I Speak of Dreams

Underground Moms

I guess I'd have to say I am an underground grandmother, as my youngest will turn 21 in December. But I was definitely a free-range mother, and do what I can to support my two stepsons & daughters-in-law in fear-free parenting. Go check out the website, http://www.undergroundmoms.com/ . Some of my favorite moms who blog are there:

• Sara Bennett  Author of blog Stop Homework and book The Case Against Homework: How Homework Is Hurting Our Children & What We Can Do About It
• Squillo, from the blog Confutata
• EstherAr, from the blog Mainstream Parenting Resources
• Rational Moms

What are "Underground Moms?"

Underground Moms are not different from other moms in most ways: just trying to raise our kids and live our lives.  What’s different is that we try to examine the parenting culture we are swimming in, a culture that has brought us baby knee pads, professional babyproofers and prime time specials on child abductions.  Not to mention Baby Einstein.  (Do you know what the real Einstein played with as a child?  He built card houses.  So much for “educational DVDs”.)

All together, it is a culture that induces unnecessary self-doubt and fear in parents–fear that our children will be harmed, poisoned, slowed down, snatched, or bored for even a second.  At Underground Moms we look at where these assumptions come from, which ones merit buying into and which ones should be fought, for our sake and the sake of our precious kids.  We believe in freeing them from the restrictions that are baseless, and freeing ourselves from the extra guilt and worry.  In other words, it’s a liberation movement!  But so far without a good song!

I plan to work my way  through the blogs new to me.  Go over and take a look.

Infant signing

The fad of "teaching your baby to sign" came along after Jumper Girl started talking. I thought of it as another example of pretentious parenting (or hyper-parenting).

Now I may have to modify my stance a bit--both informal and formal gesture use may help with language development.  Check out the article at the Child Psychology Research blog:

Worthy New Blog: Child Pyschology and Parenting Research

From the editor of Austism Research, Nestor Lopez-Duran:

Child-Psych.org was created by the editor of www.translatingautism.com, to provide commentary on the latest scientific findings on child disorders, parenting, and child development. We will be updating the blog several times per week with reviews of scientific studies, books, films, and discussions on media reports concerning a number of related topics such as child development, parenting, especial education, and neurodevelopmental disorders. We hope that parents, clinicians, and educators find this blog entertaining and informative. If you have any questions please contact us at info@child-psych.org

Whitney on Stuart Brown: Lighten Up, Parents

Reading Whitney.

How do we get parents to lighten up? After talking with Dr. Stuart Brown, I am convinced that we are sucking not only all the danger out of play, but all the learning and creativity out of it, but insisting that structured and supervised activities are the only marks of quality- when sometimes, kids learn more from free play and goofing around than from any adult structured project. As much as we’re all scared to death of what could happen, (pedophiles, broken bones, name your horror here) most of this stuff is incredibly rare, and in the name of helicopter parent-like safety, we may actually be depriving our kids from learning the skills they need to be independent adults. And if they don’t get safe practice as kids, they will be woefully underprepared for the real world.

It's Not Like You Think, from Doctor V

Doctor V is Bryan Vartabedian, M.D., author of Colic Solved, who blogs at Parenting Solved.   He has three new blog posts:

• Should Kids Eat Snow?
• Are Food Allergy Deaths Overstated?
• Paul Offit Criticizes the Sears Vaccine Schedule

Check it out. 

I just ordered First Foods as a gift for my daughter-in-law.

It's Getting-Along-With-The-Relatives Season -- You Can Influence the Emotional Weather

  reposting from 2003.  Cause it is still useful.

Many of us spend the holidays with relatives who, well, can be challenging.  The uncle who tells pointless jokes.  The grandmother who only complains and never notices the good stuff.  Somebody's whiny, uncivilized child. 

Is this going to ruin your holiday?  It doesn't have to.

Here are some ways to change the emotional weather.

Do at least 5 minutes of "grateful noticing" every hour.  We can mention out loud our gratitude for the people who are egg farmers,so we can have eggs for breakfast.   You can be grateful for some natural or manmade feature that you find pleasant.  One difficult Thanksgiving, my daughter and I were grateful for  the doves who migrate, so we could hear them calling on the lawn.  We were grateful for the warmth, so that we could go barefoot and feel the smoothness of the tile floor.  And so on and so on and so on. 

It sounds dopey and Pollyannaish.  But you know, it seems to work.  The deal is, you have to say your gratitude out loud so other people can hear it.  If nothing else, it keeps the person speaking in a pleasant mood.

My mom used to harp on some poor decisions I'd made.  I'd stock up on some phrases before the visit, such as

"Yeah, that wasn't too swift, was it?"
"I'm sure I'd do it differently, today"
"That was then, this is now"

So she'd get started in on criticising, and I would pick one phrase, and stick with it.  (Jim Fay calls this "the broken record" technique, when he teaches it to parents as a way to defuse conflict with teens.  It works!  )  Even if my blood pressure rose, or I got mad, I didn't escalate a fight.  I'd just stick with my phrase, and then try to go do something else active.  It made it so the upset could only get close to me, I didn't have to wear it all day.

Another powerful technique comes from Tibetan Buddhism, the practice called tonglen.

In particular, to care about other people who are fearful, angry, jealous, overpowered by addictions of all kinds, arrogant, proud, miserly, selfish, mean– you name it– to have compassion and to care for these people, means not to run from the pain of finding these things in ourselves. In fact, one's whole attitude toward pain can change. Instead of fending it off and hiding from it, one could open one's heart and allow oneself to feel that pain, feel it as something that will soften and purify us and make us far more loving and kind.

The tonglen practice is a method for connecting with suffering– ours and that which is all around us– everywhere we go. It is a method for overcoming fear of suffering and for dissolving the tightness of our heart. Primarily it is a method for awakening the compassion that is inherent in all of us, no matter how cruel or cold we might seem to be.

This might seem incredibly demanding or daunting, but you don't have to be a saint or a heroine of virtue to at least try it out.  You don't have to be a queen to try on a tiara! 

A person with a "toxic parent" who has to visit with said parent might devise some strategies to help keep  internal order, peace, and harmony.  When I had to visit with my mother when she was being particularly noxious, I used to have with me some art postcards of images of kind mothers, brave mothers, loyal mothers.

Two other things: EXERCISE EXERCISE EXERCISE

and  sobriety.  When my mother was alive and I was around her, I could maintain an even strain if I didn't have so much as a half-glass of wine. 

Parental Pride and Motivation

My friend Kristina basks in her son's achievement in Olympic Musings--Autism Style

I see Charlie in the waves and I feel that glow of victory. Because we’ve, he’s, worked so hard and persevered; kept trying; managed to endure; simply glories to be in his element working his body through the water or on the race course, and beams with pride at what he can do.

My friend Karoli's son composed a piece of music, Manic Perceptions

Now I’m the mom, and I’m supposed to love everything he does (and I do). But seriously, the kid is not even 19 yet, and I was completely floored that this piece flowed out of some creative place that he’s managed to tap into already. Experienced listeners and composers may find areas to critique, but for this mom, it’s perfection.

Go listen.

Terrence from the Republic of T., was basking in the achievement of someone else's son, Cullen Jones.  Terrence himself can't swim very well, but his son, Parker,  can. 

Not long ago, Parker turned to me and said “Daddy, you need to take swimming lessons too, so you can be in the water with me.” I blushed a bit, smiled, and realized he was right.

So, now I’m looking at the fall schedule at the Y, to find an adult swimming class I can take one evening per week. I almost certainly won’t be a forty-something  Olympian like Dana Torres. But I can do something for myself and for my sons. (And there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them, if it helps them.)

It’s one thing for me to tell them they can accomplish something difficult — even if it’s just something that’s difficult for them — if they work hard at it, etc. It’s another for them to see me doing it myself. Maybe if they see me taking on something that’s a challenge for me, they’ll be a little more likely to believe they can to. Maybe they need to see Daddy jump into the deep end of the pool.

Attention SF Parents: Pope, Levine, and Lobdell Speaking November 19

Note: I've tried to upload the flier from SPEAK several times, and it seems to break Firefox each time -- so here's the link.

SPEAK is a recently coalition of San Francisco K-8 Schools, similar to the Common Ground Speaker Series.  Both organizations pool their resources to bring nationally-known speakers to member schools,  to enhance parent education.

SPEAK'S first event is Wednesday, November 19 at 9 a.m. at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral, 245 Valencia St. in San Francisco.

The event is titled Successful Kids: Redefining Goals. Speakers include: Madeline Levine, author of The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating a Generation of Materialistic and Unhappy Kids, Jim Lobdell, author of Bringing Learning Alive: Engaging All Learners in the Diverse Classroom, and Denise Clark Pope, author of Doing School: How We Are Creating of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students.

There will also be a short film screened at the event: Slipping Behind, an in-depth profile of American children and the challenges they face, by filmmakers Vicki Abeles and Julie M. McDonald.

All three speakers are founders of Challenge Success:

In the summer of 2007, experts in child and adolescent well-being--psychologists, educators, physicians, religious leaders and public health and policy experts--convened at Stanford University to envision a coordinated approach to helping schools, parents and youth develop alternative success models to align with what is known about healthy child development.

In response to this meeting, three attendees--Madeline Levine, Ph.D., Jim Lobdell, M.A., and Denise Pope, Ph.D.--founded Challenge Success, an expansion of the highly successful SOS (Stressed-Out Students) Project at Stanford University. Utilizing the resources of a prominent advisory board of interdisciplinary experts, they created a research-based organization that develops refreshingly practical curriculum, conferences and other programs for parents, schools and youth looking for a healthier and more effective path to success in the 21st century.

Parents, Even "Good Kids" Need This Guide

Via my friend  Skelly, the public defender  Arbitrary and Capricious:.

Last month, the San Jose Mercury News ran a story on how San Jose Independent Police Auditor is coming out with an updated edition of the "Students' Guide to Police Practices."

I downloaded a copy.  It is written in a factual, but accessible style.  If your teen is driving, you should get a copy and go over it with your teen.  You should go over the list of common crimes (like jaywalking and curfew violations).  Young teens, even kids with "good values", can have moment of giving into temptation and shoplift.  That's in there, too.

I recommend that you Download Youth Guide Police Practices.pdf.  Spanish and Vietnamese versions are available from San Jose's Office of the Independent Police Auditor.  Print it out and read it with your kids. 

And people, it isn't San-Jose specific. 

Gap Year Advice?

The topic of  "gap year" has come up in my social circle. 

The general idea is that students, typically after graduating from high school and before entering college, take some time off from classroom academics-- a semester or a whole year.  Some get jobs in the community.  Some travel -- with second (or third) language immersion and second-country community service thrown in.

It seems to be rather common in the UK, with lots of organized programs.  It is less common here, but not unknown.

Do you know a kid who has taken a gap year (or some lesser period) and done well?  What worked?  What didn't?  Any advice?