It's Not Always Perfect

I wrestled my 8 year old into her clothes today, and carried her kicking and crying into a public building.  

That's right.  It's not always perfect.  Our ideals don't always match reality.  

So was it a colossal parenting failure or just one of those unavoidable things?  Well, that's what I'm working on figuring out. 

I always try to work with the kids, finding solutions when there are conflicts, taking their needs/wants into consideration. When we need go somewhere, if one kid wants to stay home, we try to find a way to make that happen- can we do it another day, one parent stay home, etc? If not, I try to make it as easy as possible to leave- quick trip, maybe stop for icecream or something else fun on the way home, bring activities to do, etc. and we find a way to make it work for everyone.

A few days ago, however, my husband and I needed to go somewhere. There was no way to change the day, and both of us needed to be there together. I gave E a heads up the day before that we would need to go today, after she said that she wanted to stay home all day because she hasn't been feeling well. I explained that I was sorry, that we had to do this one thing, that there was not a way to change it. I said that we would not go to the library, even though her sisters wanted to, so that the only thing she would need to leave the house for was this one thing.  I offered to do whatever I could to make it easier. She refused to get dressed or brush her hair.  I said she could put her hair in a pony tail and hat instead, but she didn't like that.  If it was something like the grocery store, I would have let her go in pjs and with messy hair if that had made it easier, but it was important to look presentable at this location.

In the end, I ended up wrestling her into her clothes and into the car. After waiting for about half an hour in the car for her to calm down so we could go into the building, I carried her inside kicking and crying. I hate that I physically made her do that, but on further reflection, I'm still not sure what we could have done differently. Maybe threats or bribes instead of physically dressing her, but that still would have gone against everything we do and believe in.

While waiting in the car, I offered to take them all to get an ice cream to make the trip easier on everyone, but she didn't want to do that because she just wanted to be HOME. Of course, then her sisters wanted to get ice cream, so we did go do that afterwards. She decided she wanted a hamburger on the way through the drive through, so we got her one.  

When she calmed down at home, we did lots of snuggling and a bit of trying to figure out why she's been feeling awful for days and how to help. She apologized to dh unprompted for kicking him. 

So was it a colossal parenting failure or just one of those unavoidable things?

 Well, it definitely went against all of my ideals.  But was it unavoidable?  Usually when I mess up I can do a post game play review and see where I could improve next time.  This time?  When I told my mom what happened, she did say that I could have dropped E off at her house.  E could have just snuggled on my mom's couch, and she wouldn't have had to get dressed.  That might have worked, but never crossed my mind.    

I know one thing for sure.  There was no punishing or shaming for the way she acted.  Whether I figure out what we could have done differently next time or not, I'm not blaming her for having needs that didn't conveniently fit into our day's schedule and for possessing only immature ways of expressing them.  I know that for days she was feeling awful, overwhelmed, and needed to be home to recover.  I wish I could have provided that. 

So, I'm being honest here, because I hate blogs that make it all look picture perfect all the time.  It's not.  Life's messy.  We're all imperfect, so there's no sense in wallowing in guilt and anxiety when we did our best, but let's not settle either.  Keep learning more, doing better, being better.  Our kids are worth it.

Late Nights

E and L could have stayed up all night tonight.  They choose to go to bed at 9:30.

We have never had set bedtimes in our home.  When they are babies, they usually nurse to sleep.  Z still does at nearly 3.  Sometimes in bed, but often on the couch while I watch tv or read or use the computer.  As they have gotten older, we've done a variety of things to encourage sleep.

We've had routines of taking a bath, reading a book and laying down in bed together.
We've let them each pick a tv show, they watch it, and then we lay in bed together.
We've all camped on the living room floor with a movie and slept there for the night.
They've fallen asleep in the living room many times, and we've carried them to bed.
Sometimes we watch a show on the computer in bed, and they fall asleep.
Recently, we've had audio books on the computer in bed.
We've sang them to sleep, rocked them to sleep, scratched and massaged their backs, rubbed their heads or feet, played a relaxing game, and gone on late night drives.
We play all kinds of musical beds with our bed, their bunk bed and the couch.  You never know who's going to be sleeping in which one, with whom, and for how much of the night.

It might sound chaotic, but it works.  It accomplishes the things I believe to be the most important things about sleep.

1) that everyone sleeps as much as their body needs when it needs it.
2) that no one else is kept awake by someone else's lack of sleep late at night.
3) that they kids learn to associate sleep with good and peaceful things.
4) that they learn to recognize their own body's signals that it is tired.

Even though we've never had a set bedtime, we start heading in that direction at a reasonable time.  Reasonable being defined as a time when they are tired, depending on if someone had a nap, depending on what is going on the next day, how much in need of alone time we are, etc.  Heading in that direction being defined as lights off, sound down, snuggling in bed or on the couch, and otherwise creating a sleepy environment.  Usually, they are asleep between 8 and 10.There have been plenty of times where one of the kids has told us they were ready for sleep. 

Recently, E and L have started wanting to stay up "all night until the sun comes up."  They stayed up until midnight or one for about 3 nights, and then D and I said we really needed some alone time.  So we agreed that they could stay up as late as they wanted every Friday night.  That worked until last Saturday, when E started getting really upset that she couldn't stay up late that night too.  I admit I did not handle it so well the first few nights.  I thought our Friday night deal was THE deal and I value the time I get alone with D.  She did go to sleep, but it was not peacefully.

It was Sunday or Monday when she was having a tough time getting to sleep again, and I took a deep breath, reminded myself of my principles and told her we could figure out a solution.  I had no idea what!  All I could think of was that she would stay up late every night, and D and I would NEVER BE ALONE AGAIN.  But I knew that kind of fearful thinking never leads to peace or working together, and we had to think of something.

So I asked her why staying up late was so important to her.  She said that she never gets any time alone.  I said she could go in her room or my room and be alone any time.  She said it's not QUIET.  She liked the peace and quiet and stillness of being up when everyone else was asleep.  

What we came up with was a bit complicated, but she was thrilled.  We decided to trade off every other night.  One night she would go to bed like normal.  The next night, she could stay up and have the living room all to herself for half an hour, while D and I hung out in the bedroom, quietly.  And on Fridays, they could both still stay up as late as they wanted.  To make this happen though, we all needed L and Z to be asleep.  So we agreed that she wouldn't mention it to them, and would pretend to go to bed like normal on her staying up night.  Then once they fell asleep, she could get up.

So we did that for a few nights, and it worked great!  She loved it, and happily came to bed after her half hour and happily went to bed on the nights that D and I stayed up.  Tonight is Friday, so E and L were excited to stay up.  They asked me to play some video games with them, which I did.  Then I said I was going to hang out in the bedroom.  They wanted to come, first just to snuggle.  But on the way down the hall, L said she knew she needed to go to the bathroom before bed.  She wasn't planning on staying up.  As soon as E laid down, she said said she was ready for bed, because she had "stayed up as late as [she] wanted."

That was at 9:30.

It's so true that when they get their needs met, whether it's a need for trying out something new, experimenting with how something makes them feel, or just for peace and quiet, they figure out what works for them, and it all balances out.  

Radical Tuesday- Posted UnRules (Solutions!)

I know some families post the "rules of the house" so that everything is known and consistent for the kids.  I have never considered doing this because we don't have 100% set in stone rules in our house.  We have "keep messy food out of the bedrooms because of the potential for ants" and "you can jump on the couch, but don't climb on the back because it's starting to rip" and "PLEASE for the LOVE of ALL that is GOOD- put your towel in the bathroom when you are done with it."  But, those would be awfully long to write out and post on the wall.  And they are flexible!

I have, however, borrowed from this idea of posting rules and I have sometimes posted solutions.  I may have posted (or maybe just thought about it) a while back about the reminder note that I wrote for the girls to bring their apples back into the kitchen.  They wanted to take apples in their bedroom, and we were fighting ants all summer so my first reaction was NO!  Then we talked about it and I told them my concern that the half eaten apples would get left in the bedroom.  They promised not to leave them.  I said we would need to come up with something to help them remember, rather than just relying on their memories.

I ended up writing a note that said "Bring your apples back in the kitchen" and posting it on their bedroom door.
They can't read, of course, but they knew what it said.  They were part of the solution and understood the terrible ant problem (well, this was mostly E, but she helped L) and just seeing the paper on the door helped them remember.

More recently, they have been leaving their towels on the floor in the living room and bedrooms after they dry off after a bath.
 They take *at least* three baths a day just for fun, so I was picking up and reminding them to pick up a lot of towels.  They are both usually pretty happy to put their own towel back when I reminded them, but one day E did NOT want to put it back.  I told her that I was tired of picking up the towels and reminding them to do it, and that it seemed like she was tired of putting her towel away too, so we needed to figure out something that would work better.  She agreed, but didn't have any ideas.  So I said that when I take a shower, I dry off in the bathroom and then put the towel away right away.  So I NEVER have to pick up my towel off the floor!  I suggested putting a note in the bathroom so they would remember to leave their towels in there.  They agreed, I posted a note that says "Leave Towels In The Bathroom" and there has not been a single towel on the floor for well over a week.  To top it off, they are SO EXCITED that they remember to put their towels away and come running out of the bathroom saying "Mom, look!  No towel!"

My husband recently had an idea to make his "honey do" list more appealing.
He is a Type 1 according to It's Just My Nature, which means he is fun loving and random, so this is the kind of thing that makes his life interesting, and makes me and my Type 4ness scratch my head, but hey, whatever works!  The kids have this spinner from some old game that has the numbers 1 through 6.  So he told me to make him a list of the 6 projects I want him to get done this week and number them.   Every day he spins the spinner and does the job associated with the number on which the spinner lands.

The kids thought this was so cool!
So E asked me to make her a list of jobs to do too.  I thought of six things the girls can (and sometimes already did) help with: wash the table and counter, take out the trash, wash the front of the fridge and stove, put away their own laundry, vacuum and make a meal.  E is so excited to spin it every day and do her "job" (sometimes more than one) and L goes along for the ride and helps.        

Getting Stuck and Finding Ways to Flow

 

I have been thinking lately about getting stuck in a thought pattern and how getting stuck sometimes turns in to BEing stuck.  Sometimes I can get stuck so fast that I don't even know I'm stuck, I just think that's The Way I Am.

A few weeks ago, I posted on Always Learning asking for advice about how I could have handled a situation with E better.  We have been walking and taking the bus to dance, gymnastics, the library and other places.  I had taken into account weather, convenience, time and other factors to decide whether we should walk or take the bus to and from particular places.  It seemed like every time I said we were taking the bus, E wanted to walk because "we never get to walk!  The bus is boring!" Every time we were walking, she wanted to take the bus, because when we walked she was "hot and tired and hated walking."

I had put myself into a box of have-to's and my-way-is-rights and this-is-the-only-possible-solution.  I wanted them to help me top the box with a pretty bow of making my way more fun for her so she'd quit complaining and just do it.  Of course, they didn't, because those wise women are not interested in helping other parents top their mess with something pretty.  They are interested with unpacking the box and sorting out the mess.


Someone had the idea of keeping a small notebook of games to play while walking or taking the bus, to make the trip more interesting.  So I wrote a few down and the next time we left the house, we played some games.  I talked to her and found out that she was feeling really frustrated about not having a car and I sympathized.

But the most important thing was that I had to let go of my insistence on doing things my way.  I started asking her before we left whether she preferred to walk or take the bus that day.  She has chosen to walk almost every time, which I thought she would regret on days when, for instance, that means walking a mile to gymnastics class, doing the class, then walking a mile home at 8 o'clock at night.  The girls have both gotten tired, but I didn't resort to "I told you so."  Instead we found solutions for that!  I stopped rushing them and started just enjoying the walk myself.  Last night we stopped at every street and driveway so they could sit down, I would count to 10, and then they would jump up again and skip and bound happily to the next driveway where they would sit down again.  Did they burn more calories this way than if they had just quietly walked?  Yah, probably.  Were they happy and enjoying themselves in spite of not having a car?  Yes!  We all pried ourselves out of that sticky spot and starting flowing again.



All of that got me thinking about the ways people keep themselves stuck.  I have been reading a lot lately about the power of our thoughts and how they affect our emotions and actions.  When we say "I am..." we are saying that is The Way I Am Period.  It leaves no room for change or growth.  One thing that I said on the Always Learning discussion was "I just don't 'get' people and emotional stuff."  I have told myself "I am not good at relationships and connecting with people." So even though I do try and I have grown and gotten better over the years, I have been convinced that no matter what I do it will only allow me to do a passable job of connecting, to maybe manage not to raise kids who need weekly therapy, but that I will never be as good at it as those people who are just naturally good at it.  I'm going to do another post about just what the heck it means to be "good at connecting with people" anyway, but my point is that thinking that way is keeping me stuck and I'm not going to do it anymore.

I have also said, "I am just not good at remembering names and faces," but now I am saying "I'm learning to remember names and faces better," and I got a book from the library called  Remember Every Name Every Time: Corporate America's Memory Master Reveals His Secrets.

What does this have to do with unschooling?  One thing that makes unschooling work is the willingness and ability to find out things you don't already know.  Kids ask a lot of questions and parents don't always have the answers, but we do have the resources to find the answers if we are willing.  But we have to be willing to stop saying "I am not good at math/ I am too impatient/ I am too poor to give my kids a rich life experience" and start saying "I am learning more math as my kids learn it/ I am remembering to just breath when I feel impatient/ I am finding lots of free things to do and saving money for something big."

So, what about you?  In what ways have you been stuck in the past and how did you get things flowing again?  Have any of those times helped your relationship with your kids or others?