Permission to Fail

I’m not a believer in excuses. I’m a believer is self-development, in intentionally mentoring our children. I’m a believer in (& hopefully practitioner of) giving your best and reaching for your best, especially as a parent, step-parent, guardian…

But. Us Gen X-ers in particular are wonderfully adept at feeling guilty about our parenthood. [for more, see for example Daddy Daze's thoughts on the topic].

My two cents worth today - unglamorous and poorly worded – is really simple. Come to terms with the fact that you are going to screw up as a parent. Come to terms with the fact that the last time your kids will ever be perfect is the moment they were born. From there on it, they’re as fallible as you and I. They will screw up too.

I don’t think parenting is about perfection, but about loving and responsible engagement. Give yourself permission to fail even while stretching yourself to be a better man or woman.

Breaking Routine

I don’t know about you, but I’m a huge believer in routine. Routine helps keep things on track, lowers stress, enables punctuality and completion of tasks, prepares the children of the family for adulthood (and protects the adults from a nervous breakdown).

But. It can be a great thing to break that routine, in the sense of doing something out of the ordinary. Like the times I played Pumpkin Rugby and Zombie Tag with the boys. The time Youngest Son and I went to an audition together. The time I took the boys for an hour’s drive to another beach (we live at the beach) where I knew there was a tidal stream we could dam with logs and such, put up with their complaining at the length of the drive and their requests to turn around, and partook of their joy at damming that stream when we finally got there.

It’s an effort to break routine. And it doesn’t always pay off. But the potential is there for the unexpected, the memorable, the “bonding-moments” to happen.

How could you do something out of the ordinary with the kids over the next week? For me, I’m planning to take Oldest Son out for icecream on Sunday. The best conversations seem to happen out of the house and over food (well sugar anyway)…

How Am I Doing… Really?

Many moons ago, I wrote a very long parenting article – much too long to submit to a magazine like my others. It’s been sitting around collecting dust for a couple of years, but I’ll link to it now and maybe it’ll be of service to someone out there.

It’s designed to explore the following:

If I was to ask you how happy are you with your parenting overall, what would you say? Would you be beating yourself up with good ol’ Gen X parental guilt? I’m finding more than a few parents are saying to me they feel they’re doing poorly in their role, way too close to it to really even assess things…

 

What if I followed those questions up with: “How do you know how you’re doing?” What evidence would you turn to so you could give me an accurate appraisal of your ”effectiveness” as a mother or father? Wouldn’t it be good to find markers that actually give you factual information?

It’s called How Am I Doing … Really? . I’d love you to read it and would welcome your feedback.

Some great reads

A quick roundup of some worthwhile reads out there in Blogland.

1.How I Won the War on Consumerism -”Everywhere you turn, someone is trying to get you to buy stuff. Every medium is about selling advertising. Even the baseball stadium is named after the sponsoring company!

My family is not rich, but we are far from having to beg on the street. I have everything I need, so I should be quite content. But the messages I see and hear, everywhere I look, are telling me that I need more stuff…”

2. Sibling Fighting – Teach Our Kids to Resolve Conflict Peacefully : “Kids have L plates on when it comes to resolving conflict with their siblings. They can learn better ways of resolving conflict than resorting to reflexive means such as hitting, shouting and generally playing the person rather than the “ball”…”

3. Earth Hour – Shmirth Hour. Agent Tully eloquently exposes the flaws in what was essentially a nice idea with no practical impact.

4. Thinking of Having Kids? 11 Lessons to prepare you for parenthood. Very funny. here’s a taste:

“Lesson 6
Forget the BMW and buy a mini-van. And don’t think that you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that.
1. Buy a chocolate ice cream cone and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there.
2. Get a dime. Stick it in the CD player.
3. Take a family size package of chocolate cookies. Mash them into the back seat. Sprinkle cheerios all over the floor, then smash them with your foot.
4. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car.”

Sins of the Fathers (& Mothers!)

George Bernard Shaw once wrote:

“We learn from history that we learn nothing from history.”

Studying many families, workplaces and even nations, we can see the truth of this as human beings simply recycle the faults, mistakes and sometimes outright wrongdoing of past generations.

Often I have heard new parents make this commitment: “Now I have kids, I’m not going to make the same mistakes my parents did!” I know I said that.

Sadly, in the years that follow, we often go on to do one of two things: either we fall into the same pattern as our own parents (replicating those “mistakes”) or they create a whole new method of achieving the same negative results (repackaging the faults they so despised).

And when this happens, it’s frustrating and deflating!

Replicating behaviour we despised is easy to achieve! It merely requires us to follow the pattern we were given, to fail to assess or reflect on our own behaviour, to justify it or blame others, and to refrain from seeking new ways of responding to the world. Replicating is easily understood; it refers to Cats in the Cradle situations.

Repackaging the negative behaviour is a lot more subtle. It stems from reacting strongly against the status quo without rejecting its underlying principles.

Political revolutions often generate the same abuses of power, violence and corruption they once opposed because they embrace wielding power as the means of change. And we know the saying about power corrupting…

Imagine a man whose parents pressured him into a predetermined career path – discouraging him from exploring his interest in music. He reacts by bundling his son off to a team sport, an individual sport and music lessons every week, and steering away from an academic focus. While it may look good on paper, this lifestyle of hurry is beginning to prompt resentment from the boy and an emotional distance is developing between them. This man can recognise the symptoms but can’t work out what’s causing them. By his yardstick, he’s nothing like his parents – in actual fact he has simply repackaged their values. Both generations do what they do partly because they want the world to think of them as excellent parents, giving their son the perfect start in life – but they both mistake of leaving the child out of the decision-making process.

When you see these sorts of generational cycles appearing in your family life, consider the following ideas as starting points for resolving them:

• Honour the good in your parents, by uncovering it, dwelling on it, appreciating it. That simple choice may help you replicate and repackage their positive values, actions and examples.
• Investigate (don’t guess!) the causes of their negative values and behaviours. Understand them rather than judging them.
• Test yourself to see if you own the same underlying principles (or values) that lead to the “bad behaviour”. Do you also believe in “keeping up with the Joneses” even though you practise it in a different way to your parents? Do you force your children to comply – even though you use your superior intellect to gain your kids’ compliance rather than the belt that your father wielded to gain yours?
• Insert new input. Sometimes by introducing new behaviour or a new thought into your home, you will unravel the poor patterns that have developed. This could be as simple as deciding you will no longer cram parenting, cleaning and home office tasks into the dinner-bedtime period. Also experiment with changes to the environment that remove/reduce the triggers for “bad behaviour” (yours, your spouse’s and your kids’).
• Research and practise alternative responses to the responses you have employed. Give yourself time and be consistent with making a change before tackling the next one. Allow yourself to fail even as you learn. Seek the support of trustworthy people in the process.
• Make a decision about WHO you want to be in your home. Consciously adopt the identity or role that is best.
• If serious or perplexing enough, it may be an opportunity for professional counselling and its benefits.

If there’s any bad news it’s that breaking this pattern requires you to go far below the surface of your life, requiring healing, retraining and change. I’m not ashamed to say I’ve benefited from counselling at times to break patterns of anxiety and anger, and this has greatly improved the quality of life of EVERYONE at my house!

The good news is from the hard work, you will start resembling the parent you originally hoped to be. The great news is that you might be the one that finally stops your family flaws from being passed down to a new generation.

That has to be worth the effort…

***

This piece first appeared in Natural Parenting magazine, Sept. 2006.

Memories

Another year ended huh? I bet it’s been a doozy. You had ups. You had downs. You had victories. You had disappointments.

And so did your kids.

So, how will each of you remember it? Will you remember it? What will mark the completion of a season, what will cement the lessons learned from its events, what will bring healing from its conflicts and pains? 

Sometime late in the year, I heard someone mention the idea of capturing each year’s events and themes in a kind of family history. It got me thinking…

The Aldin family could certainly benefit from such a tradition.

And so the idea I’ve come up with is to keep a permanent record of the next few years in the form of a ‘book’. For all I know, it’s been done before. But not by our family.

Each of us gets to answer the questions below, and choose two digital photos that represent our favourite memories of the year just gone. Then on New Year’s Eve, we’ll read our answers and “talk story” about 2007, before placing them in the book.

The questions are simple:

• My favourite movie this year:
• I really enjoyed going to the __________ because _____________________.
• Three cool things about my birthday:
• My holiday:
• A cool thing that God did:
• My achievements:
• The hardest thing I had to do was…
• Something I wish didn’t happen:
• A funny thing I heard:

2007 has been an incredibly emotional year for us, full of the extremes of grieving and celebration, public conflict and making new friends, villains and heroes, kids moving schools and my wife changing jobs, etc etc. I’m hoping this new tradition will bring closure and bring us even closer together.

Do you have a family tradition to close out the year and leave a record for your kids for later ?

On the 4th Day of Christmas: Christmas Lies?

Poor little guy …

I’ve written before against the evils of Santa Claus…

Actually that’s not true. I just made fun of him. Much to the (very mild) disgust of Hula Doula (who remains a good buddy and has forgiven me for being a curmudgeon).

So I didn’t really write that Santa Claus is a dubious myth…

But someone else has. Dawn Fry’s article is worth a look-see. And while “You Better Not Lie” is a little extreme, it does make at least one interesting point, one that I actually am inclined to agree with.

When children finally figure out for themselves (or their parents confess) that Santa is make-believe it can feel like a huge betrayal. People that they trust the most have been telling them that Santa is real.

Some adults think that it is okay to lie to children when it is for their own good. That may be true in some cases but where is the good of a short-term fantasy that damages a child’s core sense of trust?

Hmmm, now I know many of you will be horribly upset with the writer … and by association – ME! And I repeat that I think that Dawn is overstating it, but she raises a good question about the boundary between fantasy and lies. 

I’ve never been one to just swallow what the dominant culture tells me is true or to follow what it says to do without examining it for myself.

And I’ve always wondered why we insist on children believing this particular myth, and why many of us get so anxious and angry when someone else threatens to burst the Santa bubble ["How could you tell my 9 year old son there's no Santa?!? You beast!!"].

For my part, I really don’t care whether someone tells their children there’s a Santa Claus or not. Our choice has always been not. And this is partly because we wanted our kids to trust us and partly - as my wife puts it -  “We don’t want someone else to get the credit for the cool presents we give our kids!”

So how do you feel about this?

Do you think I’m some kind of bah-humbug-scrooge-beast for not perpetrating spreading a wonderful magical joyous story?

Or do I have a point, and do you also tell your kids “There ain’t no Santa, so ya better keep me happy if you want them presents!”?

***

DISCLAIMER: Aldin children enjoy their Christmas. They get presents, have a tree and decorations, eat until their stomachs threaten to burst [and the food additives send them scaling walls that would challenge Spiderman], and find ways to do good deeds to others.

Warming up the Audience

Families occasionally find themselves in a situation where all the fun seems to have disappeared from the home. Blended families face their own particular tensions and cold patches. It’s an awful feeling as an adult to have children shy away from you or exhibit hostility toward you. Especially with Christmas fast approaching!

If you find yourself in one of those periods where you long for warmth, communication and cooperation to return to the home, consider some steps you can take over the next few weeks. While no two human beings will respond to a formula in the same way- and children are certainly no exception – there are principles you can use to warm up most audiences.

1. Unleash your sense of humor.

We know what kids need: things like security, food in their stomachs, a roof over their head and to get their homework and chores finished. But you’ve probably noticed that what they want is best described by these three words: fun, fun, fun!

But is fun just a ‘want’? (When I write that, I betray my own assumption that wants and needs are always different). I’m not the only one around who suspects that laughter fun and tomfoolery are actually childhood needs … and possibly experiences that adults could benefit from more of also. Fun and laughter promote wellbeing, partly by lowering anxiety levels.

Fun and laughter can promote socialization. Fun and laughter add colour to our lives. Fun and laughter enable children and adults to drop their defences. And let’s face it – fun and laughter are fun! Children will go where the fun is. Why not become a major source of fun and laughter in their lives? Your sense of humour is one of your most effective tools of maintaining connection with your children – keeping them on-side. Come on, Mum, Dad, you know it’s there. You just have to tap it and unleash it. For more on this, the short article at http://aath.org/articles/art_bhaerman_01.html is worth a read.

2. Find their level

Although the following statement seems like a no-brainer, it still needs to be said: children change. Their tastes change, their interests change, and their needs change. That joke that once sent Johnny into paroxysms of laughter now provokes nothing more than a bored glance in our direction. Where Suzie used to love having stories read to her, now she seems to sneer at the offer. Sometimes maintaining the warmth with kids requires a course correction. In other words, assessing the ways in which they’ve changed then adapting parenting style and behaviours to suit that. This may include adapting your sense of humour or at least the kind of jokes you use.

At the risk of generalizing, some research indicates the following stages of humour development in a child’s life. It may guide you to what is age-appropriate at this time.

Preschool: Slapstick, funny words and over the top physical humour. “Acting silly” enables the child to demonstrate a mastery of physical skills. The child delights in misnaming objects, or creating new words with nonsensical endings, or endlessly rhyming real or nonsense words.

Primary/elementary School: children’s humor reflects increased understanding of words and the double meanings in words. Riddles become very popular. By ten, the riddles may take on aggressive or “sick” humour as the child tries to make them more complex and fit their enhanced cognitive growth. A sense of irony often develops in late childhood. This is important to play along with as it is often misconstrued as sarcasm or mocking, while keeping it out of the hurting-others-feelings zone.

High School: The young teenager will normally lose interest in riddles and appreciate the humor found in real life stories or anecdotes. Teenagers enjoy talking about others and finding faults in them that can promote humour. Around the time of puberty, humour becomes aggressive and sexual. These aggressive and sexual jokes reflect the adolescent’s own developmental concerns. Joking about developmental concerns, death or disasters enable the teenager to feel in control and a master of the situation. Tap into this and guide it from within rather than standing apart from it in judgment.

Humour is only one of the areas in which you will need to adjust your approach and expectations. Another is the felt needs they seek to be met…

Meet their need

We’ve heard it before: irritating behavior can be a child’s only way of expressing a need. The five year old who feels he’s not getting enough attention will act up to get himself in trouble; to him, even negative attention is better than no attention at all. It’s fine that we know that in principle. The trick is to actually step back from a situation and reflect on what might be the need that drives the behavior. Directly addressing their need for affirmation, reassurance, clear boundaries or physical affection is often better than creating a new rule or issuing a punishment.

In summary:

• Make time to have fun and be fun
• Adjust your approach to suit the age and stage of the child
• Be focused on meeting a child’s needs as much as changing their behaviour

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Special Offer: Parents often find themselves in a situation where anger and conflict levels have risen to painful levels within their home. Great Circle Life Coaching offers a 5-part coaching program for parents aimed at increasing their children’s cooperation levels and raising affection and fun in the household. Interested and wanting more info? Contact me via the CONTACT page for more details.

What I’m Learning from Changing My Children’s School

A big thanks to Robert Hruzek for hosting his “What I Learned from …” Writers Carnival. This piece probably isn’t exactly what he had in mind. (But he’ll get over it! )

What intrigued me about his topic was that he wanted us to talk about what we learned from change. I had always thought that you learn something and then you make a change because of it. But in thinking about this I realised that sometimes you make a Huge Change because the circumstances are demanding it – and you learn during the process and from the process itself.

So here’s what I’m learning this week from the potentially stressful process of uprooting our boys from a school they’ve loved and transfering them to a new one…

1) It’s Never Worth Staying in an Unhealthy Situation Just Because it Seems Easier.

We often stay in situations that aren’t good for us, that we even hate, simply because it’s painful or scary to change. But pain has no accent – in other words, we think pain means something bad is happening but it may not be. It may actually be that things are improving.

My back hurts. Every day. It also hurts to exercise. Sometimes the dull ache of backpain seems more attractive to live with than the more acute pain of exercise. But that acute pain eventually fades and the exercise puts me in a place where my back pain diminishes further, if I press through it.

Have I labored the point enough?

It became clear to my wife and I a couple of weeks ago that to leave our sons in a school that literally overnight exchanged a culture of nurture and excellence for an atmosphere of anger arrogance and “amateurism” would be negligent … and just plain dumb!

2) Change is a Before, During & After Process.

Before: We had to

• do our homework/research
• prime our kids
• ramp up the reassurance and security with Youngest Son
• ramp up the information-flow and transparency with Oldest Son
• set up a playdate for Youngest Son with a boy who would be in his class next year (so that he had a friend already “waiting” for him in the new situation)

During: Now that they both know it’s definitely happening, it’s been more of the same above while wearing an aura of calm, & managing time well to make more time for their friends (so they don’t feel like we’re ripping them away from the people they love).

After: … Well, we’re not there yet. We anticipate the usual “teething” troubles that come with any new situation. Our intention is to

• remain positive about the new school
• optimistically navigate our way through new systems and routines
• keep lots of space open to talk through the difficulties of the New

It takes great care at all stages to navigate change well. So far, so good.

3) Generation Ys (& Zs) Crave Information.

Let’s face it, they’ve been swimming in information all their lives. To withhold it in a time of great change is destined to create great anxiety and conflict in your family.

Some of the commentators I’ve read say that generally, given the information, kids these days make pretty solid decisions. While that’s debatable, I have found that my kids do seem to make some pretty good choices (or go with our flow) when we provide enough of the information they need (rather than adopting the “Trust me, I’m your father” non-discussive approach).

It impressed me to watch the Principal at the new school (during the initial interview with Oldest Son). He took the boy’s questions seriously and answered them fully.

We’ve been upfront with the reasons for the move…

In a time of change, information is like oxygen.

4) Kids are Resilient and Fragile at the Same Time.

Kids were created to grow. Change is a Growing Time. They will grow through it – and grow well – if we parents handle them and the transition with care.

For me, the lesson continues. But this is what I’ve learned so far…

What makes a Dad Great?

Time to do some linking. Jonathan at Step-family Talk recently initiated an engaging and rich conversation about what makes a Great Dad and makes a Dad great. I recommend checking out the comments at The Great Gopher Commands Your Attention as well as these other articles from around the web:

• The importance of fathers
• Ten tips for dads with daughters 
•  Ten tips for live-away dads
• The Five Myths of Fatherhood

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