Simple Changes, Big Results

I've written recently about the tribulations of age 3. I didn't content myself with complaining though, seeing as that helps no one! So I hit up some of my favorite parenting websites, revisited some of my old favorites in terms of books and articles, and came up with a few small adjustments that we've been working on in the Meegs household. We've seen some pretty big results.

The first step for me what identifying what times/issues were giving us the most stress, and breaking it down from there.

The first for us is transitions. Honestly, I didn't even identify this one until I was reading about developmentally appropriate behaviors for this age, but as soon as I saw this one it clicked. Developmentally they are learning about control; control of their bodies, control of their actions, control of their life. Big or small, they want control... so when you say we're done doing x to do y instead, well, it can be very frustrating for all. This however, turned out to be one of the simplest changes to implement, with some of the best and fastest results. We've started giving advanced notice of "mandatory" transitions, letting her know from the start if she only has a few minutes and letting her know what is coming next, warning her at the 1 minute mark, then counting down the last ten seconds. This gives her ample opportunity to adjustment to the idea of moving on, and lets her feel informed instead of forced. And if the transition isn't mandatory (ie. I'm going to do something upstairs, but she's welcome to keep playing downstairs) then I leave the choice up to her.

Such a simple change, its no hardship for me to give her warning, but our end of activity screaming tantrums have all but ended.

The second thing for us, which has been a little bit harder to implement, is addressing the mornings and our expectations for each other. Gwen's sleep has always been varied in the morning, but especially since the DST adjustment she might wake up anywhere between 5:50 and 7am. Obviously this changes whether we have time for some Sesame Street in the morning, or even whether she eats breakfast at home or in the car. Most of the time its her wake up is around 6:30, but even when she wakes up exactly then she'll change her mind daily about who she wants to get her ready, or even whether she wants to get ready or not. Then when she finally is ready, she doesn't understand why she doesn't have time to play before leaving.

The adjustments here have been multifaceted: talks with Gwen about our expectations of her and her level of cooperation, but also adjusting our reactions when she doesn't cooperate as we had hoped. First, we starting having simple, short discussions with Gwen during non-charged moments, about how mornings are easier if everyone helps and cooperates. We told her that when she cooperates and lets Daddy get her dressed, that we have time to watch some Elmo or play before leaving. Then we adjusted our reactions... getting rid of the raised voices (which we all hate), and instead talking calmly about the natural consequences of her choices and actions. ie. Gwen you may chose whether you want Daddy to help you get ready or wait for Mommy to get out of the shower, but if you wait then there will be no time for playing after you are ready, it will be time to leave right away. This one has taken some more time and effort for all of us, but we are seeing results here as well.

With this second item, for me the results are two-fold: not only are we having more pleasant interactions, but we are recommitting to this AP lifestyle we've chosen, recommitting to how we want to parent our daughter, not just as a helpless baby, but as a preschooler and beyond. We are seeing how things like natural consequences, and age appropriate expectations and conversations, can work towards a more harmonious household where we all feel respected.

Do we still have our unhappy, irritated and angry moments? Of course! I'm no expert on parenting; maybe there is no such thing. But this has worked to make our house a lot more peaceful, and I wanted to share.

Now if anyone has a suggestion for "the witching hour" at the end of the day (right around dinner time), when she's tired and cranky, and everything is a big deal... I'm happy for you to share what's worked for you too!

A Person's a Person, No Matter How Small

“There is no justification in human nature for treating children, from birth, with any less respect or equality than that accorded to older people. Children are people, fully and without qualification.” –Daniel Greenburg, author

I remember one of the first times I realized that my son was more than just an extension of myself. He had started pre-K and his teacher described to me an incident where he was holding on to a little boy’s arm and wouldn’t let go, despite the other child’s tearful protests.

I was a helicopter parent for much of my son’s first few years (sorry, kiddo!) so I knew that I certainly didn’t teach him to grab other kids. I was both amazed and somewhat embarrassed that my child clearly had a mind of his own and did what he wanted, completely separate from me and beyond my control. It took time and lots of practice to not become irate every time I got a report from a teacher that deviated from what I thought I had drilled into my child’s head and what I assumed he would do—because, after all, I told him to do it!

Now that he’s older, the things that come out of my son’s mouth are sometimes brilliant, other times side-splitting funny, and occasionally, because he is a human being, and a small one at that, can be inappropriate, and even hurtful. As stunning and jarring as that can be, I’ve come to terms with it. He lives in his own world and I feel lucky to be able to be a part of it, alternately conversing with him, laughing with him, and correcting him. My husband and I are enjoying my daughter’s emerging commentary and sense of humor immensely, and know that she’s well on her way to letting us in on her own world as well.

If there is one aspect of my parenting that I can say has most definitely evolved, it’s realizing that children are their own people. From the time they were very small, my children have had their own feelings and thoughts, and as they’ve gotten older, those have turned into very real ideas, opinions, and even values—and there is a good chance that many of them are, or will be, different from my own. Even though my kids are only seven and three, they have made their likes and dislikes very clear. Their interests vary and they have mood swings and many different emotions, just as adults do. Even my newborn is able to communicate her likes and dislikes quite clearly.

Well, duh, you may be saying. Obviously children are their own people. Obviously their needs have to be met and respected, just as any adult’s needs would. But you know what I’ve noticed lately? The rest of society doesn’t seem to agree. From families being kicked out of airplanes, to kids being banned from restaurants, to shaming of breastfeeding mothers, to stores and eateries having “no stroller” policies—I’m starting to get the feeling that many people are anti-kid.

First of all, I’d like to say that obviously, not every moment spent with our kids, or around other people’s kids, is a joy. They cry, they scream, they poop, they puke—and often at the worst times. I know what it’s like to be in front of a toddler kicking my seat at the movies, I understand wanting to eat a meal without a screaming child next to you, and I definitely would not choose to be seated in an airplane with an unhappy child for an extended period of time.

My problem is the fact that children are discriminated against. They are treated like second-class citizens, and people seem to be completely comfortable with that. For example, which of the following criteria would make it okay to ban a human being from a restaurant? Could it be someone’s race, religion, gender, weight, sexual orientation?

None of those would be acceptable. Yet children are increasingly being treated this way, simply because they are small and helpless. And often the parents are blamed, for not being able to “control” their children. Oh, how I despise that word! Parenting is not about control. It is about teaching and guidance. Any time I try to control my children, I regret it, and I fail miserably.

It’s especially difficult when the only reason I am trying to exert control over my kids is because I fear someone else’s judgment. I resent society’s judgment of my children and how I parent them because in the past, it’s caused me to react more strongly and more angrily than I would have if I didn’t feel like all eyes were on me—whether it be at the checkout line, or at an eatery, or at a coffee shop. I have to make a concerted effort to ignore those people and stay calm, because ultimately, this is about myself and my children, and the relationship and communication I’m trying to establish and nurture with them. Worse yet, my children always pick up on my anxiety and it causes them grief, as well.

What amuses me (and alternately puzzles me) is people’s seeming intolerance for children while simultaneously, adults are allowed to behave in ways that I find rude and unacceptable. No one seems to bat an eye when adults engage in excessively loud conversations, both in person and on cell phones, while sitting at a casual restaurant. Or when the constant chime of texting or game playing or whatever makes it difficult for me to hear what my eating companion is saying. Yet, my three year old daughter makes one loud (and happy!) exclamation, and a dozen heads snap back to look at us as if we are disturbing everyone’s peace. I have to be subjected to strangers’ musical tastes on their ridiculously loud headphones while sitting on the train, yet my fidgety son is looked upon with disdain, as if he is dirtying the environment simply by being there. I’ve seen people clip their nails—clip their nails—on the subway, yet I still get various dirty looks when I get on the train with my active kids or nurse my baby in public.

We were at a restaurant recently where I confronted someone who was very anti-child. Let me be clear—it was Friday, at 6 p.m., at a family restaurant that we frequent, with a kids’ menu, and my kids were perfectly well-behaved. This patron and his friends not only chose to sit at the table right next to ours instead of choosing one of the dozen or so other empty tables in the place, the man then proceeded to make a comment about not wanting to sit by my daughter because children make “weird noises in restaurants.” As if that wasn’t bad enough, later in their meal, the two other people he was with used our family as an example to discuss what their parents did with them as kids when they went to restaurants. They were inches away from us. Not only was this conversation audible to myself and my husband, but my children, as well.

If we had a child that was disabled, or one of us had some other type of unusual physical trait or ailment, would it have been acceptable for those patrons to discuss that, even if it wasn’t directed at our family? Would it have been acceptable for them to have a discussion based on our race, weight, hair color, what we were eating?

No. No, it would not have been acceptable. Yet these folks decided it was fine for them to discuss children, loudly enough so that those children could hear them, because, well, children don’t matter.

I don’t think so.

I kept my calm and confronted the rude patrons, made sure my children heard me, and then explained to my son on the way home why what that man and his friends did was unacceptable.

I wonder if people forget that they were once kids, too. If we expect kids to learn proper public behavior and become successful adults, then we have to allow some margin for error. There is no magical age that children come to when they suddenly sit up, sit still, and stop playing with their food. There’s no certificate that comes with turning 18 that says, “Congratulations! You’re now a contributing member of society!”

Sure, kids go through phases, and as parents, we are responsible for recognizing what situations have the potential to be disastrous and avoid them—but for ourselves and our children first and foremost! When my daughter is throwing a tantrum, I’m not concerned with the comfort level of the person behind me. I’m stressed out and concerned about my child, why she’s screaming, and trying to find a way to get through it. When my son drops his fork repeatedly while eating, my first thought is not about how disturbed the person next to him is. I’m thinking that we’ve run out of clean forks and he’s starving and where is that darn waiter? I lament about the fact that my meal is stone cold because I have spent the last 10 minutes rescuing my son’s utensils. When my newborn is crying, I’m not going to worry about offending the person next to me if I flash a nipple as I nurse her.

And we’re going to make mistakes. Sometimes we’ll go to a place that’s not entirely appropriate for families, and maybe our kids will be overtired and cranky and maybe they will act out as a result. We may get on a plane after waiting three hours for a delayed flight, where we’ve run out of snacks and activities and one of our kids may need to fuss for 15 minutes until she falls asleep. Sometimes, my child may have a coughing fit while sitting next to you, and you may be inconvenienced or even grossed out. Society has to allow for those types of situations.

We talk so much about tolerance and acceptance, but when it comes down to it, we don’t practice what we preach. Children are human beings—little, un-evolved, clean slates. I take joy in showing my children the world and teaching them about all it has to offer. I don’t want them to be looked down upon, disrespected, or undervalued simply because they are little.

“Because, after all,

 A person’s a person, no matter how small.” –Dr. Seuss

The Frustrated Mom

A year ago this April, Lashanda Armstrong loaded her four children into her minivan and drove into the Hudson River. Her oldest son, aged 10, was the only survivor after he rolled down his window and swam to the boat ramp in 45 degree water. Her other children, ages, 5, 2, and 11 months all died.

By all accounts, Armstrong was a good mother doing the best she could on limited means and with limited emotional support. She was estranged from both of the fathers of her children and for all intents and purposes a single parent. She mentioned in passing to her children’s daycare provider that she was “tired and all alone.” After a fight with the father of her younger 3 children, it seems she felt even more so as that was when she piled all of her kids into the car and drove them down a boat ramp into the Hudson River. 

Armstrong’s story is tragic, and still, when the topic came up in parent discussions on playgrounds or over dinner, parents talked about it in that distancing fashion that we save only for the most uncomfortable of topics. By the distancing fashion, I mean, the “I can’t imagine doing such a thing” or “Who could do such a thing?” or “It’s unnatural. It’s irrational – the urge to kill yourself and your children.” (as if we were unclear or thought that suicide and infanticide were well reasoned, thought out and rational courses of action). It’s the judgmental distancing thing we do when we’d like to think that the kinds of people who do these kinds of things are a completely different species of human being than ourselves.

I saw this again this last week, when a Chicago mom, Michelle Feliciano, 23, was arrested on child endangerment charges after her 11 month old baby was found with multiple injuries including bleeding on the brain, a broken clavicle, marks on the neck, and puncture wounds on his feet from toothpicks. Feliciano explained the injuries; she said they happened in a “bout of frustration.”  Her oldest child, between the ages of three and four, is now staying with a relative, while her baby is in stable condition in the hospital.

The comments on Feliciano’s debut into the papers sound like the things I remember reading about in the history of the Salem Witch trials or a Dickens novel. Feliciano is an immoral monster who should be hung in the town square. She should be sterilized without her consent or anesthetic. Her crimes inspire even the most collected and enlightened of onlookers to think of the most barbaric and medieval of punishments.

Yet, Feliciano’s case, while profoundly disturbing, I think deserves some degree of compassion. She is another young mom trying to raise children on limited means. There is no mention of a father being present. While Feliciano had family close by and it was a family member who noticed that something was wrong when the 11-month old baby couldn’t hold his head up, Feliciano obviously didn’t feel like she could call them for help when she found herself frustrated.  In the moment, dealing with two children all by herself seemed so overwhelming, that somehow hurting one of them seemed to make sense.

Child abuse is inexcusable, period.  But to assume that Armstrong or Feliciano are unlike other people is a mistake. Rather, they reveal the shortcomings of all of us.

Parenting, as one of my friends says, is unrelenting. Consequently, it can bring out anger and frustration that most of us didn’t know we had. Despite being raised in an angry household where my parents often yelled (generally at each other), I didn’t consider myself an angry person. I didn’t usually yell or throw things or kick things or throw tantrums like people who were angry people did. Even when I had a child I didn’t do these things.  When I had my first child, if anything, my patience, compassion, and tolerance increased. But something happened after the birth of my second. Since the birth of my daughter, and the increasing independence of my son who is 3-going-on-15, I have found myself profoundly and ridiculously angry. By sheer coincidence, I have also found myself profoundly and ridiculously tired.

And, I beat myself up all the more because my children are happy, easy to be around, healthy little people. Unlike Feliciano and Armstrong, I am educated and not young (and not there’s anything wrong with young parents, though studies show child abuse drops as people have children later in life, but to be clear, to have more than one child by 25 – the age when our own brain just finishes its development – is young) and I am not trying to raise my children on limited means. My children’s father is an active partner and parent; we have a solid marriage with pretty great communication skills. We fight and yell, but we also love and laugh and keep talking. My sister lives around the corner with her awesome soon-to-be husband. When my husband works late, I can crash – with my two kids in tow - dinner at their house. Yesterday, I came home to find my almost brother-in-law in the backyard working on our chicken coop and watching my son play; my husband had to run out for a work call.  I also have help; we can afford a housecleaner and I have a nanny part-time, so while I get up insanely early to get work done, I also have a few hours in the afternoon when she comes. I have her help for whatever I need: she can hold the baby, while I hold my son during his allergy tests at the doctor’s office or his teeth cleaning at the dentist. 

For all intents and purposes, my parenting experience is at the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Feliciano and Armstrong. Nonetheless, I have had days since the birth of my daughter, where I felt emotionally and physically exhausted, drained, isolated, angry and even violently so. I have had moments where I have imagined doing terrible things to my children and myself and horrified myself. I have had moments where I didn’t know I was going to make it through the end of the day. I have moments where when someone said, “it only gets worse” I have thought, “well, then, I am not going to make it.” I have had moments where walking into traffic seemed like a reasonable course of action.  I have thought there was something terribly wrong with me.  I have felt hopeless; because my own parents were so angry, I have spent years working on my personal development, so I didn’t follow in their marriage and child-rearing footsteps. And as a result, I do live a very different life than my parents did when they were my age.

Then one day, my son asked for sliced cheese and when I gave it to him, he cried that he didn’t want it and without even thinking, I became my mother in 1976 and picked up the cheese and threw it across the room and into the trash and said, “well, then don’t eat it.” Horrified by the instantaneous transformation, I instantly picked him up, apologized and we cried together about how I scared both of us.

When I tentatively brought up the topic of my own parenting anger in a group of friends and my favorite fellow parents, I was worried I would get asked to leave. But nonetheless, I had to ask, “I know we all want to be gentle parents, or conscious parents or whatever the terms are  - I know we all want to be the parents our parents weren’t, but does anyone beside me ever just lose it?”

I wasn’t shunned. One friend said, it’s going to happen, and it’s what you do in the moments after that make the difference. I realized that this is true, that my own parents told me I had it coming, so I always felt wrong even if I wasn’t. Whereas my children and I ended our bad patches, with me apologizing, and us on the couch snuggled together and reading, that this had the effect of my outbursts passing like my kids’ outbursts. Once we expressed the emotions and accounted for them, we could move on without carrying grudges forward.

Another friend wisely said, “I think we have to be like Gandhi, where we just keep taking hits from the British.” Then she added, “But I don’t know that Gandhi was as tired as we are.”

So while I’d like to pretend I can’t fathom how people like Armstrong or Feliciano do what they did, I can; I have felt the emotions that lead to those kind of actions. And like them, and like my favorite friends, and like my wise-Gandhi-citing friend, I - and most of us - weren’t taught how to deal with frustration or anger. Many of us were actually taught that expressing anger or throwing temper tantrums was nothing more than being manipulative or trying to get away with something. But this only leads to bottling emotions up until we can no longer stand it and we explode, often taking it out on those around us.  Not many of us had parents that got down at our eye-level and said, “I get you’re angry and that’s a valid emotion. Do you want to talk about what makes you angry?...Oh? What else?” Most of us grew up in households where expressing emotions like anger was considered misbehavior.

Except that it’s not. Alfie Kohn famously writes that every act of misbehavior has at its core a valid complaint. The trick is to give kids – and ourselves – the skills to express that valid complaint in language. I know for myself that when I act out, I too have a valid complaint at the source, whether it’s that I feel unsupported or overwhelmed or that I need a break and am unable to put my children on “pause” while I take a nap. I suspect if we asked Feliciano and Armstrong if they had a valid complaint at the source of their “unthinkable” actions, we would find they did. I suspect we would find, that, in a country we consider advanced, they felt the struggles that come with not enough support.

We can imagine Feliciano and Armstrong as monsters or unnatural. Or we can consider that like many of us, they didn’t have the tools to handle the wide range of emotions that come with parenting. Like many of us, they found themselves overwhelmed with frustration.

What Are Mothers Not Saying?

A few months ago, a dear friend and her husband visited my husband, children and me in New York City. We met them for a lunch of lobster rolls on the Upper East Side. After hugs and cheek kisses, we asked how each other were. My husband said, “We’re good!” just as I said at the same time, “we’re hanging in there.” My friend laughed knowingly, of how it’s tiring with a new baby (even if we are all sleeping through the night), while the men understand that for months after giving birth, women are tired, without really knowing just how tired we are. Our husbands played chase with my son. My son instantly claims any kind man as his play gym, even if the last time he saw the man was when he was baby. My friend took the baby from me, as I threw our coats, hats and gloves over my son’s stroller.

My friend took the natural segue of our greeting and began telling me her three worst moments of motherhood. Often the worst moments, people say, are the ones that make you laugh when you look back at them. Nonetheless, my friend still had a moment – when she kicked her 8 year old out of a car on a city street and made him walk the rest of the rest way home after he called her names – when she caught herself thinking, “Crap. This just became a Social Services issue.” She then stopped the conversation and asked, “Why am I telling you this?”

I was listening rapt, as if she had been telling me about her personal encounter with aliens that landed in her yard.

“Because no one talks about these things,” I answered. I had just thrown my first temper tantrum in front of my son that week. I had just had my first experience of wondering if I had crossed into Social Services territory. I had just had my first realization that there is a whole other world of parenting that people don’t talk about. Or at least I don’t hear them talking about this underbelly of parenting - the days we think about sending ourselves to the looney bin, the days we don't want our children to crawl into our laps because we're tired of them touching us, the days our children disappoint us, but we don't say so because we think we're supposed to be accepting and free from expectations.

My friend's son walked home. And now, when someone in the car puts down his mother, he says, “We are too far from home for you to be talking like that to her.”

My son survived my temper tantrum too, and now greets my exasperated groans with, “You’re frustrated, Mom?”

This week, I was talking with my neighbor who, like me, is adjusting to life with two children. Her second child is three months old. We wondered at how some parents sail through the adjustment, while we found it so exhausting and so much work.

She then said, “I don’t enjoy motherhood as much as I thought I would.” She looked at me, “I know. I’m not supposed to say those things.”

“Why not?” I asked. “Not all of motherhood is enjoyable.”

But I know why we don’t usually say these kinds of things. When I’ve mentioned in conversations our adjustment growing pains, I’ve been advised to just take better vitamins. I’ve been on the receiving end of that stern matronly that says: “Woman! Make an effort!” I’ve been told that if I had my own interests, it’d be easier (I swear.). I’ve been asked if I had Post-Partum Depression.

No, I said, but thanks for the reminder that the thinking of the Victorian era is still with us, that if a woman finds mothering hard, she must be sick.*

I’ve also received notes from friends wondering how to stay on top of it all, or if they made a mistake in having children, or friends who love their careers, but find their children drive them crazy simply because they are worn out from work. They have it all, but if they admit their exhaustion, some one tells them to quit complaining. There’s a recession.

It’s had me think, if motherhood is so hard, why is it so taken for granted? Why is it so undervalued? Why are women feeling guilty and isolated for not loving it as much as they think they should? Social Services exists for a reason, but should we fear its existence on our bad days? And why are women such harsh judges of each other, when we do open up about the raw, ugly, and authentic moments of parenting? What are mothers not saying about mothering?

*Please don’t get me wrong: I greatly appreciate that women can talk about having Post-Partum Depression openly and we can know it strikes any one from Gwyneth Paltrow to the young woman in the Walt Whitman Projects who threw her baby down the trash chute. Being able to talk about it makes a difference for women, their partners (especially now that we know men can also suffer from Post-Partum Depression), and their children, and we’re also now dealing with a kind of backlash – that if we take too long to recover from giving birth, or have too many hard days or what have you, we must be depressed. Rough spots don’t necessarily mean illness.

10 Tips for Preventing Parental Breakdowns

To start 2012 off right in the mothering facet of life, Sarah Maizes of the Huffington Post wrote a list of 10 Tips for Being a Happy Mom in 2012. She has some good ideas, even if they seem blatantly obvious. She shouldn't be faulted for pointing out the obvious; some of us have to be told to eat. However, my personal favorite of her list is #10: Give yourself a break. But this one I felt should be a post in itself. It's important to take a break - or as Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile point out in I Was A Really Good Mom Before I Had Kids: Reinventing Modern Motherhood, you have to take time for yourself, because no one is going to give it to you.

But giving ourselves breaks is, I have discovered, the least talked about aspect of mothering. What I've realized is that when a mother says, she's going back to work after having children, what she is really saying is, "I need a break." What I've also realized is that mostly while we may want a break or some time to ourselves, in the busy ebb and flow of life, unless there's income attached to the time we take for ourselves, it falls to the bottom of the priority list. The Catch-22 of this? If we don't take a break, we break.

As Sarah Maizes points out, however, while it can be scary for children to watch a parent lose it or their mother's head spin, it is important that children learn that parents have needs and emotions too. We may be parents, but we're still human and humans have moments when they lose it. Also, as Maizes says, it's important to own up to our behavior, forgive it and get back on the horse of trying to do our best. When I recently lost it in front of my son, I was overcome with grief and remorse. My son and I sat at the kitchen table while I cried and told him how sorry I was and that I know how scary it is to watch a parent lose their temper. Even if there's no violence that occurs between parent and child, it can feel violent for a child when a parent yells. But sitting together and apologizing can do a lot to mend the situation. Knowing that you feel remorse for your behavior can be valuable for a child, in the world of being role models of behavior. Apologizing doesn't happen very often in our culture; to learn how to do it or why it matters, children have to be on the receiving end of them.

The silver lining of this cloud I discovered? When my son throws his occasional tantrum, he now apologizes. I have mixed feelings about him thinking he has to be sorry for feeling emotions like anger, but the truth is when we feel anger or extreme frustration, it does impact those around us. The other silver lining is that me hitting my breaking point has given us a way to talk about how to express the more difficult emotions. My son and I practice screaming into pillows or walking beneath an overpass where we can scream as loud as we want and no one can hear us or we take walks where we stomp our feet for blocks at a time.

Still, we'd like to prevent parents hitting their breaking point, if only for the sake of the parenting experience. Also, bad childhoods or children growing up in unstable environments happens far too often. We all want to enjoy our children and our parenting experience. So I have my own things I would add to Sarah Maizes' list.

1. Yes, naps are necessary. My three year old is mostly done with napping. I don't understand how this happened given that I still need naps, but he's seems to have moved on. Alas, I have been guilty on days where I can barely keep my eyes open of putting a movie on the computer, getting him set up on the bed, just so that I can nap for an hour with my infant. It literally saves my sanity. Just as my husband says, happy wife, happy life, I say a rested parent is a happy parent.

2. To nurture other people, you have to nurture yourself first. If there's anyway you can muster the strength to get up before the rest of the family to have that first cup of coffee while it's quiet and you can hear yourself think, do it. Even if it's just 20 minutes of quiet. It helps. It makes the day go smoother. I do love the extra sleep when I do sleep in with my family, but when I wake up at the same time, I spend the rest of the day trying to meet my needs at the same time as my children and it is far from easy going.

3. It's okay to want time away from your children. I know they are beautiful and brilliant people. I know they make better conversation than most people working in corporate America. I know they make more sense than most the politicians in office. Still, you need time away from them. And time away helps you appreciate them all the more. Even if you're a full time stay at home parent, a few hours of a nanny or daycare is worth the money. It's breakdown prevention. It's hard work being on call 24 hours a day.

4. Get out of the house. Especially, if your patience is running thin. If your patience is running thin, chances are your child's is too. It's a funny thing how moods are contagious. Getting out of the house disrupts difficult dynamics. Fresh air also feels good. In the New York City winter, 30 degrees is warm enough for the playground, so get thee outside!

5. If you're having a hard day, call someone. Conversation can be a mood lifter, whereas not talking when the going gets rough can be a downward spiral towards Depressionville. The caveat to this is just don't call anyone. There are people in your life who will take advantage of you while you're down or up against it. There are people, whom if you call, will say things like, "Of course you're having a hard time. You're so disorganized. If you had cleaned your room as a child, you would have learned the organizational habits that would have made your life easier now." Don't call them. Call your friend who is a stand-up comic. Call the aunt who has been through it all and maintained her love of you, her children and her ability to laugh.

6. Get help and know it's okay to get help. Blah blah blah it takes a village to raise a child blah blah. It takes a village to support a mother/single parent/at home parent. A few hours of day care here or nanny there, a house cleaner, drop off playgroup, having the groceries delivered, a mom's group, or a therapist. Whatever. Whether you stay home or go back to work, you need help. It's a quality of life issue. If you think you can't afford it, think again. You'd be surprised. There are families who get together on weekends, cook a bunch of dinners together, then swap leftovers containers. Baby sitting co-ops trade time. Many moms groups have sliding scales.

7. Play with your child, but play the things you like. I’m a lousy playground mom. While I like making train tracks, I don’t enjoy playing trains. When I don’t like the toys, I don’t like playing with my son. Luckily for me, he loves dollhouses. I love blocks, and he loves to knock them over. This week at the Met gift shop, he asked for a knight and horse. I bought them because I wanted them. We played happily afterward, building block houses for the horse and knight. The horse and knight chased the cars and trains off their tracks. It was great fun, and a huge tension release.

8. Read. Yes, to your child. But really for yourself and the fun things you like. I’ve spent most of the last four years reading parenting, child development, and education books, with the occasional miscellaneous non-fiction book thrown in, just so I could feel informed. This past holiday season, I started reading Dickens’ David Copperfield and almost instantly felt as nurtured as if I had had a massage. I had forgotten how delightful it is to read fiction. The soul needs stories. It’s true. I read it in a book on Waldorf education.

9. A woman recently told me that children are born into our world, that they have to learn that the world doesn’t quite revolve around them. This is true to some extent, but I think there’s a balance. It’s good for children to learn that their parents have needs, and getting our needs met doesn’t have to come at the expense of our children’s either. For example, my son needs to run around, while I won’t run even if I’m being chased. But my favorite place on the planet is Central Park. I found a group of other parents that take their children to the park for long, lengthy walks. The kids run, climb rocks, collect sticks and leaves, play in the sand pit, and climb up the Alice in Wonderland statue, while I get to talk to other parents and revel in my favorite park. Afterward, we stroll through the Met or Natural History Museum. One day a week where we get Central Park and a museum? My son and I come home worn out and happy.

10. On the roughest days, know you are not alone. My kids are easy going and happy children. Still, our family’s adjustment to having two children has felt like running a marathon in a blinding snow blizzard. Some people breeze through it; in fact, it seems most do. But I felt instant relief when I finally learned that other people found it just as hard. I don’t know why it helps, but knowing I’m not the only one does help.

There. Sarah Maizes has ten things for making a happy mom, and I have ten. Twenty things to hopefully help support parents and prevent breaking points. I hope it helps.

Letting Him Cry

"You need to let him cry sometimes."

I can't tell you how many times I was told that when my son was a tiny baby. What I found most irritating about the comment was the assumption that, somehow, I had found a way to have a baby who didn't cry or that if I didn't let him cry enough, he was somehow going to forget how to cry. The truth was that he cried all the time. I just held him while he cried or once I figured out what he was communicating, I would do what he needed me to do and he would stop crying. Just because he didn't cry much during that person's visit, didn't mean that I was somehow magically stopping my child from crying all of the time. (In fact, before we figured out exactly how much I needed to eliminate from my diet for my son's reflux, we went weeks where the nightly routine involved my husband holding my son for one or two hour increments in which he cried the whole time just so I could lie down for an hour or two.) I always viewed his crying as his way of communicating with me and whether I "let" him cry or not, the tears always came because he always needed to communicate. He would just stop crying when it was clear that his message had been communicated.

However, there are times when I was and am "okay" with my son's tears. There were times when, as bad as I feel about how upset he is, I knew that his discomfort is necessary and only temporary and I communicate that to him by "letting him cry." For example, he always cried when I changed his diaper for the first three months, when I bathed him for about the first six months, when I showered, when he was in his car seat, (a few desperate times) when I put him down because I needed to get some emotional space away from his tears, and, recently, he has been crying when I brush his teeth, occasionally when its bath time, and, on rare occasions, when he wants treats instead of his regular food at mealtimes. What has made those times more acceptable to me is that even though I feel bad for his discomfort, I am not ignoring what he is communicating or irnoring the discomfort he feels. Instead, I am communicating to him that there are some things (like safety, hygiene, or nutrition) are more important than temporary discomfort. I really have no guilt about "letting" him cry when I feel I need to communicate those kinds of messages to him. I also don't leave him alone to cry during those times and I don't do things to intentionally push him. I don't force him to bathe every day just to "make him get over it," when he is having a tough time giving up the control needed to let me bathe him, I only do it two or three times during the week. I didn't take extra long showers while he cried in the other room "to show him who was boss" (as was suggested by some people I knew), I took a quick shower, usually with him in the bathroom with me while I talked him through it. If "letting him cry" tore me up inside or made me feel guilty or awful, I always knew that I should be doing what it is I needed to do to ease his tears. My own guilt is my litmus test about when it was important for him to cry.

The strongest message I can send him about what is important is to show how responsive I can be to his cries when there is something he is communicating that I can and should do something about it. If he is hurt, I respond to his cries (even if he isn't very hurt and mainly needs my attention because I've let myself be too distracted with other things like cleaning the house or talking to other people). If it is something I can feel good compromising about, then I feel fine compromising. (For example, when he wants mango at lunch instead of oranges.) By showing him that I will be there with him and will listen to him even when he is communicating discomfort and displeasure, I hope that I setting the stage for him to continue to communicate with me when he does use words as his primary form of communication. Sometimes, I do think its okay to cry, but only when there is a genuine, good reason why the cry is necessary. I think that is a very important lesson. How could I communicate THAT to him, if I didn't first respond to his first forms of communication?

Thanks for reading,
Shawna

Nothing To Cry About

The week my husband was out of town my almost three year old son and my new born daughter and I weathered a hurricane-turned-tropical-storm, having the drunk who lives on our block harass us one dark night by banging on and yelling through our living room windows, and an out of the blue request for a brief TV appearance. All this, I took in as if it was par for the course, just the normal run of things when my husband left town – never mind that I was still a wee bit tired and recovering from giving birth to the daughter who still fits in the sling I wear her in. But it’s the morning when my son wakes up before he’s ready to at 6:45 am that made me think I was going to lose my mind, that made me question myself and think I was a terrible mother, and that made me put myself in time out so I could think through and figure out the appropriate course of action.

When my son wakes up after a good night’s sleep, he’s cheerful, independent, and playful. He thinks everything is exciting and a game. When my son has woken up before he should have, for reasons unbeknownst to all of us, he’s indecisive, impish and well, there’s just lots of crying, simply because he’s tired.

Like many mothers, I want to give my child everything his heart desires, and if he can’t have it or if I can’t give it to him, well, I want him to at least feel like he can ask, and I do explain when he can’t have something. And I do often say when he’s in such foul moods that I will give him anything he wants but he just has to tell me what it is. Except when he’s in that too-tired-still-needs-to-be-asleep mood, he can’t tell me what it is.

His request for breakfast goes something along the lines of:

“I want blue berries.”

“No. I don’t want blue berries.”

“I want a spoon.”

“No. I don’t want a spoon.”

And in between all of it is crying and screaming. I think some would describe it as a temper tantrum. A really good one. Except the cause is unknown to all except him. I just happen to suspect it’s because he’s tired.

When I was a child and something made me cry, my mother uttered the line that many mothers of her generation did: “Stop or I’ll give you something to cry about.” This never made sense to me as a child. I swear I remember thinking, “But I’m already crying, thanks. I don’t need any further help from you.” I think my mother was attempting to make me stop crying, which is part of why it doesn’t make sense. Such a sentence suggests that the child is crying for no reason, except that children don’t cry for no reason. Just because we as parents don’t know the reason, or the child is unable to tell us the reason doesn’t mean they don’t have one. It infers that even if the child has a reason, the parent considers it invalid or unworthy of tears.

Needless to say, I hated it when my mother said this line to me, and when I was teenager I often made lists of the things I promised I would never do to my children. At the top of this list: washing a child’s mouth out with soap and uttering this famous line.

Watching my son crying and asking for something only to refuse it, I thought, this is one of those moments that my mother – if she were here – would indeed say, “Stop, or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Or she’d want to, and bite her tongue, knowing I don’t believe in corporal punishment or really, any kind of punishment. And, I can get how frustrating it must have been for my mother in such moments, simply because it is frustrating, when your child is endlessly crying and frustrated and screaming when you give him what he asks for.

I walked out of the room to give myself a moment. (Just because I don’t see the sense in time outs for children doesn’t mean I don’t regularly take them myself.) On my living room bookshelf are half a dozen of the child rearing books I have read and refer to: You Are Your Child’s First Teacher, my favorite, Alfie Kohn’s Unconditional Parenting, Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves and so on. On my refrigerator are clippings from parenting articles, so I have reminders of how to stay rational in such situations. Despite all my reading and research, I felt completely inept at the moment. Until my eye falls on a quote from one of the articles, “When you can ask nicely, Mommy will be ready to listen.”

It wasn’t an exact fit for the situation, but close enough. I adapted it, and said calmly, “I will give you whatever you want, when you can ask nicely.”

His immediate response, of course, was to hit, kick, open the fridge and slam it shut. But I knew I couldn’t take it personally. I just repeated what I had said, with the added, we don’t kick or hit or slam doors.

I had to repeat myself I don’t know how many times. The phase became a mantra that for whatever reason removed the anger from both of us and the situation.

Finally, my son hugged my legs, looked up at me and said through his tears, “I want a nap.”

“I thought so.” I said. “Let’s go back to bed.” So we went back to bed. He didn’t sleep, but he curled up and rested his head on my shoulder, while his sister continued sleeping on the other side of me, and we read the latest installment of books from the library.

Half an hour later, my playful, excited, game loving independent almost three year old, sat up as if he was now ready to start the day.

Thank Heavens, I thought, for the morning re-start. And thank heavens I didn’t give him something to cry about.