Writer’s Workshop:Dear Teen, Love Mom

I am linking up again this week with Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop. For this week’s prompt I have chosen: A letter to your future teen.

My Darling Son,

You have grown so very fast. It seems like just yesterday I held your tiny 8.9lbs package of baby softness in my young arms and gazed into those big brown eyes for the very first time. In one heartbeat I experienced a level of love that I didn’t even know existed. The bond we developed came quick, strong and has stood the test of time.

That first year was such a scary one for us. You were sick, a lot. When you were 3 months old you had a surgery that scared the bejeezus out of me, but saved your life.

When you were a toddler I finally had to bite the bullet and get a job. I found a daycare that gave me my first job and allowed me to keep tabs on you. This was a traumatic time for us both, we had such bad separation anxiety! We sat on opposites side of a cold classroom door, crying our eyes out.

You had a few rough years of school, barely passing most years, but I knew you were smart! I studied with you every day and I’m sorry I made you redo all your school work, but by 4th grade you were pulling straight A’s and you’ve been an Honor student ever since!

To this day you are often close by my side. Always “hanging out” with me. I often joke that I must have done something wrong because I thought teenagers were supposed to be sulky, locking themselves away in their rooms and avoiding their family at all costs.

I hope this doesn’t change. I love that you welcome me into your life and share everything with me.You’ve told me your dreams and your plans to reach them, and I have vowed to help you every step of the way.

Mostly, I want to tell you how proud I am of you. I am so proud that you made it into the Honors Program. I am so proud of your priorities and how you take school so seriously. You know that as long as you do your best, I am proud of you, but you don’t use that as a crutch. You always push for more, better, higher.

And I also want to tell you, thank you. Thank you for teaching me to be a mother, for forgiving my mistakes and praising my successes.

Thank you for being you.

I love you always,

Mom

I don’t think there are words in existence that properly express the love a mother has for her children and there are an infinite number of reasons why my son is so special to me, I don’t think I could ever sum them up in a blog post, or ten.

A letter to your future teen.

A Second Serving Repost from @littlebitquirk

When I first started blogging I was a little nervous about how I would come across. Would my sarcasm and humor make me sound insensitive and possibly trivialize my daughter’s illness? It’s voices like Cheryl’s that shows me it’s ok. Because, people? If I couldn’t laugh here I would be all kinds a crazy!

W Is for Whack-A-Mole!

This is my 100th post! Wow! I’m also nearing 100 followers! This is so exciting to me. Yes, I excite very easily!

I’m participating again in Jenny Matlock’s Alphabe-Thursday. The gist of this meme is that Jenny features a different letter of the alphabet each week, and people who are involved write their post around that letter and link back to her post. Then, everyone who is participating reads as many blogs as possible, the idea being to increase your readership. The letter this week is W! I knew my “W” topic since last week: Whack-A-Mole!

One thing I learned about autism is that treating it is like a big whack-a-mole game. You focus therapies on eliminating some behaviors. For example, one of the first behaviors we tackled with our daughter was her rigidity. If things didn’t go her way, she would meltdown faster than Chernobyl. She dropped her grape on the ground? Huge tantrum! Time to leave preschool? Huge tantrum! I’d make a left turn driving when she wanted me to turn right? Huge tantrum! The behavior therapy to increase her flexibility started off pretty successfully. She learned how to say, “Oh, well!” if something didn’t go the way she wanted. But then something weird happened: a new behavior cropped up!

My daughter started to get really ritualistic. If we didn’t go through our routines in the exact way each day, then she would have meltdowns. Our behaviorist told us that this is totally normal. Oftentimes, when treating autistic children, eliminating one behavior just creates a new one to crop up. For some kids with autism, there’s always going to be some behavior, you just try to find the behavior that you can live with the most.

Of course, even after a behavior is “eliminated,” it’s still bound to come popping up again at a different time!

Ironically, my daughter did really well playing a Whack-a-Mole game the last time she was at Chuck E. Cheese. Coincidence? I think not!

 

A Second Serving Repost from @LAchildtherapy

Please welcome Miven! This article highlights one of my personal petpeeves. I often come across conversations on Twitter and other blogs that preach the “right way” to parent. I personally feel that educated parents should not be judged for their educated choices and I feel that uneducated parents should be supported and inform rather than judged and scolded…

Shouting at Each Other to Stop Shouting

Posted on November 10, 2010 by Miven Trageser

Last week,  more of what are sometimes called the mommy wars erupted. I found my way into it when The Daily Beast tried to dress up a non-controversial, quiet parenting philosophy that I have written about into a snazzy, titillating form by calling it a “secret celebrity parenting craze,” and intimating that it is like a cult. (It is called RIE, which stands for Resources for Infant Educarers, and you can learn more about it here). That coincided with Erica Jong publishing a provocative essay in the Wall Street Journal criticizing all sorts of aspects of modern American parenting culture, especially attachment parenting. About all that RIE and attachment parenting have in common is a conscious focus on parenting and that in itself turns out to be upsetting to people right now.

The Daily Beast story bounced around and drew a lot of passionate comments. People from the RIE organization even commented on the story, in the glare of their oft-misunderstood philosophy getting such unaccustomed attention. This is because of the essence of RIE– a philosophy of doing less, observing more, slowing down, being present, and respecting the perspective of your baby is hard to get publicity for, even harder to make controversial or titillating.

A hubbub arose. First Lisa Belkin’s NYTimes Motherlode blog covered the Beast’s story and connected it to Erica Jong’s remarks about attachment parenting; A few other sites copied the Beast story and drew comments. Then Belkin published a guest post defending attachment parenting and asking Jong to “quit blaming mothers for all the things the feminist movement has left undone.” Jong wrote a direct letter to Belkin. In all of this, everyone seems to think that everyone else is ignoring the important political and social activism that ‘we’ clearly need.

In all of it, scores of comments on these blogs said essentially, ‘get rid of all the parenting methods. Everyone should just stop fussing, thinking and advising so much about parenting. Leave us alone, damn it.’  I found it striking and ironic that there were so many voices rising up, some quite angrily, asking to be left alone about their parenting, while reading a parenting blog and commenting on it thoughtfully and passionately. In other words, people were asking for less stress and focus on their parenting, while focusing on it a bit hysterically. Why?

It seemed that some kind of “the lady dost protest too much” phenomenon was happening. If we shouldn’t discuss and worry about parenting, then what are we doing discussing this on a parenting site? We can’t stop ourselves. We are shouting at each other to stop shouting. Who is really shouting?

What I hear as a therapist (here and in my office) is that people feel judged as parents for almost any choices they make. They are hearing each other’s voices as intrusive, almost assaultive, even when they are not. These parents commenting online are essentially saying, “get off of me!” I believe that no one is on them. Still they feel some kind of real attack, and the emotional state of being under attack leads to more attack which I’m calling shouting at each other to stop shouting.

I think most of the judgment is internally generated, not from these imagined persecutors outside. I have another post coming about the dearth of curious, open dialogue among parents (i.e. how did you decide to let him/her walk there alone? How did you think about and decide to let her get her ears pierced?). It is something we need more of and might be a balm to our souls. Does anyone want to venture their thoughts about why our generation is so prone to guilt and perfectionism about parenting?

ps. As a former journalist, I can imagine the scene at the Sexy Beast section of the Daily Beast when the RIE story is pitched. The editor is telling the writer, “Sorry, Felicity Huffman and William Macy –not sexy enough. I can’t really run this until you get someone younger and hotter. Is Gisele doing it, or Heidi and Seal, Nicole, anyone?”

About Miven Trageser

Miven Trageser is a writer and therapist living in Los Angeles.

View all posts by Miven Trageser →

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Bipolar Tuesday: Get Over It Mom!

Image by mdanys via Flickr

When LeBella rages it can often feel like she’s out to kill me a personal attack. Some of the words she throws at me are so venomous and laden with hate they feel like physical blows. It’s so very hard not to get caught up in the storm. The desire to spit the hateful words back can be overwhelming (I am not proud of feeling that way). I have to swallow the words like so much bile. I have to replace them with words of love, of calmness and peace.

I find myself looking into vacant eyes, trying desperately to play peacemaker even as I am attacked repeatedly. When she escalates into breaking things (this degree of escalation is now few and far between) my main focus is keeping her from hurting herself on shards of glass.

And then, like wind disappearing from the sails of a boat. She’s done. It’s over. She turns doe eyes up to me. She opens her arms seeking an embrace, an oasis from her self created storm. She whispers words of love beseechingly, almost begging for it.

Image by lanuiop via Flickr

And what is a mother to do? There’s no secret trick here. No qualified advice from an overpaid expert. There is only her and I. I wrap my arms around her and tell her I love her. We don’t talk about the mean words that were said. She has all but forgotten the fit. An emotional seizure some call it. And I do the only thing I can. I get over it. I let it go.

Does your child have rages or fits? There are lots of ways to help them calm down and planning can help prevent some meltdowns.

If you’re angry at a loved one, hug that person.  And mean it.  You may not want to hug – which is all the more reason to do so.  It’s hard to stay angry when someone shows they love you, and that’s precisely what happens when we hug each other.  ~Walter Anderson, The Confidence Course: Seven Steps to Self-Fulfillment

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• 8 Ways to Help Your Bipolar Loved One Cope (beliefnet.com)

Bipolar Tuesday: Soothing Techniques

 

Image by Pink Sherbet Photography via Flickr

LeBella gets worked up. Often. Sometimes it’s just an “out of sorts” deal, and sometimes it’s a full on rage. A rage includes lots of cursing, crying and breaking of things. We have all learned various ways of avoiding some of her triggers (though the boys sometimes do it on purpose, because, hello, brothers). But we’re no saints and we can’t walk on egg shells 24/7. I also recognize the importance of LeBella learning to deal with her emotions. That all being said here are my top 6  methods of helping LeBella calm down and soothe her achy soul:

Run the Mommy Checklist: This was one of first Parenthood Lessons, though we may not realize how long it’s relevant. Is she hungry? Tired? Uncomfortable? Did she get her meds on time? Is she feeling okay? A snack or some down time might be just what the mommy ordered!
A brisk walk around the block: Sometimes her agitation is due to too much energy, sometimes she just needs a change of scenery or to be separated from who/whatever is agitating her.
A warm/bath: She has some definite sensory issues that we are working on in OT. When she is out of control due to over-stimulation a warm bath does the trick. If she needs a little bit more than that, I’ll wash her hair for her. Why? Have you ever had your hair washed in a salon? If so, you know how incredibly relaxing it is.
Give her some blank paper and crayons (or markers, whatever): At times her little mind is like a cyclone. It’s spinning, nearly out of control, sucking in whatever’s near by and spitting things out with vigor. Drawing gives her an outlet for some of those thoughts. And, by the way, I didn’t come up with this metaphor myself. I once asked her to draw me a picture of how she felt inside and that’s basically what she drew.
Occupy her hands and mind: sometimes a little busy work helps her get re-centered. A small puzzle, play doh, lacing activities and legos.
Breathing: I have taught LeBella to use breathing techniques to help calm her body and bring an accelerated heart rate back down to normal. She still needs reminders but I know eventually this will become a nature response for her.

I am always looking for more ways to improve my parenting and give my children the best possible tools for life. I recently came across an article on Ezine Articles about Emotional Freedom Technique. I have recently become a believer in the power of positive thinking (Thank you MiscMama) and I look forward to learning (and sharing) more about this technique!

Posted with love by Mommylebron

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• How to Keep Your Cool: 12 Tips for Staying Calm Under Pressure (dumblittleman.com)
• Judith Acosta, LISW, CHT: ‘Kid Whispering’: Keeping Children Safe With Verbal First Aid (huffingtonpost.com)
• How ADHD Affects Emotional Development (brighthub.com)