eggs, pancakes, and bridges

The conversation at breakfast this morning focused on feelings and giving value and attention to our children’s feelings. But the question arose: how do you bridge the gap between the kid’s feelings and concern for others feelings?

I like to think that modeling is enough. If we focus on our kids feelings, honoring them, responding to them, and express our own feelings as well, then children will automatically care about another person’s feelings. But my opinion was challenged this morning. Are we teaching children that only their feelings matter?

What do you think?

Does a kid have to go to school and get beat up to understand that hitting hurts?

Do they have to have an insult hurled at them to recognize that words hurt?

What is the bridge?

i feel… tired

Even with every intention of keeping things simple, all that loving we’ve been receiving has worn us out.

2 grammas

2 great grammas

2 granpas

2 uncles

2 aunts

2 neighborhood girlfriends for xi

and more…

We’re not complaining, well actually I guess we are. Not about the showering of love, we want that, but about things kids complain about when choosing love showers over sleep. Like snacks not being quite right,  sisters using the exact toy they were just about to use, finding missing shoes.

I can’t point fingers either. Today I pulled myself together enough to use the preferred phrasing: “I am feeling really frustrated.”

But then I added with great force: “BY YOU TWO!”

Oh well. I’ll try again. And again. And again.

i feel… love

We took those plane rides to get to this guy.

It was his birthday on Saturday and a huge team of helpful loving people worked together to surprise him on his 65th birthday. My loving partners Kris and Nathan are holding down the Feeleez fort while I am away, my mom secretly picked us up at the airport and showered us with grandmotherly love (including paintings sessions in her beautiful studio), my stepdad made meals for us, and my stepmom bought the airfare and concocted this grand plan to give my Dad the BEST GIFT he could imagine. And surprised he was! We walked in to the party like regular guests and SHOCKED him. He was in a hazy daze of love and gratitude for several hours.

Echo leaped into Grandpa’s arms and stayed there the duration of the party. Watching these girls flourish under the safe wings of their extended family makes me think: even if you make every parenting “mistake” in the book, if you can surround your children with people that adore them and love them unconditionally you are doing them a great service.

do over…(airplane style) or, “they were so good!”

Xi, Echo, and I just got off an airplane. The girls had had plenty of food, water, sleep, and entertainment, so we were fortunate, they had a good time. Inevitably we received that particular comment that makes me squirm: “Oh your girls were so good!”

I feel squrimy about it because the girls are good people no matter what kind of experience they have on an airplane. So I wonder what that person means. Does she mean they were quiet? Does she mean she wasn’t too bothered by my parenting style?

A do over of this interaction, for me, would include talking about the feelings that fellow traveler was having.

What if she said: Oh I feel so grateful that your kids were content. I feel so anxious when I hear children crying. I am happy that everyone had a good time!

or: I feel so relieved that your children were quiet. I am so nervous when I am on a plane and I was worried that their noises would make me feel more agitated.

or: I feel so great being around children so I am so happy that the girls were entertained. It gave me an opportunity to watch and enjoy them.

or: I feel really terrible when I see people parenting poorly, so I was happy to see that we agree on how to treat children.

even if they said: I am so glad your kids kept their mouths shut! I’ve had a hard day and loud, upset kids is the last thing I needed. 

I would even appreciate the last version. I want real conversations that reflect the particulars of each person’s perspective and the feelings that come with it. I want the girls to know they are good people even if they feel upset on an airplane. I want them to know that all there ever is feelings and reactions.

cut and paste empathy

The Rescuers is a book about two mice rescuing an orphan girl named Penny from a raging red head bent on finding diamonds. They are successful, of course, but in the end she is not reunited with her parents and family because she has none.

Let’s remember that in our house the large frying pan must be snuggled with the small frying pan because they are mother and baby. So the fact that Penny is still without a mother even after her traumatic adventure is too much for Echo, just too painful. So one night after  bucketfulls of hugs and:

“I know you’re really sad. You want Penny to be with her mom. Oh wow you’re really sad!”,

with no end in sight to the tears, we got out of bed and found the pens, scissors, and glue. I squeezed a mom in between Penny and the newsman (who is acting as a papa).

Sometimes empathy can look like this, not the “right” series of words thrown at a crying child, but a way of seeing them and their world, a way of being with them through their struggles, and in this case literally crafting a solution.

you just never know

Our Feeleez poster is on the way to the bathroom, so must of our impromptu poster sessions come not during a particularly emotional moment but more from a passing opportunity. And the longer the poster is up the more we find out about our kids. They are not always pointing to what they are feeling, more often they use is at a jumping off point to talk to us about their world. In this video we find out that for Echo each Feeleez is either a mama, a papa, or a kid, highlighting for us once again how highly she values kids being with their parents.

so your kid is looking at you like this…

So your kid is looking at you like this. Where do you even begin? Hard to name this one, and let’s be honest, a series of “are you feeling mad?, “are you feeling angry?”, “are you feeling…?” might not be welcome. So what to do? In this case you might want to scroll through your mental list of what your child needs and start there. Here are some common needs:

empathy

love

safety

trust

belonging

air


food


movement/exercise


sleep 


safety


shelter


touch


water

honesty

play

joy


humor

harmony

order

creativity

to matter

choice


freedom


independence


space

Space. Now that one might apply in this situation. You never know.

conversations…

Here is a conversation between Echo (2) and Elliott (4) while walking to the bathroom at a campground.

Elliott: I’ll show you where to go because I know where to go because I’ve done this before so I know where to go I’ll show you.

Echo: Because you were here yesterday? Were you here yesterday? You did this yesterday?

Elliott: yeah.

Elliott: My dad left for work yesterday. I feel real sad about that but I still talk. Do you cry a whole lot when your dad goes to work?

Echo: Well I miss my Papi.

Elliott: Yeah well guess what?! My dad comes home tomorrow and you are welcome to come over anytime! I feel HAPPY about that.

Then later after a long day Echo didn’t want to get in the car seat. I waited, miserably breathing deeply, while she climbed around the van pretending to drive.

Me: Echo I really want to go. I’m not having a good time and I want to go home.

Echo: Well I’m driving us there! Get in your seat!

Me: I don’t really want to play this game.

Echo: Well I’m driving. FUCKING!! SHIT!

Me: (silence)

Echo: Are you sad?

Me: A little.

Echo: (sweetly) Oh I’m sorry sweet baby you can drive.

Me: I can? Will you get in the car seat then so I can drive?

Echo: NO! I’m not ready. I’M DRIVING! Mom I need the keys.

Me: Honey I don’t want you to have the keys because they start the car and that isn’t safe.

Echo: I NEED the keys! FUCKING!

15 minutes later…

Echo: I’m sorry you’re upset. I’m so sorry.

Me: Why are you sorry?

Echo: I’m sorry for …(jibber jabber nonsense).

Me: (sigh)

15 minutes later…

Echo: I’ll put my baby in her seat and get ALL organized and then we can go.

Echo: O.K. I’m ready.

no where to hide

I don’t think we’ve ever mentioned this before but Echo can hear thoughts. She pulls ideas, words, names, straight out of our heads on a regular basis.

She will look at Bella and say: “Bella’s thinking about lemonade stands.”

And we say:  ”Hey Bella whatcha thinkin’ about?”

And Bella says: “lemonade stands”.

What this means for us as her family members is that there are no secrets, no lies. What we say has to match what we feel and think. There is no fooling. Often even if I keep silent about something Echo will say: “What Mama!” She is irritated by my duplicity.

What I’ve realized is that a child does not have to be a mind reader to recognize when a parent’s thoughts and feelings don’t match their words. In fact we want to encourage their awareness of all the subtle cues involved in communication for that awareness is necessary for empathy. We want children to notice the slump of a friend’s shoulders and wonder if they are sad. We want them to see the crinkle of a forehead and feel concern.

If we, their parents, are seething mad but say to them instead (with a fake smile): “Oh honey, I’m fine. So what did you say you wanted to eat?”, what we are teaching them is to ignore their natural understanding of emotions.

If we want our kids to care about another person and their feelings then we actually have to express our feelings! It seems counterintuitive but if we want to teach them to care when someone is mad then when we are mad we need to scream out ” I am so mad right now!!!”. Do not hide your thoughts and feelings. You are not helping your children.

love and clutter

We have a new dear one in the house.

I spent many months (maybe even a couple years), declaring our house too small for another pet, especially one with a cage that would share the minuscule amount of available shelf space. I turned down requests from the girls for a rat, a hamster, a baby mouse, a gerbil, even though I myself desperately ADORE animals, and even made a promise to myself when I was a young girl that when I had kids I would say yes to every animal they asked for. Yet I said NO.

I often feel overwhelmed with the objects in our lives. The random bits and pieces that clutter the kitchen table, the work desk, the girls’ floor, the car, sometimes cause great anxiety for me. I actually feel upset by it all, and I figured if I could prevent the clutter I could prevent having feelings I dislike. So I said NO.

And then…I had one of those days where I felt my life passing, another day going by in my children’s lives, and I wondered why I was choosing to honor the anxiety brought by objects instead of the love I knew was in store when a small furry ball entered our family? It just didn’t seem worth it.

So I conspired with Papa and while he was with the girls I snuck away to the mall! I brought the little girl hamster back home and hid her hamster house in the basement. When the girls woke up the next morning they found her happily established in the middle of our work table, in the middle of the living room. The hamster house has tubes that stretch and twist, a jutting wheel, and a towering crows nest. In other words it does not tuck neatly away, quite the opposite.

But it is so worth it. Not only for the girls. I tuck that little hamster into my pocket as often as I can, basically attachment parenting a hamster. And the girls are OVERFLOWING with love. They cuddle her, sing to her, hold her in a hamster sling and rock her to sleep, they analyze her food levels and her every move. I feel Xi gazing at my profile and when I turn to her her face is filled with the look of someone actually in love, and she bats her eyes and says so slowly “thanks for getting us a hamster. “.

The hamster’s name is Vanilla and she is a reminder to me to never postpone this kind of joy again. I will no longer trade love for emotional safety.