house. There was space for me to focus just on her and for her to feel calm. I also cooked a breakfast that was heavy on complex carbs and proteins. Endurance food. I sat with her while she ate. In part this was to ensure that she did in fact eat, but it also provided us a chance to talk. I could listen to her random thoughts and use them to form a picture of how her life has been at school lately. The answer is “not easy.” She struggles with teasing, jealousy, and frustrations. There are also things that she enjoys. I carefully stored all the information so I can sort through it later when I am deciding what long term changes may need to be made.

It became apparent to me that Gleek needed to take something with her to school. She needed a symbol, a tactile reminder of how she plans to make today different than yesterday. It could not be a toy, since the presence of a toy was part of yesterday’s upsets. We decided to fix her hair into a style rather than her usual wild tangle. Gleek selected a style in which lots of little ponytails divide and rejoin to create and attractive net over the top of her head. It is an extremely controlled hair style. She too wants today to be in calm contrast to the usual wildness.

So I begin gathering hair and dividing it into little ponytails. Gleek sits quietly and makes plans for how she is going to handle the day. She rehearses how she is going to return a carrot shaped eraser to another child. It belongs to him, but she loved it so much that it came home with her. Now she will return it and apologize. I hear her plans and I worry that the other child will not be gracious about the return. She wants to make amends, but I don’t know if he does. So I focus on the net and hope we can catch enough calmness in it to help her today.

There is a story, I can’t remember now if I read it or invented it, about a Native American weaver who whispered stories into the threads of her blankets to guide the dreams of those who slept under them. I don’t exactly whisper to the strands of hair, but each band added carries the hope that today will contain confidence and calm. That Gleek’s teacher will see when she runs fast and wild, it is really herself she is trying to escape. That people will see when Gleek shows anger she is really feeling lost, alone, or hurt. That this beautiful, amazing, strong, little person can believe in her own strength and beauty.

I know this is a lot to ask of a hair style, but it is all I can give her today. She must brave school alone. She must face the peers who saw her out of control yesterday. I can not go with her. The success does not belong to her unless I am absent.

When all is ready, I drive her to school and walk her to class. She seems happy. She is happy much of the time, but this happy seems calm rather than urgent. I think the sleeping, talking, eating, and weaving worked the necessary magic to launch her into a much better day. I stand at the door of her classroom and watch for a moment as she drops the carrot eraser on to a boy’s desk and then goes to speak with her teacher. The teacher’s eyes meet mine for a moment and I give her a fraction of a nod. I can now climb off my watch tower and rest for awhile. Someone else is on duty until school is out.

I really hope Gleek has a better day.

A duck sails smoothly across the pond, but under the water it is all a mad chaos of paddling. What we see does not always match the experience. Sometimes an aching arm indicates a larger posture problem rather than an arm problem. All of this is particularly true when dealing with psychology, particularly the psychology of children. Children are not very self-aware. The don’t spend time reasoning out their motivations. They think, they feel, they act. But a more accurate way to state it is: They think, they feel, they think, they feel, they feel, they think, and then they react upon the thoughts and emotions at the beginning of the chain. When asked why, a child can’t often tell you. They rarely know why.

Part of my job as a parent is to be a psychologist. I watch for the odd reactions and indications that the child is feeling stress. When I see the indicators, I then have to sleuth out the causes. Patch keeps getting out of bed and claiming he is hungry, but he had a good dinner. Is he worried about his make-up work? Does he need someone to listen while he talks? Is there an assignment at school he dreads? While I’m at it, I should also figure out why he’s been deliberately provoking Gleek. Is he jealous of her? Did she ignore his game suggestion? Is he mad at a friend and taking it out on his sister because he knows she’ll love him anyway?

Often the sleuthing is straightforward. Most of the time the answers do not matter all that much. But other times, it matters a lot. Children do not break down into major tantrums because they enjoy it. When a normally resilient and happy child has a major meltdown, something else is going on. The something else may be as simple as illness or hunger, but it needs attention.

It seems like the majority of this year has been about Kiki and Link with a side order of Gleek. This week Gleek and Patch have claimed center stage. I suspect the stress of having me busy with LTUE helped trigger the various meltdowns, but the causes were in place before that. I’m still sorting it out. I’m still sleuthing to find the motivations.

I am also still wearing my talent wrangler hat and as a result I’ve taken over some more business manager stuff.

Bottom line: Today was tiring. I’m hoping I’ve slogged through most of it so that tomorrow can be more restful.