Day 58: You Make Me Feel

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

A conversation on my Facebook wall today prompted me to think about this concept and how it relates to my children, namely what I model and teach them.

"How did that make you feel?"

"Did that make you feel angry?"

"That made me feel sad."

These are phrases I'm trying oh so hard to discard from my parenting repertoire. You may be asking yourself why. Emotional intelligence is so important and it begins with giving a child an emotional vocabulary and helping him connect with and understand what he's feeling. So these would be good phrases to use, right? Not quite.

Sad, angry and feel are great words, but make...not so much.

What I'm teaching Jackson each time I say this to him is that someone else's actions, feelings or words control his feelings. I'm unintentionally reinforcing the widely accepted idea (in our culture anyway) that someone else has the ability to decide whether we're okay or not. And in the process, I'm letting conditionality seep in to his unconditional world.

Instead of placing blame on a person or circumstance, I want to teach him to take ownership over his feelings and responsibility for what he does with them.

If he feels angry because a child took a toy from him, I don't want him to think that boy made me feel angry. I want him to think that boy took a toy from me and I feel angry about that. It may seem like an insignificant distinction, but I believe it's critical.

Placing responsibility and blame on the boy, the toy stealing or the feeling makes him a victim - a victim who has willingly surrendered his power to his assailant.

Seeing the experience as nothing more than something that happened and the feeling as something he has ownership over empowers him to do something about it. Instead of giving his power to his assailant, he retains that power and can direct it toward getting his toy back or accepting that the toy is gone and moving on.

I'd do well to remember this when he's "making" me feel frustrated or angry too! Because placing blame on someone else for my feelings disconnects me from the true source of that feeling. How can I see that my anger is arising out of a deeper fear or control issue if I put ownership for those feelings on him?

Feelings are God-given guideposts that shouldn't be ignored. They are a way to find healthy direction through life, and when we write them off as someone else's responsibility instead of paying them the attention they deserve, we take that away from ourselves.

So I'm in the process of replacing those phrases with others framed in a more accurate way:

"How do you feel about that?"

"I felt sad when that happened."

"Did you feel angry when that happened?"

And I'm purposefully connecting to the true source of my feelings, not the trigger. I hope doing so will keep my children from being conditioned by our culture's view of feelings.

Day 27: Yes I Can!

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

What you think of me, I'll think of me. 

And what I think of me, I'll be.

 This is a quote that was given to me by our dear Teacher Ellen at the completion of our first ECFE class when Jackson was just a few months old. As of recent, I've had the chance to really refocus on this concept.

I've been finding myself telling Jackson more often what he's not capable of: 

"You're showing me you can't control your body, so I'm going to help you." 

"If you can't stay by me, you'll have to ride in the cart." 

"You can't stack the DVD cases because you showed me you couldn't leave the discs in the case."

"We're going to put the microphone away because you showed me you weren't capable of keeping the cord out of your mouth." (Interesting side note: As we've started to take care of the candida, he's stopped chewing on everything!)

It seems innocent enough, but it's a game-changer. The more I tell him he can't, the less I see him showing me how capable he really is. I've tried to be very conscious and careful about outright labeling him, (You're shy...You're sensitive...), knowing that doing so puts him in a box that he may not break out of. But in focusing on the can'ts instead of the cans, I've been doing exactly the same thing. I'm deciding for him what he is and isn't capable of, and he's living up to those expectations. Why try when Mom has already decided I can't do it? 

It takes a lot of fortitude to prove someone wrong. Proving someone right, on the other hand, is an easier challenge to meet. So if he's going to prove me right, I  better give him the right thing to prove! The more I tell him he is capable, the more he'll feel capable. The more capable he feels, the more capable he shows me he is. Today I saw it in action. 

The coop has mini carts, and Jackson loves to feel like he's shopping independently. The only problem is that in the past, he's had too hard a time keeping his hands on his cart. It's not exactly a kid-friendly place: Scoops and bulk bins right at his level, tongs and fresh foods within reach - it's a whole foods playground in his eyes. Don't get me wrong, it's adorable when he holds up a jar of maple syrup to inspect the label and make sure it has green-light ingredients before adding it to his cart, but it's been impossible to keep him close and stop him from filling his cart with things we're not buying.

I've dealt with this by putting a ban on the shopping cart and wearing him on my back, but he still asks for the cart every time. Today when he asked I gave him the usual, "You've shown me that it's too hard to stay close and keep your hands to yourself so we're not going to use the cart." But as I started to put the carrier on I had a moment of clarity. It was time to practice what I'd been preaching to myself. 

I got down on his level and said, "Jackson, I changed my mind. I know you are capable of staying close and keeping your hands to yourself. I'd like to give you a chance to show me how capable you are." For 30 minutes we shopped together. He was all smiles and I could see how proud he was of himself, how responsible he felt. He needed a few reminders (which were all phrased positively, "I know you're capable, please show me.") and a little extra guidance by the end, but he really rose to the occasion. In fact he did so well that one of the other shoppers asked him, "Are you always this good at staying with Mommy?" He beamed when he said, "Yes!" 

Of course there isn't anything magical about this. It's not a tool to manipulate his behavior, nor is "hands to yourself" the goal. The goal is to instill confidence, to show trust, and to inspire him to fulfill his potential and grow. But if in the process the behavior happens to fall in line with what makes my life easier, I'll take the bonus!

Day 18: A Little Validation Goes a Long Way

I will choose to find a positive perspective under even the most negative circumstances.
I will choose acceptance over resistance.
I will choose to focus on the things I value about my children, not the things that drive me nuts.
I will choose to extend the same grace, love and forgiveness to myself that I try to lavish on my husband and children each day.

If you know me, you know I'm very confident in the choices I make for my family. And if you've met me, you've probably witnessed or heard something "crazy" because nearly all of the choices we make are well outside of mainstream. What you might not know, is that even I appreciate a little validation now and then. 

Don't get me wrong, my kids validate me every day. Every time Max nuzzles in closer to me at night or gives me a milky grin, I'm validated. And when I see Jackson communicating and relating to us and his peers (better than some adults I know!), I'm validated. But no matter how firm you are in your beliefs, your parenting philosophy, or your sense of self-worth, at some point a little external validation feels good. If for no other reason, then because it's a break from standing strong against all the criticism - spoken and unspoken. 

Outside of the political realm, there is no job that draws as much scrutiny as mothering. Everyone has an opinion about how your child should act and what you should do to make it that way. And if at any given moment you don't live up to those standards (God forbid someone's tired, hungry or having a bad day), your job performance in its entirety is called into question. 

You'd think it would go the other way - that when the behavior meets and exceeds standards, we would get accolades - but that's rarely the case. I can't count the number of times I've been told how "lucky" I am to have a healthy kid (yah, no thanks to his natural birth, two and a half years of breastfeeding and counting, or perfect nutrition) or a sweet kid (you're right, I taught him absolutely nothing about kindness, gentle communication, or empathy, nor did I give him emotional stability) or a bright kid (nope, must not have had anything to do with the 3 million books I read him, the constant narration and communication through our day or the time I spent playing with him).

The beautiful thing that has come to my life out of all this negativity is a community. There has never been a time in my life when I've been surrounded by so much loving support, probably because I've never needed it so much as I do now. No one can stand alone, not even me. And I have so many wonderful women (and children!) in my life now because all that scrutiny led me to seek out like-minded moms at La Leche League and Holistic Moms Network. When the weight of criticism, external expectations or just being a mom gets to be too much to carry on one set of shoulders, we all share the load.

With these women I feel understood and validated - something I don't get anywhere else. We don't all do things the same way, we don't even necessarily share the same philosophy, but we do share values. We value our children above all else (even outside approval) and we value our critical role in their lives. 

In a society that says mothering has no value because it's not a "job," we remind each other that what we're doing has infinitely more worth than anything else we could choose to do with our time and energy. That the lack of recognition has nothing to do with whether or not the job is important. And that someday we'll see the fruits of our labor, even if no one else acknowledges that they were a product of our efforts.

So I'll take the sideways glances and disapproving eyebrows, because I know without doubt that I'm doing is right for my kids. But more importantly, because without them I wouldn't have these meaningful relationships. It's truly a privilege to be part of such a supportive community.