Family Matters

Posts Tagged ‘parenting’

Now that I am of what is considered ‘adult’ age, many of my friends have started talking about leaving home. Some of my high school buddies moved out long ago and have even started families. This is obviously a stage in life that everyone experiences sooner or later.

One of the most common reasons my age-mates have suggested is that they clash very strongly with one (or both) of their parents. They are sick of being bossed around and they just need space and freedom. When this happens, I find they don’t always make the best decisions. They are so intent on running as far away as they can that they don’t realize where they are going.

Sometimes they make off with some would-be drug dealer or with a complete idiot, because “anything is better than home”. Like many people out there, when they hit 40, they realize they made a terrible mistake.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

When I was quite young (maybe 4 or 5 years old), my mom told me that one day I would have a family of my own and live in a house of my own. And I said to her, “Mom, don’t be silly, I’m always going to live at home with you and Dad”.

After a full day of me challenging the way they think and manage themselves, the kids were relaxing at dinner and we heard laughs and discussions from tables all around. In came the girl from the office, holding envelopes in her hand. “You’ve got mail”, she said and the kids rushed from their tables to mine and wondered who she was talking to.

I held up each envelope, acting as surprised as they were, and said, “Oh, this is for Jack … and this is for Amy” and gave each one of them their letter. Among the kids’ letters, I got a letter from Gal, Derek, the principal who had organized the camp with me and attended the camp, got a letter from his wife and so did Ahmad, the other presenter.

At first, there was an excited buzz around the room, but as soon as the letters were opened, there was total silence. The kids left my table and each found a corner to read their letters. Some of them seemed to be crying. For about 10 minutes, no one said anything.

Then, the kids started looking at each other, trying to figure out what others were going through. We, the adults, also read our letters, which were given to us sealed by our partners.

I do not know why, but I have always had a problem with keys (not with the keys themselves but with keeping them). When I was a kid, my parents worked so much that when I came home from school, I had to use my own keys to get in. My siblings (I have 4) and I never had a good way of keeping our keys and most of the days, we would count on one of the others to open the door for us or used the spare key at our neighbors’ house.

Some people hid their keys under their welcome mat so their kids could enter the house while they worked long hours, but that was not really hiding at all, since all the kids in the neighborhood could find them easily.

The only thing on my mind was how expensive it was to make a new set of keys and the hassle my parents had to go through to get me new keys (not to mention the look on their faces saying I have failed them).

Never in my childhood did my parents or anyone else teach me how to make sure I could always find my keys. As a kid, I need that as part of life. As a teacher, I find it alarming that kids are not being taught how to be organized with their possessions (among oh, so many other useful skills).

One of our main challenges in life is that we don’t know what we don’t know. To overcome this challenge, we must actively question our own point of view and make conscious choices, instead of accepting what we have grown into as the only possibility.

A few weeks ago, Ronit had a few sessions with a lovely little boy called Lenny (not really). He was very intelligent and very curious and bombarded Ronit with “unfiltered” questions, which got me thinking about perspective.

While he was working away on one of his assignments, Lenny asked Ronit, “Do you know that you sometimes talk to me in a different language?”

She explained to him that because we talk to our kids in a different language, she sometimes confused the languages.

He asked, “So they don’t understand what you’re saying too?”

Ronit explained that our kids understand her when she speaks the other language, because they know two languages.

Lenny said, “I don’t know any language”.

Ronit said, “You know English”.

He looked at her surprised and then said in excitement, “Yes!”

Being only 6 years old, Lenny accepts everything in his life as the only thing possible, so sometimes, he does not even need to call it by name. It is just “the thing that is” for him. The language he speaks is so obvious to him, he had never counted it as such. It was just part of life. And it never occurred to him that other kids might know other languages, simply because he doesn’t.

Success is climbing upwards and for kids (and grownups) to succeed, they need someone to hold the ladder for them – a support structure that is there to remind them to move forward – like the caddy of a champion golfer. Parents are the best support group for their kids, because they have the purest interest in their kids benefit and good fortune. As a teacher, I cannot hold one kids’ interest higher than others’ and I have 30 of them at any given time. That is why parents are so important in this process.

Two years ago, I organized a leadership camp for Grade 7 student leaders from 5 different schools. Unlike any other camp that is meant to be just fun, this one was meant to be challenging (and fun). We wanted the kids to go through a process of recognizing their individual strengths and needs in order to build their leadership skills.

I brought students to that camp, but found a wonderful and moving way to bring their parents their too. And you know what? Bringing parents into a leadership camp is way more effective than taking only the kids.

This year, I ran another camp and organized the same parental participation and the experience highlighted (again) many things about the relationship between students, parents and schools.

At my current job, I work with a lovely group of ladies, each at a different stage in life. Two of the ladies in the office this week were discussing how their teens seem to question their actions constantly – why they had to buy new boots, where they were going so late at night, etc.

Monica said she came home from a meeting in time to organize dinner for the family and then rush out again to another meeting. She told her girls that all they needed was to wash up afterwards. While she was on her way out, her eldest teen said, “Why do we have to do it? What have you been doing all day? You’re just going out to be with your friends”.

Of course, I have no children of my own just yet, but I have heard this before. Back in the day, it even came out of my own mouth once or twice…

Janet said her eldest was constantly questioning her actions too and that her standard reply was that she did not need to justify herself or her actions.

I beg to differ.

Sooner or later, every parent faces this dilemma: what to do with the kids’ drawing or art creation? When I had an early childhood center, I ran workshops for parents to explain how important it is to keep a record of their children’s development. If you have more than one child, you know that we forget.

This is a lot like taking photos of the first child, but not as many of the second and only capturing the third child on special occasions (I do not even envy those with more than 3 kids). Keeping a record of our children’s progress and development gets harder with every child.

In all the early childhood centers I have managed and directed, I used to send home all the kids’ artwork every week and record it. I created a folder with the kids where their parents could keep all their work to make sure it does not get lost. But the folder filled up so quickly that after a very short time, they had to clear it to allow more room for new artwork.

So how can all this artwork be kept without overflowing?

In the not-so-distant past, most people lived in small places and had to do things themselves. They grew crops, cared for animals, sewed their own clothes, built their own houses, met the same small group of people from childhood to old age and learned about the rest of the world only when strangers came to town.

When something broke, those “olden days” people had to fix it themselves or take it to a specialist, such as the blacksmith or the cobbler. Time was cheap and materials, like metal and medicine, were very expensive and hard to get. There was a lot of time, so life was slow. There was a lot of space and travel was slow, so there was little change.

The world’s culture evolved around this lifestyle. The main values taught to kids were self-sufficiency, industry, thriftiness, modesty, discipline and courtesy. When they grew up, they also learned faithfulness and responsibility.

I have a feeling your parents may have tried to instill some of these values in you too, even if your life was quite different. I know mine did, as did the parents of all my friends.

The general focus of people was on getting things and keeping them. There was little choice, so what people got, they enjoyed.

Today, life is radically different for most people. Most people live in big cities, have easy access to large amounts of food, drink, clothes and other goods and are exposed to a never-ending stream of high-pressured information through the TV, the radio, the Internet, the mobile phone, printed media and various other means.

The general focus of people should be on choosing things and enjoying them. But it is not.

My friend said to me, “Look around you. There are more sick people than there ever were. The food we are eating is not nutritious enough. There is too much antibiotics in meat, too much processed food and too much cancer. People are dying because of extra use of chemicals in their life. What’s your opinion?”

I had to make a decision on the spot. I knew she wanted me to support her for her kids to recognize it as something “all mothers think”, not just her being fanatic. The problem was that it was just her being fanatic.

I said, “Really?! I am looking around and I’ll tell you what I see. My dad is 77 years old and he is a pretty healthy person. My mom is 71 years old and loves doctors and medication. 6 years ago, she came to visit us and we travelled around the North Island of New Zealand for 12 days. We spent most of the day on our feet and even trekked (with then 3-year-old Noff) for about 6 hours. My mom did very well and she was 65 then. My dad did even better than she did and he was 72 years old. I am looking around and what I see is that those sick people who eat junk, food that is not nutritious enough, consume too much antibiotics with their meat and gobble up cancer-inducing processed food, those people live longer”.

Ouch!

Before you think I am crazy, here are the facts.

During my parenting workshops, I ask the parents to describe the challenges they have with their kids. Parents of teens often excuse all their challenges as the result of their kids reaching the “teen” stage. “You know how teens are”, they say.

During the workshops, we discuss many of our beliefs and how they affect our kids’ behavior and I hear myself saying to parents again and again that the image teens have is worse than their behavior. Teens are considered emotional, insensitive, subject to peer pressure, disrespectful, irresponsible and moody, but what they have is just a bad reputation!

I do not think it is a coincidence that all those teens have parents who are able to see beyond their hair color, their hairstyle, their piercing, their desire to be with friends, their rebellious behavior and their academic achievements. It is not a coincidence at all. It is a formula that works. If you can see beyond what is on the surface, you will raise happy teens and you will be a happy parent.