Sanity

Sanity for You and the Kids

Welcome

Welcome to the world of raising kids. A system for any home with kids. Yours. Traditional or not, your family is unique. Here is a complete and fresh system that holds together. The author has thought policies through and field-tested them to come up with an original brew for you to tailor for your kids.

◘…Diabolical methods? Subversive techniques? You be the judge…◘

Guerilla Parenting is a fierce approach to attack the central issues you face as a parent—never attacking your kids, mind you, but the issues. You will get to decide for yourself whether to draw the same conclusions from the same learning experiences. So, while every event logged was lived exactly as described, what remains is no more than an opinion—you can take it or leave it and draw your own conclusions...

Friday, December 23, 2022

Do Not Do the Teacher’s Homework

"May I send a bit of housework over to school?”

  • Guerilla Tip:  Never do homework for anyone else.  Period. 
    Three steps to clarify:  
  1. Make sure the kid is making a serious effort in a quiet, regular spot. 
  2. Make sure she knows how to do the assignment.  If not, and you know the subject, do one or two examples, then stop.  If neither of you knows what to do, write the teacher a sweet note saying so. 
  3. Before you walk away, watch her do one on her own.  Then say, “Call out if you need me.”
  • Listen, homework is something to support, though in school, it was painful drudgery for me to get through.  But it is work the teachers send home while you as a parent running a home do not get to send your chores to school, right?  You have no skin in the game in doing homework.  So, if a teacher sends homework home, that’s fine, but it’s not your work, it’s the school’s work assigned to your kid. 

    Helping with homework may even be hurting. 

    Guerilla Tip:  If a kid can do the homework but doesn’t, let the grades reflect that—the natural consequences will teach their own lesson.  If a kid cannot do the homework, the teacher needs that key information —do not withhold it with a cover-up. 

    If you do the homework the kid cannot do, that’s the cover-up.  Talk to other parents in the same class so you are generally on the same page about how much to help out. 

    I remember Daniel in fourth grade had a hard time with some homework.  After an hour, he was not done, but he had worked hard enough.  I wrote the teacher a note saying that although the assignment looked unfinished, since it took a full hour of work, the homework was done.  I added that if she would not accept that, I could be reached at work to discuss it.  She never called. 
  • When Miriam M. of South Amboy, NJ taught kindergarten, she was required to assign homework.  While she may have questioned the wisdom at first, Miriam believes kindergarten is what first grade used to be.  And what is the purpose of homework for barely toilet-trained five and six year olds?  For one thing, it helps the parents who never got the hang of homework.  Now, with little at stake for them or the kids, there is homework to do that any parent can help with.  So homework in kindergarten is a matter of building good study habits. 

    In kindergarten and first grade, Miriam would use a technique very helpful for the shy ones.  Students would first pair up and she would ask a simple question with a yes or no answer.  Before answering, though, students would tell their partner their answer.  Now instead of the shy ones being brave enough to speak up, there were options: 
  •      You get practice at remembering someone else’s answer. 
  •      You get practice at saying someone else’s opinion. 
  •      You can hear your own thought spoken out loud when you would have been too shy to say it out loud yourself. 
  •      You can see that your thought carries some weight when it is voiced.
  • Swami Rama of Bengal, India wrote that a teacher’s home life can carry over into blame in the classroom.  “...things like this can happen.  ‘Your child is so destructive; he does not know how to behave properly.’  Whenever you receive such a report, you should go and see if the teacher is behaving properly with the child.  Children are only children, and they should be treated properly.” 

    Sure, we want kids to respect teachers, but it is not a one-way street.  Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable.” 
  • Setting it up with Schoolteachers
    Whenever I was talking with my kid’s teacher, I was advocating for my kid.  Let other parents do the same for theirs, and let the teacher do the best to balance it all for the whole class. 

    Guerilla Tip:  Identify your kid’s style and advocate for it.  Does your kid need to sit up front to hear better?  How would a teacher know unless you ask for it? 

    In advocating for my kid’s learning style, I asked teachers at the start of the year if they gave tests to find out what the kids learned or to catch them at what they missed.  They would say learned, so I would ask, “Then will you test a student orally, if that is the best way he shows what he learned?” 

    Guerilla Tip:  Teachers and kids must show respect for each other.  It is not a one-way street. 

    I used to complain to my parents about something the teachers did to me in class.  My parents would always ask what happened right before that, until it became clear there was a regular pattern of hearing me out while also supporting the teacher. 

    At a christening party for her 20th grandchild, Jane J. of Glen Rock, NJ, herself a mother of eight, confided that a big family means the older ones must help out with the youngest.  She said otherwise you have chaos, but she didn’t think she had a set, formal system.  Rather, she found ways of dealing with each kid in the way that kid needed.  In this style, the parenting gets individualized, while each kid gets consistency. 

    Guerilla Tip:  Expect the classic, “That’s not fair,” and prepare to counter with, “Sorry!”  The Talmud agrees, advising that each student is to be taught according to the pathway of learning that is his. 

    It is easy to recognize that so many students are visual, so classrooms are decorated vividly.  Can you also pick up that some students are more auditory?  Recognizing is seeing.  Picking up is hearing.  For other students, picking up is also action, movement, feeling, kinesthetic, experiential. 

    At home, tailoring how to convey education and love as best received is the highest art.  In the classroom, educators are well trained in the art, which is harder to stage due to the larger scale.  Yet, whoever said that teaching is not a performing art? 
  • Is math is a writing skill?  I asked a fourth grade teacher if she could test Daniel’s math with an oral test, but she countered, “Math is a writing skill.”  In his sixth grade, I repeated that story to a math specialist who was really getting through to him.  This specialist said, “No, math is not is a writing skill.  It is a thinking skill sometimes represented in writing.”  In her array of powerful techniques, she handed students actual paper money to count—exciting for a 6th grader—and occasionally allowed the student to keep a dollar—exciting for any student for its tangible novelty. 
  • In the '80s and '90s, Harvard PhD Howard Gardner published a novel theory that we all are intelligent in many ways, and none are better than any other.  Eight different intelligences are included in his theory, which many educators and parents have found to be very practical.  Dr. Gardner’s multiple intelligences are:  Spatial, Linguistic, Logical-Mathematical, Musical, Kinesthetic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal and Naturalist.  (Two other categories of intelligence that Gardner also looked at, existential and moral, he never granted the full status of the other categories.)  What is the advantage of so many categories?  The advantage is in appreciating the individual as an individual. 

    Guerilla Tip: 
    Individualize your approach to each kid.  You’ll be well compensated for your efforts. 

    Don’t worry, you’ll be paid, though not … exactly … in cash.  Well, it is cash, and while you can take it to the bank, you cannot take it to your regular bank.  What you can bank on is that your kid will gain a calm self-confidence and will eventually recognize that you were a contributor.  When you respect differences, you embrace individuality.  

    So, you pay the dues while the kid benefits.  Fair enough, because it is no one-way street.  You will feel wonderful.  In my tradition, we call it schepping naches:  bathing in the glow of how our kids turn out.  Parents naturally schep naches when the kids reach graduation (of some kind), show tenderness to others, start a business (of some kind), succeed in business, accomplish anything on their own, bring home the bacon (of some kind).  

     Honor your kid’s special style.  Honor your own understanding of your kid and what you know works for him.  Show him he deserves to be proud of just who he is.  Yes, we want our kids to work to please us, but not to worry that if they do not please they are not still loved immensely just as they are. 

    We used to say different strokes for different folks.  Honor those differences.  Creative?  Good, but not for an accountant, a euphemism for dishonesty.  The world needs a healthy mix.  We even need dishonest people, as shown in the following story. 

    Hasidic tale:  A rebbe turned down a beggar only to find the man died the same day with pockets full of money.  The rebbe said, “Be thankful for some dishonesty, for if every beggar were deserving, we would all be obligated to give whenever asked.  If we could never doubt his need, we could never turn him down.”

  • When Alex entered high school, his placement exams allowed him to take AP Biology.  The advanced placement class was given by a highly regarded teacher named Dr. L.  In a non-science subject my daughter took, the same teacher had been reasonable, but in Biology he kept his students up nights doing his work and his alone. 

    In his session for ‘Back to School’ night, his standards were unusually high for ninth grade, and his demanding assignments were unrelenting.  Looking over the handouts with endless typed notes filling the narrow margins of every page, it struck me that the author was in his own world.  There were notes on the notes.  Material was badly disorganized like that of an absent-minded professor.  The usual focus that allows learning to take place was all a blur, but stellar results were expected. 

    Psychotic was the word that came to mind—just my impression.  The papers reminded me of the endless ranting on the packaging of Dr. Peppermint’s castile soap sold with health foods. 

    Guerilla Tip:  Be on the lookout for lack of focus, a big barrier to making intelligent decisions and allowing others personal space. 
     
    As for his demands, the teacher gave an example of a rich, very well thought out answer to a homework problem and said he would give such an answer no more that a grade of B.  If my son could handle it, more power to him, but it still would be an abuse of power that punished the wrong people. 

    The climax came when Dr. L. punctuated his toughness with the cliché, “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?”  This clincher for justifying his tyranny brought a rousing yes from all parents but me.  They appeared to say, “I’m not powerless.  I’m not.  But God has arrived.  Finally someone outside our clueless home is taking charge, getting what he wants done without backtalk.  Now we see it, and it is good.”  So, real polite now, I asked the teacher, “In your opinion, is that conclusion an opinion or fact?”  Being an honest man, he admitted it was an opinion, but to the other parents in the room, it had all the cheap appeal of tough love.  Apparently, they couldn’t be tough, and where to find the love in all this is unclear. 

    Guerilla Tip:  Just because someone is doing what you think you should be doing does not mean he’s doing it well at all. 
     Although Alex was good in the sciences, his great interest was not biology, but law and politics.  A tough biology class could have been a good thing anyway, but he realized within a few weeks of class, a few weeks into high school, that the class was too much.  He transferred from AP Biology to Honors Biology, with a different teacher but the same textbook and got all A’s for the class. 
  • It took me until my 40’s to recognize that I learn best experientially.  After many years of struggling to follow the classic advice to take written notes during a class, I found I was better off without them.  Watching and listening, I was already taking in a high-fidelity recording of the teacher’s whole presentation.  Not only were my written notes not strong enough to study from, but every moment spent concentrating on writing was a moment of interruption in the very good recording I was already taking with my eyes and ears. 

    Guerrilla Tip:
      For me, paying attention was better than taking notes. 

    Picture two film critics—one who watches a movie and looks down to take notes, and one who watches once as a moviegoer and a second time as a critic.  Double viewings may sound like a slower process, but the second critic would be reporting on a movie experience much closer to the average viewer. 
  • As far as following convention—Is it out-of-the-box?  What box?—I found as an adult that my study technique, while frowned-upon, worked very well for me.  When I study for complete understanding, not for general reading, I read to myself aloud in my head, which is fairly slow.  I could be doing it right now to see how this reads.  Although verboten, this technique is a guilty pleasure, and I absorb material in a single pass to such a degree that it comes close to memorized.  Apparently, the technique is both forbidden and efficient.  Live and learn. 
  • Here is an example of learning in your own style.  By 10th grade, Daniel discovered two techniques that were to get him through the rest of high school:  Study with a classmate and listen in class.  The buddy system helped him stay on track, meaning more work got done because it was scheduled with a friend who was also there to study. 

    The listening helped because of being an auditory learner.  Most students are visual, so they get the most from reading an assignment at their own pace.  My son either had a hard time absorbing what he read, or he got so little out of reading his assignment that he skipped it and relied on listening instead.  He told me he personally figured out the trick below, and I could not disagree or break it to him that is unoriginal.  It was original to him when he found it worked. 


    Guerilla Tip:
      Kids have discovered, “If you listen very carefully in class, the teacher tells you everything you need to know for the test.”  Adults call it paying attention. 

    Imagine how well a student takes ownership of such a technique, because when he experiences it personally, he recognizes its value to him. 

  •      Facing Unfair School Grades
    Grades are not important by themselves, they are only indicators.  If you know the kids are doing A work and getting B’s occasionally, do not interfere.  Tell them you think the work deserves an A.  After you empathize with the frustration, teach them that life is not under our total control. 

    Guerilla Tip:  Start kids early, in 2nd or 3rd grade, with encouragement for them to ask their teacher for a private word if they have a concern. 

    If the grades are unusually off, schedule a meeting for the teacher to explain, and let the principal know you’re concerned—a euphemism for investigating a rip-off. 

  •       In second grade, Alex told me a disturbing story about his arm being yanked really hard by his teacher, and I believed my son’s pain was real and uncalled for.  I phoned the teacher and repeated that my son “told me a disturbing story about his arm being yanked really hard.  Please, help me out here, any idea what he can be talking about?” 

    Guerilla Tip:  Instead of calling a cruel authoritarian a bully and liar, you can communicate by asking a question—or a counterfeit question. 

    The teacher said nothing could be further from the truth about the yanking, although she admitted she might have held Alex’s arm too tightly.  I was after bigger fish than a confession.  The roughness had to stop. 

    It made most sense to me to let her save face about it, as long as I got her commitment it would not happen in the future:  “So, good, good, then we both agree that the story I heard would have been over the line.  Okay, then, thank you.”  Reporting back to Alex showed him I got right in there for him without leaving the teacher any worse for the wear nor making her angry enough to retaliate against the whistleblower.  Everybody won. 

  •       Teachers say, “If she only tried harder!”  Since that assessment can be made of everybody who breathes, it is empty advice.  It may well apply to my kid specifically, but I asked for the basis for the conclusion.  Can’t get an A?  If you only tried harder!  Can’t get a better job?  Can’t get to the top of a tall building without the elevator?  Same assessment goes. 

    Guerilla Tip:  If you are told your kid needs to try harder, and maybe she does, try to agree but ask for an explanation:  “Oh, I see.  Why?” 

  •       Ending a school year with a party is a good idea.  A graduation ceremony from kindergarten, though, takes away from the real achievement of graduating high school or college.  If each student in every class gets a trophy for showing up—a good thing in itself, to be sure—it dilutes the trophy as an award of achievement. 

    Guerilla Tip:  Finish kindergarten with a bang and later, finish high school with a graduation. 
     
  •      Bullying is Insecurity
    A bully temporarily masks his personal powerlessness by showing a group that he is powerful and that the victim is the powerless one.  Note that an audience is almost always needed for the show.  Depriving the bully of his supportive audience sucks the energy out of his show. 

    A bully’s support system consists of two groups:  those who actively hold a victim down for the bully’s assault and those who passively watch without protecting the victim.
      
    Guerilla Tip:  Teach your school’s bullying program to remove the bully’s support system.

Thursday, December 22, 2022

Harness the Power of Words

“May I have a 50% raise?”

Many of my ideas are language-based.  Not English, but the use of language to express.  At 20, Alex told me that—I had not even noticed it myself.  Language and the ideas represented by the words are closely tied. 

 
·   Example 1:  When the kids questioned a decision I made and asked why, where did you come up with that, how’s that fair? I had a ready answer. 

Guerilla Tip:  If they are asking you why, ask them why.  “Are you asking why so you can challenge me or so you can understand me?”

“If you are asking so you know how to challenge me, you don’t get an answer, sorry.  If you are asking so you can understand my thinking, I will tell you if that ends it, no backtalk, end of conversation.  Now, please tell me which you want, to challenge or to understand?”  Very powerful. 

Swami Satchidananda, founder of Integral Yoga Institute where I taught yoga classes, once introduced his talk to a large crowd by saying that he would answer questions later.  He pointed out that he was aware of two kinds of questions:  “There are questions when you want to know an answer, and there are questions when you want to know if the other person knows the answer.  I will answer both.” 


·   Example 2:  As a wordsmith, I try different ways when I want to say something important.  Say I want a raise at work.  I try a few approaches, worded different ways.  I learned, however, to give up if I am still struggling at my sixth try. 

Guerilla Tip:  If you cannot find the right wording, it may be that the idea itself is all wrong, not just the wording. 

If the raise I want is a 50% increase—been there, done that—it will likely take endless tries to find the right words to express my reasoning reasonably.  Because the goal itself—asking for 50% more—is not likely to be seen as reasonable.  Again, the words and the underlying meaning are closely tied. 

·   I did my best to be really clear with my kids.  Partly from that example, partly from their nature, they did the same with me.  When I said no to something but the kids insisted a bit, sometimes I would just say, “Cut it out.” 

Guerilla Tip:  Occasionally, you can hit them (it’s an expression) with this zinger, “Wait a minute.  Give me a chance to reconsider it, and I’ll get back to you on that.  Here it is:  No.” 

When my kids would say they were thirsty, what they wanted was something to drink, nothing more or less.  If we were away from home with no juice box or any beverage, I might say, “Here’s an apple,” meaning, no juice but something juicy.  They wouldn’t take the apple, because as they said, they were thirsty. 

Guerilla Tip:  It is actually a very good thing when kids know what they want and can express it. 

Still, they could have taken the apple. 

Yesterday, I saw a three year old on his toes, struggling in a men’s room.  He had a hard time reaching up to anything, so he asked his father to move in closer behind him—the boy wanted to step up on his father’s boots to be a little taller to reach.  A clever trick they probably used before, and good that the boy knew to ask. 

·   Daniel came home once and tried out a new phrase on his mother, a phrase he learned in nursery school.  She was not sure how best to handle it since the phrase sounded like “Shuddafuggup!”  I wanted to know if she had parsed the sentence for him, pinpointing the operative word.  She told me she was so stunned, she did not respond, which was excellent.  I said, “When he repeats it next, just say it’s rude language which we don’t allow and we don’t explain.” 

Guerilla Tip:  If you want bad language or fighting words to die the quickest death, give them no power.  That way, they will fade for the lack of care and feeding, dying naturally in their own time. 

·   You know that in the terrible two’s, from about a year and a half to five, kids feel their oats and will readily say no to any question asked? 

Guerilla Tip:  Craft your questions so the answer you are guaranteed to get is the answer you wanted anyway:  “It’s cold outside, do you want to be cold?  No?  Okay, take your jacket with you.” 

I often got, “I promise I won’t be cold!”  My answer:  “Fine, don’t put it on, but I insist you carry it to the car in case you change your mind.  It’s freezing outside.”  For this approach to work, though, you have to steel yourself for the 10 seconds it takes for the kid to step outside when it is icy cold and realize for herself that the jacket is worth bothering with.  During the 10-second period, childhood will obligate her to announce, “See, it is not so cold!”  Just tell her to hold the jacket anyway.  And wait. 

However, I got fewer no’s than other parents by setting it up before the terrible two’s arrived:  I avoided using the same old no for every old restriction. 

Guerilla Tip:  Instead of “No running,” try, “Slow down.” 
·   Instead of “No touching,” I said, “Hold this instead.” 
·   Instead of “No trampling Mrs. Bumblefolk’s flowers,” I insisted, “Hey, stay on the sidewalk.” 
·   Instead of “Don’t use your hands”:  “Whoa, the pan’s too hot.  Potholder’s right there.” 
·   Instead of “No yelling”:  “You’re yelling.” 
·   Instead of “Not allowed”:  “Stay safe,” or “I want you quiet now,” or “Leave that alone,” or “Give me one minute.” 
·   Instead of “Stop spitting”:  “Close your mouth.” 
·   Instead of “Never run with scissors”:  “Keep your hands free.” 

Guerilla Tip:  If you limit your conversation to a single, all-purpose catch-all like ‘no,’ expect your kids to do the same in spades.  If true for a two-letter word, double that for four-letter words. 

So many people live their lives on automatic.  “No this” and “no that” is mindless parenting.  Kids have limited vocabulary, so what we say better be simple.  Simple, but not the one-word sentence.  No is a reflex; expand on it and have a little conversation.  If you limit your kid’s vocabulary world to a black & white, yes & no, don’t be surprised when they see only black & white. 

·   Think the psychology of positive energy is just for kids?  In retail sales, there is a guideline of not saying no to a customer, but suggesting instead another benefit to offer.  So rather than saying you cannot extend a sale that already ended, you show the customer a similar item that just went on sale.  If necessary, you say, “I wish I could accommodate you otherwise.” 

·   Olga G. of Nanuet, NY used the most natural way to teach safety actively.  Instead of empty warning to her toddlers that a hot stove and oven are dangerous, she showed them.  She held their hand near enough to feel the heat and not enough to scare them, saying one word, “Hot!”  One lesson and they got it.  In that lesson, the oven served the role of trainer.  Also, the lesson reinforced trusting, by proving that when Mom says there is danger, there is. 

Guerilla Tip:  Lead the kids into wanting to avoid danger themselves, “Yes, I’ll be staying away from that one.” 

Just another reason to stay positive. 

·   When you focus on age appropriateness, you need to explain matters to kids in terms they can readily grasp.  At five, my sister Sheara asked about the biblical story of Dina, a violent story of rape and kidnap.  Our brother Rachim wondered how we could explain that to a preschooler.  I offered, “Somebody grabbed Dina, hugged her and kissed her, but she didn’t want it and she felt terrible.”  Done. 

One summer vacation, I was arranging to fly standby to the Mexican Yucatan with Shevy and Alex.  Dealing with the possibility that we would not get on the plane at all, Shevy asked why we had to go standby at all.  I told her standby tickets would save us a total of $600, but she gave me a blank stare.  After all, to a six year old, $600 is a big number, but how big?  I told her that $600 would buy ‘her’ 100 movie tickets at the time, and her eyes lit up.  That she got. 

·   At no more than four, Shevy told me more than once that she was afraid of having babies.  Maybe she heard there can be pain in childbirth, but it broke my heart to hear such a concern coming from someone so young.  Also, she thought when adults get married, kids automatically come along.  It killed me to say it, but I told her in terms she could hear that there is medicine for all of that—meaning that adults have ways to address carrying a baby and delivering one—which calmed her down. 

Guerilla Tip:  Not everyone is meant to have kids, and no one needs to be faulted. 

·   Shevy left me a phone message before she left for camp at 11.  “I wanted to say I love you, I’ll miss you and stuff like that.”  I never knew a word like ‘stuff’ could be a key word for me when spoken by an 11 year old. 

·   There is a big difference between “I need it,” and “I want it.”  While they want everything, they need only air, water and beans. 

Guerilla Tip:  Next time they insist they “Need it,” tell them, “You mean you want it.” 

·   Coming from an upbringing with excessive insistence on doing someone else’s will and performing it in exact ways, I make a special effort not to be so insistent with others. 

Taken to extremes, some people are fearful even to express an opinion.  Some waiters won’t say what’s good (“Everything!”) and won’t offer a suggestion (“Every taste is different.”)  No actually, some like soup with more or less salt, but not half salt.  Despite different tastes, critics write reviews because people do agree there are zones of success and failure. 

My workaround is asking what’s popular.  There’s a reason a dish is popular, probably the way it tastes.  So when I take friends to a place I know, it is not hard to point out, if asked, what dishes are my favorites.  Then it is up to them. 

Guerilla Tip:  If you don’t like your current situation, find a workaround.  Trust me, there is almost always a workaround. 

     Help kids deal with life’s frustrations by using words to say it out.  Sometimes, we are unexpectedly forced into playing a nurturing role when we are neither parent or therapist.  Like a skillful parent, you can give someone in a ‘state’ a chance to state her story—a simple fact, a disappointment, a wish. 

If an Alzheimer’s patient forgets that a spouse is dead and asks when he will be coming, there are many things you can say without lying that are more helpful than saying he is dead.  You can say he will not be coming today, and that is true as far as it goes.  You can recall what the couple used to do together, and that points to the good memories.  You can ask what would be wished for on a visit, and that allows the imagination to speak. 
 
Guerilla Tip:  With kids, if a play date is called off, treat the moment seriously if the kid takes it that way.  Model how to use your words as you ask them to do the same. 

Forget that the moment is fleeting for you—it should be for most adults.  But when a kid feels frustrated, you get to teach how to handle frustration.
 Start by agreeing that a cancellation is no fun, and perhaps the last play date had been a lot of fun. 

Guerilla Tip:  Be grateful when you are handed an opportunity to demonstrate adult skills in action.  To be clear, frustration tolerance is a big one. 

Here are three stepped options based on what you feel and how closely you can identify with the kid’s setback.  When you find yourself in one category, you will know how to proceed depending on how you as a particular parent feels—not how a theoretical one might feel.
1.    I would hate it myself—Admit it if you personally dislike a change of plans:  “I’m the same way; I just hate a change of plans.” 
2.    I might not care, but can imagine a kid would take it hard—If you would not react to personally dislike a change of plans not, say, “I can imagine you’re upset for the change of plans.  I can imagine it stinks.” 
3.    I can’t imagine why anyone would care, but my kid deserves validation for its importance to her—If you can’t even imagine what would be so upsetting, you can still rise to the occasion with the following home run:  “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through, but I can see you’re upset.  Hang in there, I’m here.”

When things calm down, ask your kid if there is anything that could substitute for now. 

The question is how to play it honorably and helpfully, no matter how you feel.  There is absolutely no need to dishonor yourself with fancy lies.  No, you can honor the adult without twisting the moment or kidding yourself, all the while honoring your kid. 

Guerilla Tip:  Honor yourself and your kid. 

  • Remembering and Forgetting
           I had two complementary agreements with my kids with regard to remembering each other’s ‘stories.’ 
  •      I remember—If I started telling my kid an old story again, I would get a polite interruption, as I asked.  They would not roll their eyes, “Lord, here it come again,” or worse, humor me by letting me go until the end when I realize, by their lack of reaction at the punch line or moral of the story, that they have heard it all before.  Instead, a kid would say, “Oh, I remember.”  What a pleasure to hear instead of the usual alternatives. 
  •      I don’t remember—If I forgot a detail of my kids’ school, social or work issue, I would just get a reminder.  No hint of “How could you forget?” or “My stuff’s not important to you?”  What a pleasure to hear instead of the usual alternatives. 

     Guerilla Tip:  Life is too full of remembering and forgetting each other's stories not to be respectful in this area.
 

Monday, December 12, 2022

Stick with Your Routine

“Bedtime is 1AM.”
  
  •      At bedtime, there would always be a story to tell, a lullaby to I cannot stress enough how important it is to cultivate a routine that works for you and to allow for special exceptions at special times. 


    Guerilla Tip:  Routine is very important to kids.  For different reasons, it also makes so much sense for parents, too. 


    My sister is a wonderful parent, yet she had a bedtime practice that just wouldn’t have worked for me.  When her kids were preschoolers, bedtime was 7PM sometimes, or maybe 1AM as needed.  Now, I can imagine an odd but successful schedule for preschoolers in which bedtime is 1AM every night.  Perhaps one parent is home nightly only 11PM on.  Then bedtime is 1AM.  Note that after the word bedtime comes is, not maybe.  There is no modifying adverb, and 1AM does not get modified either.  Routine again works in our favor. 


    Guerilla Tip:  When you know what’s good, don’t get caught up with what’s natural.  Shakespeare’s work is not natural.  His man-made creations are loved because they are unnaturally good.  
  •        As a kid, I had the worst time falling asleep, and I had nightmares to look forward to.

    Guerilla Tip:  When a kid tells you she can’t fall asleep, be tender and supportive.  Tell her in your own words, “I am not asking you to sleep; I’m asking you to keep your eyes closed.  Give the Sandman a chance to find you, Honey.  See you in the morning.” 

     
  •      At bedtime, there would always be a story to tell, a lullaby to sing or a combination of the two.  If kids couldn’t agree on one fairytale, they got a hybrid of two, say Cinderella and the Three Bears.  Fables about witches who oven-roasted her visitors were not my favorites.  If kids were not calm and quiet after one story, they did not get a further story time ritual, but they could watch me sitting in the hallway with my own reading.  That way they got some halfway company for a bit longer. 

    I hit upon a good formula for the perennial cycle kids have of asking for more water and more bathroom visits, then of provoking the inevitable fight about when it all ends.  Instead, I told the kids they could help themselves to water—”Too late for juice or milk”—and to the toilet, without asking.  Therefore, I took myself out of the loop of arguing when enough is enough. 

    Hearing five or 10 stories pales by comparison to a passionate, real-live action drama between parent and kid with tempers and nostrils flaring.  Adults have a name for such push and pull games. 

    Guerilla Tip:  A sweet bedtime cannot compete with a fiery one.  Water, okay.  Toilet, very good.  Engaging in drama at bedtime, no thank you.  
  •      Dr. Benjamin Spock in his landmark guide of 1945, Baby and Child Care, advised feeding babies by the clock—regular feeding hours.  Dr. Spock was practical and calming to the new parent, he was an MD and parents followed his advice.  He also suggested watching digestion and demand, then using a little flexibility based on them. 

    By contrast, he warned that parents who normally worked days and slept nights but fed their baby completely on demand create their own difficulties.  “They have gotten the idea that the more they give up for the baby the better it is for the child, or that they have to prove they are good parents by ignoring their own convenience.” 

    Guerilla Tip:  Giving up more for your baby does not by itself improve baby’s life or yours.  You can be a perfectly reasonable parent without ignoring your own needs, even your own convenience.  Keep it all in the mix. 

    Paradoxically, a page later he wrote, “If your baby is still asleep when one of these regular feeding hours comes around, you can wake her up.”  Whatever happened to letting sleeping dogs lie?  Wake a sleeping baby to honor a timetable?  Where is the flexibility here, and who is in charge, the clock?  Putting them to bed according to a routine does not imply waking them up for food. 

    Waking a baby reminds me of hospital staff who wake patients up recuperating from surgery to check their vital signs.  Granted I am no nurse, but sleeping soundly after surgery is more than a godsend for the patient, but its own vital sign that the healing is proceeding well.  Waking the patient up is by no means for the patient’s sake, but to cover the staff:  “He had a pulse when my shift began.” 

    Guerilla Tip:  If you are sitting by a relative’s bedside in the hospital and the staff hates you, you are doing an excellent job. 
  •      Some kids are irresistibly drawn to fire.  Rather than give them ideas with the hollow “Don’t play with matches,” I looked for every chance to handle fire together with them.  What happened behind my back, of course, I did not know, but at least when we were together, I was supervising, lighting the oven safely and showing trust. 

    Guerilla Tip:  Trust your kid even if you were not raised on trust yourself. 

    One example of trust is that it was Daniel’s regular job to blow out the havdala candle signifying the end of the Sabbath.  That was an important honor for him because he knew I ‘got it,’ which means I got him, too. 

    “Don’t play with matches,” by the way, is heard by kids as “Don’t play with matches when you are near me.”  Co-worker Marge E., of Plainsboro, NJ, used to tell me she thought her mother was a witch for sensing whenever the kids had been playing with fire.  Together with friends, Marge would roast potatoes for an hour on an open fire in an empty city lot, and then come inside.  How did her mother ever know? 

  •      My mother’s neighbor Linda M. of Jerusalem was mother of two, one a mildly retarded boy named Yair.  This may be my mistaken classification, but I had interactive conversations with Yair where he held his own simply but clearly. 

    When he was about 12, my mother told me that he came over to Linda during the silent prayer of Kedushah, and Linda gestured softly she could not talk to him just then.  My mother, who strongly identified with her selfless self-image, thought it was cruel to treat a retarded boy that way.  I had my silent take on things and apparently so did Linda. 

    Guerilla Tip:  Most kids can follow rules over time, and teaching them the ways of the world gently is the very best way to mainstream them all.  If it ever becomes clear that the lesson cannot be learned, it can always be dropped later. 

    For example, table manners are important to teach kids, including those with limitations.  So says writer Temple Grandin, who had her own ‘experiences’ coping with and compensating for Asperger syndrome. 

    Guerilla Tip:  The ideal is to mainstream every kid, starting from birth.