To the Teacher

Back to school tomorrow. Last night we met you.  So much anxiety filled our night.

I know the first day of school must be nerve wracking and full of anxiety for you too.  I know all the parents and the questions and the eager faces on Meet The Teacher Night are probably overwhelming.  But last night my first impression of you left me filled with dread and bewilderment.  And my son, who is already anxious, woke up at 4am consumed with worry.

What we needed from you was your attention and you were scattered and disorganized.  What we needed from you was to know who was in the class, where my child would sit, who would be around him.  What we needed from you was to know what we would be doing, some expectations, a schedule of the day.  What we needed from you was for you to slow down and see that the papers did not matter; your attention did.

For the whole summer I have worked with my son so he will be able to figure our his multiplication tables, so he can write complex sentences and not be a blank mind when asked to do proceed with hard tasks.  For the whole summer we have talked about how to manage peers who get under our skin.  For the whole summer we have relished some anticipation for being 10 and a 4th grader.

What I want you to know now is that there is in fact a peer in his class who causes him a load of stress and this was heavy on his mind last night.  I want you to know that in our house we don’t have to “be friends” with everyone and it is quite all right for them to not get along; don’t force friendship upon them.  I want you to know my son talks to and teases everyone and moving him constantly won’t help.  I want you to know that he will befriend the newest, the quietest, the least eager and he will stick with them.

I want you to know he has medication that makes him not feel hungry.  I want you to know he will sit at lunch and not eat a single bite and his afternoon will be hard (extremely hard).  He will not focus, he will wander, he will be emotional and volatile.  I assure you he needs a snack.  A small child can not go for an entire day without food and he will need to be reminded to eat and if moody he will need to be strongly encouraged to eat that granola bar mom put in his bag.

I want you to know that we are not keen on the amount of technology used in the classroom.  In fact he will not learn solely with technology and I will not be very kind in telling you so.  Besides me and 20 other parents just sent piles of paper and notebooks to your classroom, I expect they use them and not just a chrome book.  I want you to know my child will tell me absolutely nothing about his day (I will garner more from his peers than him).  I want you to know that he will stuff food, papers, junk in every space available to him, he will be overwhelmed to clean it out, and it will just get worse.  That is where the important reminder, the permission slip, the homework will be and it will not make its way home.

I want you to know he has ADHD and is impulsive.  I want you to know something about ADHD and make eye contact with me and assure me that you “have this”.  His impulsivity makes him blurt out stuff, do stuff and react in ways that may leave you wondering.  His mouth and body work a lot faster than his mind or vise versa sometimes and it happens fast.  I want you to know that it is easier for him to be the class clown than to sit down and do the work that is in front of him.  That he is worried about being teased for using the “tools” he knows will help him.  I promise you he is clever and will find the best school hacks to get out of working.  I want to know and he will do his work at home.

I want you to now he plays every sport with some skill (not the signing of professional contracts skill but the skill of a child who is engaged).  I want you to know he is daring and takes risks that for most seem completely out of control.  I want you to know his brain works out designs for those risks and once set he will work to accomplish that more than he will focus on your assignments.  I want you to know that he rarely reads anything alone but that he will listen to story after story.  I want you to know he enjoys pe, art and only tolerates music.  Dance though... put on some tunes and my child will dance like no one is watching (and clearly he learns his moves from me but you may have missed that last night because you were preoccupied).

I want you to know that he has a best friend who he spent long days with over the summer, plays on teams with and lives just around the corner from and that this year they are separate and my child will miss him.  I want you to know that they concocted a new last name so they could be brothers and now their plans are foiled.  The disappointment is palpable.  I want you to also note that we know most of the parents of boys in this class and that we are a tight group who are not afraid of each other.  Our boys won’t always get along and we will address it with them also.  We support them all, we cheer for them all no matter the interest.  We are a tribe of parents and our children know that.

I want you to know we live in the country.  Cows, chickens, crap, guns, knives, fishing, dirt bikes, forts, tree climbing are all in the realm of what we know and do and he is eager to let everyone know this information.  Please note that if my child is talking about guns it is not with malicious intent, it is because he is generally a country kid.  I want you to know he is colorful and expressive in ways you may miss.  I want you to know that all the kids in this class make amazing pottery and that my son and I are happy to keep sharing clay and knowledge with them.

Fortnight, Stranger Things, Gumball cartoons, Minecraft, current movies, all things Marvel are of huge interest to my child and he will draw them, write about them and talk ad nausea about them.  I am guessing all of them will... it would be in your best interest to know their language because he will tell you all about it.

Lastly, I am an open mom who prefers to have a note sent, a phone call made than to be left in the dark.  I am happy to talk with you because I am his biggest supporter and advocate.  You get my child for the next 9 months for long hours of every day and I want to continue to be invested and involved and aid his growth and absorption of knowledge this year.  I will be your strongest supporter, just slow down, organize and breathe in the eagerness of these new friends on the journey of discovering 4th grade.

Still learning

The stinging looks.  The harsh whispers of “my kid would not act that way”.  The quiet inquiries of “who acted up”.  The avoidance of eye contact and the rushed goodbyes.  Everyone already knows.  They know it was my kid.  When the bad happens, somehow my kid is involved either directly or indirectly.

Do you really think I “let” my child behave so terribly?  Do you think I encourage or tolerate?  Do you really think we have not punished, corrected, made him apologize, removed from situations?  And we continue to do so.  We also continue to show up.  We continue to try.  We continue to take responsibility and show him how to be responsible.  We continue to support our child.  We continue to learn what makes him tick and what makes him succeed.

At midnight last night I dug out my ADHD pile of books (yea, real books on the subject.  I have many of them and I have read them all, marked in them so I can best help my child).  ADHD is not an excuse. It is our way of life ~ one I am very open about. If Espen had a leg missing, you would never question me when I tell you he can’t run very fast, but he can get there.  If he wore his glasses you would not question me when I say he can’t see that until he gets his glasses.  With ADHD everything becomes a question, an excuse and the assumption is that he is just a real bad kid and we are extremely bad parents.  Far from it.

Let me share some information with you....

“ADHD is a medical disorder in which a particular part of the brain - one responsible for self-management - isn’t functioning as well as it could.” - MINDFUL PARENTING FOR ADHD

“ADHD undermines the ability to sustain engagement, particularly with activities that require ongoing cognitive effort or long-term planning.” - MINDFUL PARENTING FOR ADHD

“Very simplistically, the ADHD brain craves to be stimulated, due to deficiencies or developmental issues.  That is why children are so easily distracted or appear to be hyperactive.  These are the ways the brain is attempting to get the stimulation it needs.” - RAISING BOYS WITH ADHD

When a situation, late in the evening, takes place, understand that his behavior will break down (sometimes rapidly) when the demands placed on him exceed his ability to complete it.  Understand he will feed into hyper energies and go to the next level because his ability to pull it back is slower than his ability to ramp it up.  Understand that I have already given him medication throughout the day and the late evenings are extreme to medicate for (and while I can do it, not exactly doctor recommended because of the other side effects).  Understand that he is not bad, he is impulsive.

Nothing hurts more than being completely open about our life and still feeling like ADHD is a shameful secret that can be beaten out of him, controlled with better discipline or just an excuse for a terrible child.  There is never a moment when we are not working on something with our child.  We work on accepting, including, understanding and being the best we can be ~ do you?

Today is a new day.  We have a fresh opportunity to try again.  It is the best any of us can ask for.

Mother's Day 2019

Happy Mother's Day.  To all the women taking care of a child or children.  In any capacity.  i SEE YOU.

I am so blessed and thankful this day every year.  Espen is adopted and on this day I always want to celebrate the brave woman who gave birth to him, loved him and entrusted me to be his forever parent.  For without her courage and generous trust, I would not be the mom to this incredible little boy. 

I am also super blessed to celebrate my own mom today.  She stayed home and was there for absolutely everything my sisters and I did.  Her gifts are plenty and her sacrifices for our needs did not go unnoticed.  She taught me to be the mom I am.  She supports my sisters and I still and loves our kids in hundreds of ways. 

Raising my beautiful son has taught me love and patience beyond what I thought I was capable.  He has taught me to laugh at the silly and accept some mess I did not know was going to be made.  Our journey has been full of weird and wonky and I would not trade a moment of it.  My heart is full of love for this one little boy. 

Being a mom has also brought me relationships with other women who have shared and taught and supported.  Being a mom teaches you so much about life.  Being mom is not about how many kids you have, how much money you spend on them, how many activities you can post on you social accounts.  Being a mom is caring for the little things, tending to a wound or hurt feeling, drying a tear and laughing at a joke that does not make sense.  Being a mom is sitting through one more rainy game, cleaning one more stained uniform, wiping up one more spill, finding one more dirty sock, one more late night leaning spelling words, one more book, one more thing before you can relax.  Being a mom is also learning to have grace and forgiveness with yourself when things go wrong.  It is asking for help when you are at your lowest.  It is saying you are sorry and showing your child even adults make mistakes and apologize.  Being mom is full time all the time no matter what the time.

Motherhood is a tribe of people.  All doing the best we can to raise amazing children.  All sacrificing and supporting so that these little people have the best we can offer. 

So Happy Mother's Day to the mom's in my tribe and to the moms everywhere who are doing the best they can... keep on... you do not go unrecognized. 

Allow it

When we decided to move from urban development and busy neighborhood to more rural community and secluded neighborhood, we did so with purpose and intent.  Does it make life that much more challenging when we want to get “to town” for sports or groceries ~ yes, absolutely.  Does it make our opportunities for things more narrow ~ yes, of course.  But the benefits, as we imagined, are numerous.

The weather is warming up and as it does, Espen finds ways to entertain and occupy himself.  He finds the mud hole (or actually created one), he maneuvers his kayak down to the creek, he drags a garden hose to the trampoline.  He tears up the field on a motorized gadget, he drags his ramps out and races his bike down the hill and jumps things.  I watch.  I put my frustration with what is about to become a giant mess aside and just watch.

Because while I like stepping outside to work in my garden or shop or sit on my porch and hear the quiet; we moved here for Espen’s benefit.  And the benefits are numerous for him.

But part of this is because I put my frustrations aside and allow it.  Yep.  I allow it.

I allow him to roll in the mud.  I have a spot I allow him to dig big holes (I had to make such a spot because there were holes all over the place).  I allow spin outs in the field.  I allow dirty clothes and muddy shoes.  I allow this wild adventure he is on to be absolutely dirty.

I allow it because I see the absolute and total joy and abandon on my child’s face. I allow it because he is drawn to the wet and sludgey sensations to center himself.  I allow it because he is outside playing in that mess instead of on an electronic device.  I allow it.  And I put my frustrations with the mess aside to the best of my ability.

This is by far the hardest part of parenting.  Because I have to let go of my weird controlling habits of keeping things clean and orderly.  My roll is to stimulate growth and joy in my child and help him learn to move through life being his best self.  My job is to allow him to explore and immerse himself in what brings him happiness. I allow it, but I also do my best to teach him how to clean up said messes.  Life is full of moments.... allow them and find ways to enjoy them.

Censored

In the nearly 10 years of telling our tale, yesterday a situation happened that kept me awake and frustrated me.  The blog and facebook have been a way for me to share our tales.  They are not always pretty, not always funny.  Sometimes people connect, sometimes it has helped me and others to feel less lonely and isolated in our journeys.

But yesterday.... I posted a hilarious situation.  I used the ACTUAL conversation because it was funny.  Identity was removed.  I also used 2 pictures.   I had no complaints and the situation involved a crazy thing my child did.  I was called and told to remove it.  That is correct; remove it.  I conceded on one picture that it should be removed, partial views of other children were there.  The conversation and other parts of the post were not harmful.

The conversation did not go well.  I was talked over so I got mad and frustrated and yelled.  In 10 years I have been scathing, used conversations and sometimes actually identified people.  I have commented about school issues (mind you this is our 3rd school), community issues, business issues.  The tales are oddly unique and not so much.  Not a single time has any one called me.  The person (who was not identified in the post) was not the caller.   Let me be clear however, the caller and I have had one other incident concerning social media posts.  At Christmas time, I questioned on a post why our school did not have a holiday program for my child to sing at.  I apparently got people excited.  I was emailed and told not to post school related things on social media unless I called and asked first.  This funny story about Espen is not in any way shape or form the same type of situation.

It bothered me all night.  I felt many things.  To begin with I felt like I have done something wrong.  This particular situation involved my child.  It was funny.  I was not upset or concerned about anyone or anything.  I have done nothing wrong.  It bothered me because I was specifically told/asked that if my posts involve anything school related, I need to ask permission.  Which I can assure you I will not be doing.  Questioning “authority”, bringing light to situations and informing people from my perspective is the point.  Sharing our journey and the tales, concerns and situations that go with it.  I was upset with feeling like I will never belong, that I am consistently under the bus, that by rocking the boat I in fact make things harder for my child.  It bothered me because the call made me so frustrated I got mad.  And then I cried.  And hated it here.  Yes that is correct.  I try and try and no matter what we do not belong, and perhaps with my big mouth, my years of experience, our family situation, we will never belong. So I cried some more.  

And this morning, with the first light of spring break shining upon us I deleted nearly everyone off my page who is associated with the school.  Not to be malicious but to protect the innocent teachers and staff who do not need to be in between my mouth and the job.  I deleted people who are “collectors” and just like to creep.  I deleted anyone who has not had a real conversation with me.  The fact of the matter is that I will say the exact words I write.  The fact is that I question everything, advocate hard and sometimes it means people get uncomfortable and mad.  I made some other changes and I will move on.  I made a resolve to keep posting things from our perspective.  I will be smarter about ensuring those I care most about are protected.  This is our tale.  You are welcome to join us and engage with us.  I accept that I may occasionally say or post something that makes people crazy, it is my post.  I accept there will probably be more calls and I will document that interaction at the request of my husband.  I will move on today... because I have life to live... it is spring break.

Doing nothing

My child comes home from school mentally exhausted and not in the mood to talk about school.  He stops in the laundry room and takes off every thing but his underwear.  He walks through the house and settles himself under a blanket on the floor with some mind dumbing video on. 

And you know what?  It is ok.  I have stressed and fretted for many months (maybe years) about this.  I have questioned experts on his lack of interest in "hashing" out his school day.  I have tried on every level to engage him about WHAT HAPPENED AT SCHOOL.  I have asked the whole variety of questions, please do not offer me any suggestions, I have literally checked out every book, blog and meme about good after school engagement questions.  He checks out.  Clocks off.  Shuts down.  He is not one to re tell countless tales about the entire day.  He does not share details about school events.  In fact he rarely shares anything. 

Right now it is ok.  He brings home his papers.  I can see what he is doing and where he is struggling.  I have a wide open door of communication with his teacher and have a fairly good idea what is going on.  We work on incomplete work at home and read with him.  I know some of his peers and on occasion ask those moms what they know.  I am actively engaged in different ways to keep up with what is happening at school. 

Will this work in the future?  Most likely not... but we will find a way to keep him on task and accountable.  We will cross that when we get to it. 

Do I stress about him being mostly naked and watching crap tv?  Not so much.  He helps when help is needed.  He puts his laundry in the basket.  He puts his towels away.  He picks up his toys. When I get home from "peopling" all day, I like a mental break and to sit quietly watching junk or reading a weird book.  He will disengage from the junk and re-engage with me when he is ready.  He will tell me tall tales which may be loosely based on fact about his day.  He will giggle and wiggle.  But every day after school, he needs a break. 

Maybe in my worries I overlooked the fact that doing nothing is healthy.  Doing nothing is a break for an active mind and body.  It lets his mind clear, his body relax.  Doing nothing prepares us for the next something.  In my worries I overlooked the fact that my child is working really hard to maintain good behavior (most days), understand and learn and follow social rules of play.  He is busy all day long and then many days after school we are engaged in some type of activity.  When he gets home he needs to do nothing, say nothing, answer nothing.  He needs to just do nothing. 

So right now, he is laying in his underpants on the floor in the play room watching a video.  As close to nothing as he can get!

THAT KID

I have THAT KID.  Yep.  That one who has anxiety about going to school.  That one who made and threw a paper airplane at the new teacher on “meet the teacher” night.  That one who got excited just last night.

I have THAT KID that on the first day behaves poorly and the teacher sends a text message.  Not once but twice.  I have that kid who is impulsive and easily manipulated because he is impulsive.  I have THAT kid who struggles with personal boundaries and empathy.  I have THAT KID.

I have THAT KID who put a starburst in a little girls hair and splashed a friend in the restroom ON THE FIRST DAY.  That kid who everyone will hear about tonight.  I have that one.

This kid that I love with all of my being.  He challenges me every single day to be a better parent and person.  Our struggles are very real.

The struggle is to get his medication just right so that he can slow down and think situations through. The struggle is to teach social appropriate behaviors.  The struggle to make quick decisions often goes wrong.  Today we may have had it wrong.  I have that kid who made the first day something other than amazing for others.  I have that kid who will be THAT KID that people know.

It makes me cry with frustration and sadness.  It makes our afternoon rocky at best.  On a day when parents are excited to hear about the day, I am anxious about hearing him tell me what happened and why.  And I am sad to hear him cry.  He wants to be able to make the best choices and be a good peer.  He just struggles to control his mind and body.

Taking responsibility for his behaviors is the important part of today.  The best and hardest way for us to enforce that is to make him write it.  So tonight I sit here waiting for him to write what he did today that he should not have done and 2 things he will do tomorrow that will be better choices.  He struggles through it. That kid... he still wants his peers to like him.  He wants his teacher to like him.  He wants to do well.  THIS kid is going to try.  And this mom is going to let him.