What the World Needs Now is More Bieber Fever!

Image via WikipediaI am the first to complain about television programming for teens.  I can barely stand it!   Shows where the parents and teachers are depicted as complete morons or where the parents don’t even exist yet somehow the kids live in a downtown loft and wear designer clothes is so beyond reality that I begin to wonder if my kids will ever want to work.  And why should they?  Everything they see in the media today is about slacking off, doing nothing yet living off the manna that somehow magically sustains their “have it all” life style.

So, how my daughter talked me into watching the Justin Bieber movie Never Say Never with her, I’ll never know.  I suppose being asked to do anything with my fourteen year old daughter is an opportunity I didn’t want to miss, besides I was curious about all the hype surrounding this child star.  I assumed he was just another Disney formulated star but boy was I wrong!

First of all, the kid isn’t even American, he’s Canadian.  Second, he comes from nothing and actually has talent.  Yes, it’s true!  The movie brought me to tears on several occasions as his single, teen-aged mom and supportive grand parents just shrug their shoulders in disbelief as this child continues to rise to super stardom via his own will and hard work.  It was obvious that they never pushed or dangled him in front of anyone, just stood by him as he made his own way.  I admit, the kid is contagious!   It’s hard not to want him to succeed because all he wants to do is sing and perform and bring joy to his fans.

Not only that, but the movie shows him on tour where he actually damages his vocal chords and has to sit out a few concerts which pains him because he hates to let down his fans.  Who is this kid, and why don’t we have politicians like this who give it their all just for the joy of it?  In fact, some people from Justin’s crew are shown walking through neighborhoods giving away front row tickets to hysterical teenaged girls.  The tour manager even comments that this is his favorite part of the job!   What is going on here?  Is this some kind of “feel good” movement?  Perhap?

Well, whatever it is, I’m all for it!   The cynical side of me believes that it will take a whole lot of Justin Bieber’s to make a difference in our world today but at the rate this kid is going, all he has to do is keep doing what he loves and the rest will follow.  A child who came from nothing, doing what he loves and changing the social landscape of a world that has forgotten for the moment that joy begets joy?   Sounds like a familiar story and not one to be underestimated so if you get a chance to watch Never Say Never with your kids, do it!   Who knows, if enough of us see it, we might become part of the fever too!

There’s a creative change in the air.  Some call it The Shift others see it as a renaissance.  How do you see it?  And what are you doing to support and encourage it in yourself, others and the world around you?  Please share.

My Dog, My Rock and Even My Clock!

I’m not big on schedules and structures, though I would like to be.  I admire those who create their own schedules and stick to them as well as those who accept institutional structures that tell them where to be, what to do, when to show up and how long to stay.  I, on the other hand, am one of those people who is often held hostage by my artistic temperament.  In fact, I can quickly become resentful of any person or institution that tells me what to do or when to do it. 
    Now most households are reflective of those who inhabit them so how my dog became so schedule obsessed is beyond me!  Creature of habit?  No way!   If our dog were human, he’d be OCD.  Not only does he not eat after 7:00 p.m. but will go directly to his kennel the minute he hears my blow dryer go off in the morning.  It doesn’t matter if I’m staying home or going out, once he hears that whistle of hot air blowing, he’s in the kennel for the rest of the day whether I close his door or not.  The same with movies.  Once those credits start rolling, off he goes, it’s time for bed.
   How he got this way, I’m not sure?  I suspect that he is in a time warp and trying to reconcile that my husband never actually chose him in the first place.  It’s true!   My kids and I put him on hold at the Humane Society on Christmas Eve Day, 2002 because we had nothing better to do.  To our surprise, lots of dogs were available that day.  Apparently we weren’t privy to what the rest of the world knows about staying away from the pound on holidays that encourage loneliness and gift-giving!   Bad combination for a family still mourning their last pet.
    Upon putting our dog on hold, I at least had enough sense to call my husband and ask him to stop by on his way home from Christmas shopping to give him a look see.  Thinking he was home free after two years of being pet free, my husband begrudgingly went to see this dog to find out what all the fuss was about.  To my surprise, he called me from his cell phone excited and thrilled to be playing with such an agile and receptive companion. “Yes!” he shouted.  “This is a great dog!”
    Ten minutes later, an apologetic volunteer called to tell me that the dog my husband was shown was not actually the dog I had put on hold but a different dog, a dog that was no longer available for adoption.  And so, I broke the news to my husband and that was that.  The dog my kids and I fell in love with that morning was the dog that was coming home with us and the dog my husband fell in love with is the dog that was going home with someone else.
    I’m not sure, but I think our dog instinctually knows that he wasn’t necessarily our family’s first choice and tries to make up for it by staying overly obedient to a self-imposed restrictive schedule.  What he may not know, however, is that he provides the stability that every family needs.  You can set the clock by him.  Like the changing of the seasons or trusting the mail carrier will deliver six days a week, rain or shine, our dog is nothing if not dependable.  Plus, my kids always know exactly where to find him at any given time and that alone is trust incarnate.  I only wish our dog truly understood what a gift he has been to a family who is and may always be structure-impaired.
    How about you?  What in your life can you trust or count on?  What does that mean to you?
   

Do it Anyway!

There’s a strange saying going around my house.  Perhaps you may have heard it too?  It sounds a bit whiny and even nasal at times.  It's often followed by a gasp, annoyed intonation or a rolling of the eyes.  Yes, you guessed it, it sounds like this:  “But I don’t feel like it! ” 

This exacerbated adolescent response to just about anything from picking up socks, feeding the dog, taking out the garbage or doing homework seems to be a staple for today’s teenager.  Similar to the “terrible two’s” when every request is followed by an accentuated “No! ” yet strangely unattractive coming from an over-sized child.  Not sure how this happened, but very sure that “not feeling like it” is an epidemic amongst kids this age who, for one reason or another, want “to feel” rather than “do!” 

My friend, whose ancestors come from Ghana and who was raised in England, is quite baffled by the typical American teenager.  This high emotional intelligence seems to trump all other things, especially anything requiring the least bit of effort.  Why these same kids who are quick to diagnose fellow students with “anger issues” or “ADD/ADHD” or “depression” but can’t get a simple task done without “feeling like it” first, is a mystery to me!

Don’t get me wrong, emotional intelligence is important, and has certainly come a long way since I was a teenager, but then again, I had a job in high school!  In fact, my friend and I had a monopoly on babysitting jobs in our neighborhood and were busy every Saturday night from the age of 12 whether we liked it or not!

I wonder if the pendulum swing has swung a bit too far and allowed emotions to override that which quite simply, just needs to be done.  Maybe I’m giving my kids too much room to emote and not enough room to just do?  Or maybe, I just need to continue saying that which comes naturally these days: “You don’t always have to feel like it, sometimes you just need to do it!” 

I use this quite a bit with my high school students and now that we are coming to the end of the year, I’m making some headway.  One of my students just couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that he had to fill out a “stupid form” for me in order to get a grade.  For some reason, he thought that if he “didn’t feel like it,” he didn’t have to do it.  After eight months of repeating the same message that he didn’t actually have to feel like doing it in order to get it done, I made a connection!

Somehow, someway, the message got through that filling out a form wasn’t rocket science but simply an activity that allowed me to grade his work and in reality had very little to do with feelings at all.  Now, this extremely bright student is getting the “A” he deserves and I’m getting the satisfaction of seeing him master something other than his knowledge of how he might be “feeling” about something at any given time. 

Now, whether picking up his socks at home is still determined by his feelings, I don’t know, but at least he has the tools now to master that too whether he’s feeling like it or not!
How about you?  Do you ever keep yourself from doing something that needs to be done because you don’t feel inspired?  Maybe just do it and reward yourself later.  Maybe inspiration will follow?

Listening to Tears

Last weekend marked the end of yet another season of basketball for my daughter.  An unusually demanding season, I still found myself looking forward to not just watching her play but to cheer and gab with other parents.  It started out as any other season except that I seemed much more emotionally involved regarding the outcome of each game.  Not a competitive person by nature, I had my share of competitive tennis growing up.  I remember enjoying the mantra of hitting and receiving the ball on my racquet but very little interest in winning, or so I thought.
    Continuing to pay attention and listening to my unusual reactions throughout this season, I have come to realize that my own fear of losing far outweighed my desire to win.  I know this because over the past few months, I’ve watched my daughter handle winning and losing in a most remarkable way.  Venting about “bad refs” and shedding some tears upon each loss, I’ve observed my daughter bounce back beautifully from game to game.  Winning, as much fun as it can be, mostly comprised of her shelving a trophy or getting a new t-shirt.  She always seemed more interested in the process of going to practice, learning new skills and being with her team mates.  This is not the way I learned to do things, not at all!
    So it became immensely cathartic for me when my daughter’s team lost in the third round of the state tournament by one point.  My sudden intense wave of tears was not about her losing or even about an end to a wonderful season, it was about old memories that needed healing.  I found myself absolutely traumatized when her team lost their 3 point lead in the remaining 45 seconds of the game.  I could barely breathe much less speak.  I was in a kind of mind numbing abyss and just wanted to crawl up in a ball and go to sleep.  I was absolutely devastated and there was nothing I could do about it, so I didn’t.
    Pulling myself up from the bench, I somehow made it over to the other parents who were all huddled around the coaches and the team.  Not looking much better than me, we all stood in shock as the coach talked the girls down and reminded them of all the wonderful things they had learned this year and how proud he was of each and every one of them.  Overwhelmed with emotion, I looked over at my daughter who was sitting against the wall looking down at her feet.  A few tears rolling down her cheek, she got up, put on her shooting shirt and grabbed a couple team mates to go get something to eat from the snack stand.  And that was that! 
    Afterward, some of us parents gathered around and hugged.  It was tough on us, it really was!  I came to realize, however, that my tears had very little to do with the girls losing that day and everything about me healing some of my own painful losses.  Still tired and frazzled, we took the team to lunch and watched them bounce back as they laughed and enjoyed each other.  I, on the other hand, was exhausted and took a nap on the way home.  It was a long day for me and rightfully so, I had been holding in a lot of pain for a very long time and today was the relief I had been waiting for.
    How about you?  Do you ever find yourself overreacting to a situation that has little or nothing to do with you?  Maybe you too are being invited to heal the wounds of the past by being present to the tears of today? 
   

Ten Ways to Get Teens to Help Out

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Joy versus Happiness

You know the saying, “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” right? It’s one of those pieces of wisdom that sticks to a refrigerator magnet for years before you actually understand it from a gut level and make it your own. My mother-in-law has a plague on her kitchen wall that reads: “Grandchildren are God’s gift for not killing your own children”. I look forward to benefiting from that nugget of wisdom too someday.
Taking pride in mistakes and failures is not something that comes naturally in our culture. In fact, it’s almost impossible unless you intentionally seek it’s wisdom. In some cultures, battle scars are seen as a badge of honor and character builders. Here, however, it’s more about success and perfection, finding that ultimate high without actually doing any of the work.
Sometimes, I wonder, if we aren’t confused between “joy” and “happiness”? Joy being something I participate in actively rather than an illusion I think about? Joy, something that resonates throughout my body versus some utopia that only resides in my imagination? Joy, not a fleeting thought or goal but something I lean into, giving my life meaning, authenticity and overall effectiveness?
To me, this is the difference and for me this difference became blatantly apparent the other night when my teenagers were late to a social event. Actually, I got them there on time but the line from the door was so long that my kids were asked to leave. I guess a lot of teens were out looking for a good time that night and only a select few were going to get a chance to experience it. And so the drama ensued.
Heads down, lips a quiver, my girls slogged back to the car in a deeply entrenched funk. The kind of funk that ingrains itself into the very cells of a hormonal teenager and makes the car ride home from the overflow parking lot a living hell! No where to be, no where to run, I suddenly realized that this might be a character building moment. A moment in time that only comes around once in awhile, well maybe more than once in awhile but certainly a moment that got my attention, yes, a real teachable moment! Indeed it was a teachable moment, yet, for some reason, I couldn’t figure out what the lesson might be.
The mood in the car was so heavy, I felt the wheels grinding and dragging beneath us, and still, nothing was coming to me. And then it hit me! Pain! Yes, my kids were feeling something foreign and even alien-like but I truly believe that what they were feeling was actual pain! As soon as I realized what was I happening I went on full alert. I would not let this opportunity escape, no way, I was on a mission and there was no way I was going to allow them to avoid it, deny it, rationalize it or simply jump to the next form of entertainment.
First thing I did was get myself out of the way, and fast! I was not going to sugar coat things or figure out a way to make them feel better, I was just going to allow them the space and time to feel miserable. It was wonderful! One got mouthy and tried to blame the ruined evening on me and my slow driving but I wouldn’t allow it. Consequences dear, “no allowance this week!”
Next, the other one tried to escape the pain and pick a fight with her sister, again, no go, “both of you to your rooms, no electronics,” I was on a roll! Finally after an hour or so of creative maneuvering, my girls gave up. They were done. It just wasn’t worth it to them anymore. They were spent.
The pain had subsided and they had made it through. Surprisingly, not damaged but hopefully deepened, my girls had prevailed through the rocky terrain of pain. I was proud of them. I was proud of me. Most of all, I was grateful for their experience.
Later that night, I heard them laughing with each other over nothing in particular, it was really quite amazing. Was it joy or happiness, I’m not sure? Whatever it was, it sounded hearty and full of life and certainly welcome at our house anytime!

Balancing Parenthood, Chinese-American Style!

I’ve had interesting discussions lately about the Chinese culture and how it compares to our own. First, a high school teacher and I approached our students by comparing and contrasting the education systems within the two countries. Our students seemed taken aback as we discussed how China has a tendency to lean toward “effort” versus some kind of innate intelligence or “giftedness” or privilege. Since an earlier group of students didn’t know who won the Civil War in our country, I thought this was a good topic to talk about. Overall, the students seemed interested in learning about China’s high expectations regarding effort but didn’t seem to make a connection to how this might relate to them or why they would concern themselves with working at subjects that don’t interest them or add to the high profit margin they expect to accrue when they fall into that great career!
Second, Amy Chua’s article about Chinese mothering and David Brook’s response has added to the growing disconnect between us and them. I call this a “disconnect” because I believe both cultures have a lot to offer one another and wonder when we might start finding common ground? Without repeating language such as “superior” or “wimp” to express my likes or dislikes of what each culture stands for, I wonder if maybe they are both right?
In a nutshell, China is more community oriented and the U.S.A. is more individualistic. Having completely opposite economic policies has surely contributed to our vast differences but maybe our two countries have come to this current juncture for a reason? Maybe we have gone to such extremes away from one another that there is no other way but to back track? Maybe in the big scheme, we are cosmically being invited to take a serious look at each other and pay attention to those things that are already working over there and invite them to do the same?
I realize, however, I don’t have control over the top government officials of these two countries but I wonder what is being asked of me as a parent and what I can control in my own house? Maybe I can start by focusing on my children’s efforts? Maybe I can take the heat or maybe even some pride in being “the meanest parent in the world” and calling a “time out” on all electronics while they sit and read? Maybe, I can enforce the expectation that they complete all homework assignments as well as some intentional reading time before engaging in social activities? And maybe, I can instill in them the desire to work towards something they want, a gift, I might add, that will keep on giving their whole lives long.
Whether Chinese households are having similar discussions in their classrooms and living rooms about how the U.S. values relational skills, experiences and connections as a way to wholeness remains to be seen as China and the U.S. attempt to work together in the coming years. I do think that the U.S. may have a bigger battle ahead of them, however, because as any teacher will tell you, it’s much easier to loosen up after being strict and rigid but it’s much harder to reel in the reigns when things get too loose and open.
What do you think? Where do you see the invitation in Chinese and U.S. relations? What can you do in your own house to balance structure with openness and acceptance?

Follow the Yin-Yang Energy and Hope for the Best!

Image via WikipediaMy daughter has had a love affair with ball sports since any of us can remember. She’s tried dance, gymnastics, skating, swimming and even fencing but nothing seems to compare to her desire to hit, pass, chase or kick that ball! She doesn't discriminate about the size of the ball either as long as she can interact with it in an all out aggressive way. This quiet, shy child of mine unleashes a beast-like energy whenever she competes for access to the ball at play.
Now, her identical twin sister, has little if any interest in ball sports. She’s just as athletic as her sister but doesn’t seem to share in that desire to interact with the ball at all costs. She enjoys soccer but less for the competition of it and more for the camaraderie of it. Most recently she’s discovered a profound love for dance. Her body seems to commune with this desire and blends into a graceful motion at will. This ability to flex and bend for no apparent reason irritates her sister to no end and on occasion causes a rift that has something to do with being a “girly, girl” and arguing that "dance isn’t a real sport anyway!" Of course, anyone who has seen a professional ballet performance can tell you that these dancers are in no way joking around. This is another point of contention, however, when my daughter comes home with bloody toes from a strenuous point class and yells, “See, don’t tell me dance isn’t a sport!” And so it goes.
Simply put, my daughters are different from one another yet very much the same. They share 99 percent DNA but their spiritual paths seem quite different. One has the demeanor of a cat and gets around to things in slow motion while the other one is like a puppy chomping at the bit to play, play, play! One has dimples and a collection of stuffed animals on her bed and the other one answers to parent chants from the sidelines of a basketball court: “Release the beast!”
What can I say, it hasn’t been easy raising the “yin-yang twins” but luckily their energy has blazed a fairly easy trail to follow. Afraid at times that they’ll lose their way, I try to bask in the understanding that God is ultimately in charge and loves them unconditionally. Easier said than done since one daughter was obsessed with vampires for awhile and now sees herself as a crime scene investigator. Guess which twin? She DVR’s anything with “crime”, “cops” or “CSI” in the title. Now luckily, I’m not terribly intimidated by her focus on the dark side of things because I’ve come to realize that she’s not really interested in joining dark forces but rather to eliminate them. At the core of her being, there seems to lie this genuine need to get at the “truth” of things. To her credit, she doesn’t seem the least bit afraid of the muckety muck that she will need to trudge through to get to it. I wish her well.
My other daughter, though not the least bit interested in getting dirty, seems to enjoy being with others. Whether playing in the school band, singing in the choir or dog-siting, she lives to connect! She’ll do anything, even clean her room, to get a chance to “hang out” with friends or organize a gathering. Easier to raise at times, I can’t help but worry that she’s “too nice” and will let others take advantage of her. I can only hope, I guess, that her sister will take her to a shooting range someday and teach her to shoot straight!
Whatever happens, I’ve learned a few things. I’ve learned that at their core they are about “truth” and “love” and my job is to get out of the way of that. And if I can follow their lead, I might even be helpful in keeping them on track. For me, this has been the hardest yet most rewarding part of being a parent. Knowing when to intervene and knowing when to stay away. I just hope I don’t get the two mixed up!

12/19/10: Articles for Parents This Week

12/19/10: Articles for Parents This Week