Conversation – Parenting Lark

Seeking Connection

The Brother got in trouble in school. School dealt with it. I told him that it was school’s issue, they dealt with it and that I won’t be doling out punishment when it has already been doled. I figured the matter was closed.

About 2 hours later he came to me and asked me if I would like a coffee.

I could have seen the offer of a coffee in two ways:

Sucking up
Connection seeking

If I saw it as sucking up to me, trying to curry favour after getting into trouble in school, I could easily have been cross with him. I could have rejected the coffee and with it his fragile olive branch.

If I saw it as connection seeking, wanting to know that we are ok in spite of things that are happening in our lives, I could easily be open to connection, open to saying “Yes, we are OK. We will always work to be OK”, open to accepting the coffee and with it his fragile olive branch.

I asked if he would like to make me a coffee, and he said yes, so I told him I would love a coffee.

Off he went and returned in an appropriate amount of time with my perfectly made coffee.

We put another gem in the connection collection and reestablished that we are OK. We will always work to be OK.

Parenting In A Pandemic – A Tally

Years!

We have spent years preparing for this.

I am not sure where to begin, but I know it is more than just one post!

So where do I start? I guess a tally might work…

ZERO – the number of fights we have had during the safer at home period
ZERO – the number of school assignments missed
ZERO – the number of times I had to tell my teenager that he wasn’t allowed to go out with friends
ONE – the number of times I had to explain why we are safer at home for it to make sense to both The Boy & The Brother
ONE – the number of cans of MONSTER I use each day as compensation for the fact that The Boy is not allowed to go out
ONE – the number of bottles of Lucosade Sport I use each day as compensation for the fact that The Brother is not allowed to go out
ONE – the number of COVID-19 tests the children have gone through
THREE – the number of COVID-19 tests The Parent has gone through
A MILLIONTY – the number of conversations about why we are still safer at home
A MILLIONTY – the number of conversations we have had about being a team and working together
A MILLIONTY – the number of conversations we have had about the fact that our choices and how they impact the other people in our germ pool

What Way Did I Pay It Forward?

I have experienced a variety of low mood events in my life. The lowest of the low were ugly, with me defending with all my might the reasons why I should not stay alive. Verbalising them to anyone who would listen.

My ex reacted to them by questioning me about whether I knew how they impacted her, how difficult they were for her and what should she do when they were happening. I told her to let them burn out and trust that I would return. This was not something she was able to do and so she questioned me again about whether I knew how they impacted her. We never got to a point of her telling me how she was impacted, of her telling my that she found them difficult and it took her time to recover. It landed as I should change so that she didn’t have to deal with my fragile mental health.

I am equal parts happy and embarrassed that I changed to meet her needs. I am happy that I figured out a way to not sink into that low, not get swallowed whole by my passive death wish, but I dislike the reason why I did it. I didn’t do it for myself. I did it to stop her giving out to me that it was happening. It took a long time and a lot of work and I am in no way suggesting that this is a solution for anyone other than me, as I operate on an n=1 policy.

Recently a loved one had one of those bottomless pit lows and I felt the fall out from it. I tried to say “It affected me too, please give me time to deal with how it felt for me” but I am afraid it got filtered through a shame filter that so many in my generation had installed in childhood.

The Boy knows that when he has a hard time, I have a 2nd hand hard time. The reason he knows this is because I have told him. I did not tell him in order to shame him into not having a hard time, but to know that when he comes out the other side, I will also be coming out the other side.

Too often mental health problems are not mentioned, not discussed for fear of “setting someone off” or shaming the unwell person. This just adds to the secrecy, the shame. “I saw what happened” lands as “Don’t do it again” instead of “I see you, I noticed, knowing that you were in pain caused me pain”

I wonder now if I paid forward the experience I had with my ex, that of having my loved one perceive that I was shaming them in order to elicit change, or the experience I have with The Boy, that of knowing that his hard time is hard for me too and now we have a new opportunity to be kind to each other for we are both humans figuring out our way in this life.

I hope it was the latter. I fear it was the former.

Those Were The Days My Friend

6 days shy of our 3rd anniversary I walked out of Marie’s office without another appointment. She didn’t discharge me and I didn’t quit.

Conversation: When Is A Plum Not A Plum?

The Parent: Hey dude?
The Boy: Yeah
TP: You know how to cut up a plum, right?
TB: Yeah
TP: When you ask me to cut up a plum for you, that’s another way for me to say “I love you”
TB: Cool
TP: Soon you won’t need my help for all the things, but maybe in 10 years time when you cut up a plum for yourself you will think “My parent loves me” because loving you is tied up in cutting up a plum
TB: <laughs>
TP: And maybe you will come to visit me so I can cut you up a plum
TB: Maym bay

Conversation: It’s Been Three Years

Me: Dude?
Him: Yes?
Me: Three years ago this week I told you I was reading a new book that would hopefully help me help you feel better.
Him: Yeah?
Me: You asked if it had tips or just stories and said that you hoped it had tips.
Him: <nodding>
Me: It had tips. And that is what we live now.
Him: <more enthusiastic nodding>
Me: We did OK, didn’t we?
Him: Yeah
Me: And we’re doing ok, right?
Him: Yeah we are.

For years, when people foisted their parenting opinion on me in relation to my 11 year old (the usual – a good smack, put my foot down, stop being so soft, punish him more… you all know the list) all I could say was “He doesn’t have a formal diagnosis and doesn’t meet the criteria for anything in particular. He just strugggles with the world sometimes”. The important bit in there was “sometimes”. That “sometimes” excluded him from treatment by the first psychologist he saw, excluded him from a diagnosis (and treatment) from the mental health service he was referred to, got him diagnosed from the play therapist… and on it goes.
I have sat in so many rooms with so many specialists trying to get across to them that he directs his frustrations at his brother and I, and “performs” in public. Each and every time I was told that the problem was with me. I got that, I get that, but no one could even point me in the right direction on how to help my kid who appeared to explode for no reason.
2 weeks ago, when school went back and one of his best friends went on holiday, his previous even keel disintegrated. He started exploding more often and included threatening to kill first his brother and then himself. Suddenly services are interested. Child protection social worker wants him seen by the GP, GP said “why bother, I can’t do anything”. Play therapist is willing to see me but my kid is not willing to see her. He told me during the week that he is not going to talk to anyone else because none of them listen to him and none of them help. Well of course, if he can hold things together in public then they don’t think he has a problem and it is all put down to a personality clash.
I foresee the whole exercise being an opportunity for the play therapist, the GP, the social worker etc to shame me for my poor parenting.
A friend recommended The Explosive Child and I read it during the week. I told my kid I was going to read it and he said “Is it just stories or is there tips in it? I hope there is tips”. He wants to not feel the way he does but MAN ALIVE he is so fragile at the moment there is no time to have proactive Plan B conversations and any time I have tried he has gotten frustrated and I’ve switched from Plan B to Plan C. So many things have gone into the Plan C column this week because I need things to be calmer around here in general so that we can have some peaceful time.
I hope his friend returning on Monday and doing some work with him to help him cope with the physical symptoms of ongoing age appropriate growth will also help to settle things down.
I have started a shopping list of things that frustrate him and I feel a little overwhelmed. <snip> it is the first time in a long long time I feel there is a light on the horizon.
The Parent, September 2016

Conversation: More and More

More and more often I am reminded that the work was worth it.

During the Summer, on a Friday night while I was out of the country and The Boy was with his other parent, I got a text to say that for some reason he had run out of data on his mobile phone. I saw no benefit in investigating the reason because it wasn’t going to change the position we were in right then, and the risk of the perception of assigning blame was high.

I explained that one night in February, because of something I left running on my phone, I ripped through my 4Gb allowance of data and *another* 5Gb for which they charged me by the meg.

So… his concern was he had no data on his phone until Monday, mine was the cost of data add ons.

In the process of laying out the concerns he came up with a possible cause of the data usage, and admitted that it may be his own fault. I thanked him for thinking about the reason, and said that while I was interested in his discovery, the reason for the data usage would not change what I was willing to do going forward.

I asked him how much data he thought he would need before we saw each other (and he got back to WiFi) on Monday. He said he thought 1Gb would be enough, and asked if he could get that add on. This solution met both of our concerns. I thanked him for being so clear in his messages. He got the add on, said thanks, and was gone.

The next night, about 24 hours later, I got “I think I underestimated how much data I would need”. I told him that he could get up to 4Gb of data total but that my expectation was that he would not get all 3 (he had already used 1 over the last 24 hours) at the same time. I thanked him again for his communication and his openness to hearing my expectations. He said thank you again, and was again gone.

Roll forward to Monday and we had a chat about data going forward (he has another 2 weeks with his other parent within the billing cycle). We agreed that we needed more information before we made a plan.

Information sources:

1. Reach out to the phone company and check that he got his full allowance (he thought he hadn’t)
2. If that came to nothing, ask the company if they could sell us a bundle (ideally with a discount)*
3. If they couldn’t then buy the data 1Gb at a time**

* at this point we would have to figure out how much he would need
** at this point we would have to agree to a spending limit

Then, knowing that he was in a good place I said…

Me: Who do you think should be liable for the cost of the extra data?
Him: I don’t know
Me: (I obviously asked the wrong question) Do you think I should be liable for the cost of the extra data?
Him: I don’t know
Me: (Wrong question again) Do you think you should be liable for the cost of the extra data?
Him: I don’t know
Me: (Wrong question again) Do you think we should share the cost of the extra data?
Him; Yes

I thanked him again.

I chatted with the cell phone company, keeping him in the loop throughout. Yes, he had been given and used all of his monthly allotment of data. No they do not sell bundles larger than 1Gb and yes, each Gb would cost €3. Then they suggested pulling forward his renewal from the 28th of the month to today… this way he would get his monthly allotment (again) for the monthly renewal cost which was about 1/5 of the cost of the same amount of data if we bought it by the meg.

It is essentially buying an extra month mid month and it meets both of our concerns… enough data for him, not a huge amount of money for me.

Me: Your monthly rollover has happened
Him: Cool
Me: So the whole thing came to €24 and I am proposing we split the cost 50:50
Him: I was thinking 10:90
Me: That is awesome that you are willing to pay for 90% of the cost
Him: Psych. Yes, 50:50 is good.

We shook on it and I asked if I could give him a hug, which he willingly gave. I thanked him again for his willingness to work with me to find a solution that worked for both of us.

3 years ago that <key moment> would have gone a different way, and it would have ended up with him having a meltdown 2500 miles away from me. This Summer it moved to shared experience, empathy, gratitude and problem solving.

Ten Words

Image result for The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do.

I disagree with Mr Franklin, and with my mother for that fact! As a child she repeatedly commented that I said ten words when one would do.

Now, as an adult, I still use 10 words and wanna know what that gets me (other than continued comments from my mother)? It gets me clarity. It gets my message across.

Don’t get me wrong, I know when to shut up and listen, but when I am explaining something I am going to use all of my grown up words and make sure that I am well and truly understood. I am also going to use more of those words to check that I was indeed understood.

I don’t miss the misunderstandings, the confusion, the disappointment.

I will keep my ten words, thanks all the same.

Is He Like I Was?

I recently spent time with a child who is very much like The Boy was back in The Time That Went Before. Not exactly the same, but similar enough for me to remember what it was like living that life, only this time I was powerless to do anything as the child already has an excellent sufficiency of parents, and I am not one of them.

It was incredibly hard to watch this family in crisis, and almost as hard to hold my tongue, which (for the most part) I did.

Afterwards, as I debriefed from the experience, The Boy overheard me talking. There was nothing in the content that was inappropriate for him to hear, so I continued.

At a natural pause in the conversation I was having he said “Is he like me? Like I was, back… whenever? When was it? 2 years ago? More?” I confirmed that yes, that child is much like he was and I told him how impressed I was that he was able to see that similarity, and seeing that makes it easier for us to see where we are today.

Internally it was like New Years Eve, Bastille Day, 4th of July and Chinese New Year fireworks all in one.

It is easy to look with adult eyes and see how far we have come. It is easy to look at where we are now and be happy with the outcome. It is a whole other thing for a teenager to look back at a time when he was an unrecognisable version of himself and see similarities with another child.

It Has Been The Summer

And what a Summer it has been.

The Famous Five would have us all going on adventures and drinking cold tea from a glass milk bottle. Sorry Enid, that is not my Summer.

Our Summer has been full of conversations and collaboration, connection and consideration, curiosity and calm. As I sit here I am racking my brain to remember whether we fought at all this Summer, and I am reasonably confident that the answer is no. Sure, we had disagreements over things, what humans don’t? but nothing turned into an all singing all dancing plates flying fight.

He met my expectations for attending camp, going clothes shopping, doing household chores and spending time with his other parent without The Brother present. It is not just that he met the expectations, he met them with grace, and with apparent ease.

When I look at his face now, he appears to be at peace with the world. I could easily sit back and say “Job done”, but it is not and I am OK with that. So instead I will say “Job status: Pending”.