Movin' On: Helping Preschoolers When Friends Move Away

 NOTE: This post appeared previously on The Chicago Moms Blog in June 2010.

We just got word that our closest friends in Chicago are moving. Moving back East, moving away from here, moving away from us. I am so sad - of course I am - these friends are loyal and kind, and they understand the challenges of raising a young family far from the benefits of grandparents and extended family. I can't count the times that one of us has come to the other's aid, watching the kids when a husband was supposed to be home in time for an appointment or a meeting, or doing a weeknight dinner together when the husbands were both traveling. And what about all the fun we had? Adjusting to their departure is going to be major.

But enough about me.

I have no idea how to help my four year old son manage this process. He was 14 months old when we moved to Chicago, and the two girls in this family were his first friends. He goes to school with the younger sister, and I sort of think they believe they are related. Frequently I find them hugging and sharing some kind of secret - they spend more time together than they do with any other friends.
When I told my son these friends were moving, he just burst into tears. I think that he understands the concept because my husband and I know that his career will likely take us even further West, and we try to casually mention that we probably won't live in the same house forever. But the concepts of time and space are so challenging for our little concrete thinkers! When he started to cry, I was shocked. Well, and I started to cry, too - empathy tears: His pain was becoming my pain.

How do I help him cope with the loss of friends without dragging the process out forever? Should I just wait for issues to come up or should I preempt them with questions and conversation? As it is, my son kept coming up with ideas to get around the reality of the move. He insisted that he could stand on the roof of our house, grow wings, and fly to visit them whenever he wanted. Then he got real, and said we should make a special trip up from New York, where we vacation, to Boston to see them. Then he figured he could work in a little bonus for himself, suggesting that we meet them for a ball game at Fenway. So, he's still a four year old - that's encouraging!

He is, however, going to have to work through his feelings about all of this, and I am sure there will be times when it isn't pretty. That's okay. He''ll struggle with it, even if I'm not so sure how to help him figure it all out.



This is an original Chicago Moms Blog post. Thanks to Suat Eman for the photo, courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Teach Your Children Well: Reflections on Discipline

We have entered the dreaded "talking back" phase with the Talker. He is doing his "job" as an intelligent, headstrong 5 year old by pushing on our boundaries to see how far he can go.  This is all well when we are not in the "heat of the moment," attempting to guide him towards positive behaviors. In those hot moments, things can get ugly pretty quickly.  Add a new infant to the family and our general parental exhaustion, and you have a recipe for some seriously ineffective discipline.

I like to think that I am a patient person - but in these moments (or sometimes hours, or -gulp- days), I am humbled by my own lack of control over my own emotions.  Family teaches us so many positive lessons in life - but there are some doozies mixed in, too. My own father recently reminded me to avoid parenting from my emotions. In those "doozy moments," parenting with detachment is vital to retaining our sanity and self-control as adults. I don't think he equates detachment with passivity, however. Doling out consequences without shouting or losing control is the key.  And of course logical consequences is also key.

Recently, the Runner and the Talker resolved their own doozy in a unique way. We have been working on building the Talker's understanding of empathy and caring for others, starting with family members. When a disagreement between them began to heat up, the Runner regained parental control of the situation by engaging our son in an intellectual manner - which happens to be his preferred method of using his brain. Together, they wrote a prayer that focused on the Talker's development only. The prayer was typed and shared with me on the coveted iPad, complete with a Celtic Cross in the background. The Runner has promised to print and frame it so that the Talker can say the prayer each morning and each night as a reminder of the emotional and interpersonal skills he is working on. A constructive end to what began as a blood boiler.

Creative parenting, perhaps. This resolution took the focus away from the power struggle between the big dad and the small boy and changed it to a collaboration that allowed the Talker to understand a few of the "long term goals" his parents happen to have for him. Be compassionate. Be kind. Be respectful.

Amen.

Education Reform Belongs to All Americans

My dear friend and fellow blogger, Cristie Ritz King, wrote passionately about the topic of education reform today.  It's a HOT topic this week, with the release of the documentary Waiting For Superman and Oprah's week-long series on the topic.  Take a look at what this intelligent mom and former public school teacher has to say.  She's smart, compassionate, and honest.

http://jerseymomsblog.com/2010/09/29/moms-and-kids-rallying-around-newark/

Eating is a Celebration of Life!

"Keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the cosmos, the trees, the clouds, everything."

-Thich Nat Hahn

"What would happen if we were to start thinking about food as less of a thing and more of a relationship? In nature, that is of course precisely what eating has always been: relationships among species in systems we call food chains, or food webs, that reach all the way down to the soil."

-Michael Pollan

Food. Is it wrong to experience food as something spiritual? Is it weird to teach my children that there is a relationship, as Pollan calls it, between what we put in our bodies and how we feel about them?  Don't get me wrong. I am unequivocally NOT a health nut.  I eat ice cream almost every day, and I love a scone or a giant cookie with a steaming cup of green chai at about 4 o'clock. And I never feel guilty about those pleasures.  Food is pleasurable.

But I also believe that attending to your health by being mindful of what you put in your body (or don't) and what you do with it (or don't) is a powerful expression of gratitude (or carelessness, or selfishness), especially to our Creator, and for that matter, to our loved ones. This concept does, of course, naturally extend to encompass how we understand our own value and what we do with that understanding. If we know ourselves to be the precious, priceless individuals we truly are, we act accordingly.

As I continue to learn about the intricate connections among the relationships in nature, of which we are a powerful part, I am coming to the conclusion that I want my children to understand where their food comes from and how it gets to our table. If we are to raise good stewards of the Earth, it seems pretty clear that our generation has a lot to learn about food and how it comes to be. We have begun in our home by staying as local as we possibly can. I am less concerned with organic farming and more concerned with locality, versatility, and sustainability. And though I never want to see an animal suffer in life, I am absolutely not opposed to harvesting animals for meat. We are omnivores, after all.

But for now, I am left to consider the food culture in our family. Our lives speed along at break-neck speed, making that 30-minute meal even more valuable. I think that many families and parents of my generation are beginning to grapple with the rat race (we all have to work to stay in the black!) that keeps us from focusing our energy on either maintaining or developing a healthy food culture in our homes. Actually, I think most of us feel that "something" is missing from our family cultures - we're not sure what that is just yet. At our house my husband and I are in a food culture transition. A few months ago we watched Food, Inc., a documentary about commercial meat production and its ramifications. It was horrifying. I discussed it a bit on my other blog, The Breezeway and on Chicago Moms Blog. After some discussion, we joined a CSA (community supported agriculture) that provides us with meat every other month. We try to shop the farmers' market in our town, and we have all but decided to join another CSA for fruits and vegetables next spring.

That is what we are doing. Putting our money where our mouths are running, because yes, it is more expensive and time-consuming to eat this way. But I don't consider that the real challenge. The real challenge will take our lifetimes to master: developing and defining our family's food culture so that it reflects our values - and not necessarily just those that focus on food. Because life seems to be, after all, a dynamic relationship between our bodies, our souls, our homes, and our planet.

Let's Get This Show on the Road.

I'm not sure what's keeping me from making this blog happen. I am definitely not empty of ideas or opinions, that is for certain! I think it's a classic case of self-induced pressure + writer's block. A dear friend of mine reminded me (via her excellent blog, The Traveling Circus) recently that I really shouldn't let perfection be the enemy of good. I think I fall prey to that logic too often - wallowing in a sometimes-obsessive need for perfection while sitting very still.

If it were New Year's Day, or Lent, I'd have one hell of a resolution.

Perhaps I should just deal with it in real time, though. Not wait for that golden opportunity to arrive in which I can easily change...I suppose this is because change is likely the toughest challenge we can ever face as individuals. If you truly want to modify something about the way to face the world - it takes honest-to-God dedication and hard work! Am I up for that? If I took the easy way out, I'd wait for Lent.  If I would go ahead and take care of this annoying shortcoming, then I'd at least be writing.

Homecoming

Up those stairs in that little back bedroom is where I did my homework and I learned to play guitar...
...You leave home, you move on, and you do the best you can...
-Miranda Lambert, "The House the Built Me"


There are important places in childhood: the football field behind my parents' house, our neighborhood pool in the summer, various friends' homes. In addition to my parents' home, these places are responsible for shaping my life.

One home stands tall among these important places - the home of my childhood best friend, now that godmother of our little daughter. At the end of this month, her parents will sell this house, where they lived for over 30 years, and they will move up the coast to live closer to family.  They leave behind a complex web of connections among friends and neighbors who are sure to feel the loss of their regular company.

But this house...I can close my eyes and I am there.  I am an 11 year old girl, flying back and forth on the long rope swing in the yard, belting our Whitney Houston's "The Greatest Love of All," now playing "bank" with other girls: almost-sisters, really, three and six years younger than me - and not minding a bit.  Now hiding out with my best friend - now maybe 12 - behind the mostly unused bar in the basement - avoiding those same younger girls.  Sitting, 15 now, damp after swim team practice, wrapped in a towel and chilly in the air conditioning - eating dry cereal with a cold glass of milk nearby.  Getting endless good-natured grief (to this day!) for that odd little habit.  Friday night takeout from Continental Pizza, where my friends' dad would consistently make a gigantic stink about making sure his daughter's steak and cheese sub had absolutely NO black pepper on it.  He insisted to the staff at the restaurant that she would die if they put it on.  (No, really, he did.)  The package containing her sub routinely arrived with the initials WD - which, naturally, stood for "Woman Dies."  I mean, of course it did, right?  I can't count the number of Sunday mornings I went back to their house for brunch after Mass - where the entire six person family would sit talking for hours - hours! - about everything from the homily to schoolwork to debating current events.  And now I'm 32, coming by late at night - the night before their youngest daughter is to be married - to introduce our 3 month old girl - and they stayed up just to see us.

What a safe place their home was.  That vibe, that environment, doesn't happen without planning, without effort.  I admire - and often hope to emulate - the conscientious work that my dear friends' parents did to develop and maintain that open, generous, and warm tone in their home. Family was always, always first.  An effort to do nothing together - to have no specific agenda except to enjoy one another - is perhaps the deepest mark this family has made on my own hopes for our young family.

Enjoying the company of my children can be a tough one on my off, tired days - but when I bring some awareness to these tiny moments of being together - just hanging out - it brings me great joy to be near them.  A real conversation at the dinner table - one that lasts much longer than the food, when everyone stays because they want to stay and be together - great joy and love are present in those moments.  I am grateful to have been privileged to spend time at that table where I enjoyed hundreds of meals, snacks, and chats about almost-nothing.  And though the location of that table is about to change, its purpose will remain the same: the magnetic center of honest family joy.

Developing Meaning

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.

                                                                                             Marcel Proust

At the start of 2010, I began thinking about our family and the ways we engage each other and the world around us.  As a stay-at-home/work-at-home parent, I was feeling disconnected from my community.  This disconnection probably has a lot to do with the phrentic pace inherent in raising small children.  But my background in education and community service work was nagging at me, and I couldn't ignore that little voice in my head any longer.

Through conversations with my husband and a few friends, I decided to chronical my exploration of focused decision making, development of family traditions and rituals, and community engagement.  I often feel like I need a reminder to make decisions - big and small - with the best interests of our family at heart.  I don't just mean "family time" a few times a week or prioritizing church service on Sunday.  I mean making a clear and conscientious effort to have our decisions be ones that make a positive impact: connecting us with others, urging us along our journey to become our best selves.

I'm not exactly sure what this vision will even look like in our daily lives.  It's just time to urge it into being.