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.
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.
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 of older children with behavioral issues should pay attention to the quality of their children's sleep. Pediatric sleep apnea isn't like adult apnea. For children,surgery is usually the first line of treatment, and can make a tremendous difference, as Yonah's story illustrates.
But infants can also suffer from apnea. Here's another story, from Terri Lynn Breary:
We too experienced sleep apnea with our son, but at a different level. When our son, Trenten, was 5 weeks old we noticed his breathing was irregular while sleeping. He would fall into a deep sleep and then wake himself up.
At first, being new parents, we weren't alarmed. Within days these episodes became more frequent and more severe. It was now obvious that this was not normal behavior, by any stretch of the imagination. Trenten stopped breathing when he was asleep.
Our doctor admitted Trenten to the hospital for observation. The first night, he had 300 episodes, which more than a half were over 20 seconds. The second night in the hospital, he had approximately 200 episodes, with more then half being true apneas of 20 seconds or more. He had at least five episodes of over 50 seconds without breathing.
Trenten had a very close call. His doctor told us if that he hadn't had intervention, we would have lost him within days.
Because of Trenten's close call, our family decided to found an organization to raise public awareness of infant and childhood apnea, and to raise money for research.
While Infant Sleep Apnea is rare in full-term newborns, it is more common disorder than most parents think. It is a potentially life-threatening condition if not diagnosed and treated.
One lost life is one too many.
Trenten's Message: Awareness Can Save a Life.
Please share Trenten's message with your friends who are expecting a baby or have a newborn. Consider a donation to the foundation, as well.
Main website: Infant & Children Sleep Apnea Awareness Foundation. Also see the blog and the discussion forum.
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