Family

My son just started middle school after Labor Day, and everything seems to be going really well. So why am I already battening down the hatches? Because I remember how I was in middle school. I was evil. Just impossible. Everything my parents did was horrifyingly embarrassing. My friends were my world. I wanted the blue Fair Isles sweater that Jodi wore, the Bermuda bag that Marla carried, the clogs that Melissa had on her feet. I wanted to hang out with Dina and Noelle and Todd and Adam as much as humanly possible. We lived to torture our poor, pathetic French teacher. Every moment was filled with emotion and drama. I look back sometimes and wonder: Seriously, what was I thinking?

Apparently in the last decade,  a fair bit of research has been conducted to gather biological evidence as to why teenagers go a little bit haywire. Apparently, the teenage brain begins a massive shift around the prefrontal cortex around 12-13 years of age. The pre-frontal cortex is the thinking part of the brain that allows us to consider the consequences of our actions, and that part of the brain kind of stops working as well as it had before. Parents don’t always understand the neurological changes that their children’s brains are undergoing: changes that can cause their once docile children to take big risks and make big mistakes. The following article is an excerpt from a fabulous piece of reporting by Patti Neighmond for npr.org. You can read it, or you can listen to it here.

Laura Kastner, who along with Jennifer Wyatt has written a new book, Getting to Calm: Cool-headed Strategies for Parenting Tweens and Teens. For more than 30 years, Kastner has helped parents and children work toward greater calm in the home. In the book, Kastner presents a typical scenario:

Your child goes to a sleepover. The kids sneak out, go to someone’s house, and spray shaving cream all over the house and cars. The police come, give them a tongue lashing and send them back to the host family, who promptly delivers them home to you in the middle of the night.

“Sometimes, parents say, ‘What were you thinking?'” says Kastner. “And the joke’s on us. They weren’t thinking. They were running like wildebeests in the canyon. Just go, go, go. You know, they were flooded and excited and not really thinking through the consequences of their actions.”

In situations like this, Kastner says the first line of defense for parents is to stay calm. Tell the teen to just go to bed and that you will deal with consequences tomorrow. Ask them to write a note of self-reflection — about their regrets, why they went off track, what they would do differently if given another chance, and what skills they might need to avoid the situation in the first place.

Kastner suggests even writing a letter of apology to the host family, the family that got shaving-creamed, and maybe even the police officer who wasted his time responding to the incident. Based on the quality of this self-critique, Kastner says, parents can then determine discipline or consequences.

“It will be small, medium or large, based on the quality” of the self-critique and how much the parents believe their children learned from the mistake, she says. Parents might even have the teenager suggest their own discipline. And there’s an added benefit to the teens’ writing. It engages the “thinking” part of the brain, and gets the teenager away from the emotional frenzy of the night.

I, of course, love the idea of integrating writing as a way of getting kids to connect with thoughts to their actions. This is a strategy I have used in my classroom when students have been misbehaving. I simply hand the offending student a pre-written sticky note which instructs that student to sit out in the hall and write a full-page explanation as to why he/she has been asked to leave my class.

The exercise works for several reasons: First, it immediately eliminates the distraction from the classroom. Second, the student has to go outside and really think about what he/she was doing. Sometimes it is the first time the student has ever had the opportunity to even consider that what he/she has been doing might be considered annoying/bothersome, anti-intellectual, etc. Third, once the student is done, he/she returns to the class where we calmly conference. There has been time to cool down. I get to read the student’s words. The student generally recognizes his/her behavior as problematic to the larger group dynamic and we come to some kind of understanding. Sometimes, adjustments need to be made: maybe we decide to move the student’s seat so he/she is closer to me and further away from a friend or a loud hallway. Always, we have a clearer understanding of the other. And last, I have a piece of paper documenting the student’s infraction so if the behavior recurs, well . . . I have proof from the student’s own hand that establishes there has been an ongoing problem.

I have done all this for years, however, until I heard this report on NPR, it had never occurred to me to use this same kind of writing technique as a kind of disciplinary technique with my own child. (Not that I have had to. Yet.) But I love the idea of it.

So guess who has a blank composition notebook in the kitchen cupboard ready to go, should that moment of crisis arise. (Note: if you act fast, those notebooks are twenty-five cents at Target. If your peeps are just entering middle school, I suggest you pick up a few!)

And while we’re on the subject, anyone brave enough to share an example of a “wild and crazy thing” you did when you were between the ages of 13 and 17 years old? Anyone? Anyone?

Note: This blog was written the Sunday before the school year started.

My husband and my son have been on the driving range for an hour.

I know this because I have been spying on them from my car.

About twenty minutes ago, it started to rain, and I thought they would stop. But they didn’t. They kept on whacking dem balls, oblivious.

I never thought this day would come.

When my son was 9 months old and just starting to walk, my husband decided May would be a lovely time to get serious about the game of golf and join a local club.

I remember being furious and feeling completely abandoned. I’d imagined the two of us taking turns watching our teetering toddler as he endlessly padded  down the tile floors. But then I became a golf widow, and I lost my husband.

I suppose, at the time, the golf course was a better lover. After all, she was beautiful, well-maintained, undulating, and brimming with splendor. All of that gorgeousness was in sharp opposition to the new-mommy me. When our son was 9 months old, sometimes I looked downright ragged; sometimes I was mean; some days, I didn’t  shower, and I was cranky when my husband came home. I offered no new vistas. At home, every day was the same thing: Diapers, feedings, naps. Or – heaven forbid – no naps.

My husband promised that it would get easier, the parenting gig. And it has. Our 11-year-old son is easy-going, funny, eager to try new things. He is kind, loyal, open-minded, intuitive and imaginative.

And I just watched him whack a golf ball farther than I have ever managed to hit one. The ball flew long and straight, right over the flag.

So he is starting to golf.

It’s kind of cool. Something he can do with his dad.

Maybe one day they’ll go on a guy trip to some fabulous location together and bring their clubs. Talk about guy stuff.

Watching them enjoy themselves as the rain pours on their heads, I realize, it’s time to stop being pissy about the golf thing.

Because they enjoy it.

Even in the rain.

I don’t have to be part of everything. As long as I can meet up with them for dinner, I’m good.

tweet me @rasjacobson

A little nostalgia, if you will indulge me. My husband and I attended a wedding this past Saturday night: Fifteen years and two days after our own wedding day. The day after we were married, as my new husband and I were opening our wedding gifts, we quickly noticed someone had given us a used casserole dish. It was yellow and chipped; it was even a little dirty. I ranted: “Who would give us a used dish?!” I was astonished and, frankly, pretty pissed.

Then I read the card.

The casserole dish had come from a distant aunt who was in her early 90s at the time, and quite ill. Still, Aunt Bea wanted to send us something. Her husband, whom she had loved dearly, had passed away by then and she was alone. In her beautifully written penmanship, Bea explained that a dear friend had given her (and her new husband) that very casserole dish that I now had before me over fifty years earlier. She apologized about the chips and dings, but pointed out that the dish had seen her family through the good years and the lean years. That casserole dish had fed them through The Great Depression, fed their children and grandchildren. She told me that – while she no longer cooked her own meals – she still cherished the dish, but now she wanted me to have it.

Suddenly, everything changed. I no longer hated the old, used casserole dish; I cherished it. It was infused with so much meaning, and over the years I used it all the time. I always put sweet things in it: apple crisp or blueberry cobbler. So many yummy things.

Not too long ago, my casserole dish split into two pieces as I carefully washed it in the sink. It was old and fragile. Its time had come. Nevertheless, I wept. Who knew that something that I had thought represented such a thoughtless gesture would become one of my most precious possessions? It was hard to throw away the pieces.

Now whenever my husband and I attend people’s weddings — while we don’t give them something used — we nearly always give the couple a hand-thrown casserole dish, usually one made by my husband’s uncle, Earl Jacobson, a talented, local potter, and we attach a note explaining the story about the casserole dish we received on our wedding day. We always wish the bride and groom well and hope that — in the very least — they always have a pot to cook in. (Then we stick a check inside!)

It is amazing how one’s perspective can quickly change when presented with the right lens through which to view things. Ugly things can become beautiful; things that seem like curses can be blessings in disguise. Aunt Bea taught me that sometimes my eyes lie. Sometimes people have to go deeper and see with their hearts.

What is something you have unexpectedly come to cherish?

photo by thetechbuzz @ flickr.com

A few entries back, I wrote about how I got my son through a mini-freak out session when he thought he lost a 544 page hardcover public library book. I explained how I had pulled out all the stops and used my best parenting skills to talk him off the proverbial ledge and to teach him perspective.

Last week, something happened to my stupid iPhone which resulted in the voice activation feature to accidentally turn on. I don’t have a clue as to what series of keys I may have pressed, and I’d like to know so I never do it again, because suddenly this computer generated female voice – let’s call her iJill – is shouting all kinds of commands at me in her terrible and very unstoppable voice: “Settings. General. Settings. Settings. Settings. On. Settings. iPod. Email. Settings…”

I fiddled with my phone, which made iJill furious and the screen locked up on me. I tried turning the phone off and doing a soft return. It was all for naught, when the phone turned on again, iJill was still shouting at me, my screen would not move and, I started to lose it. Here, I’d just come home from a fabulous vacation where I’d seen elk and bats and fox and lizards and butterflies; I’d climbed rocks and ridden horses; I’d flown in a 6 person airplane over the Colorado River and then floated down the Colorado River on a pontoon raft. Suddenly all that serenity disappeared because there was unpacking to be done, groceries to be purchased, laundry to be cleaned – and, frankly, I just needed my phone to stop shouting at me.

I started losing my mind. I think I was actually pulling my hair and screaming at the phone to shut up.

“Mom…” my son said placing a hand on my arm.

“Not now, Cal…” I said, pretty emphatically.

“Mom…” he continued relentlessly. “…I’m going to give you the worst case scenario…”

I looked up. Because, honestly, how could I not look up? He was using my lesson against me!

“Mom,” he said, “Your cell phone is broken.”

Oh. My. God.

“You have food and clothes. We have cars that work and air conditioning to keep us cool. Plus, we just took a great vacation and no one is sick or dying. And a lot of people love you. We have other phones, and you always say that you didn’t even get a cell phone until you were 32 years old…”

Ooh. Snap! He got me. He played every card. Basic needs. Check. Health. Check. Luxury items. Check. Love. Check. He even played the cell-phone card.

Instant perspective.

And honestly, I had to giggle a little because iJill was still babbling nonsense on the table, “iPod, iPod, Accessories. Settings. General. Settings. General. Settings. Settings…” and the world just seemed a little bit funnier. My son grinned at me, his freckled-face tilted to the side. Sometimes the student is the teacher, and my li’l guy continues to teach me near daily.

(NOTE: Child also reminded me that I have the Apple Protection Plan on my iPhone and that the Apple Care people are there to help me 24/7. And he was right again. So after one quick phone call, within 10 minutes, iJill was silenced and all was right in the world again.)

What are the best mini-lessons you’ve learned from a child/children?

When my boy was very young – maybe four or five years old – we had just completed our grocery shopping when he noticed a man in a green coat feeding dollar bills into a machine that then shot out shiny tickets. He asked me what the man was doing and what the machines were for and I thought, Aha! Now this is a teachable moment if I have ever seen one! I licked my lips, certain that this would be, without a doubt, the lesson on gambling that my son would never forget.

I explained to my littlun that the man in the green coat was buying scrach-off tickets. That each ticket had a different price, and that the man had a chance of winning a little money (as in the same amount as the cost of the ticket), a lot of money (in this case, up to $500 smackers) or he could lose everything.

For those of you who remember the ‘80s television sit-com, Family Ties, you may recall Alex P. Keaton, played by Michael J. Fox. “Alex,” was a high school student who had a passion for economics and wealth. A proponent of supply-side economics, Alex’s heroes were Republicans Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan. His favorite television show was Wall $treet Week and he was an avid reader of the The Wall Street Journal. My son has always had a little Alex P. Keaton in him. Maybe more than a little. For his birthday this year, he wants Apple stock. But I digress.

Anyway, at age 5, my child was positively enthralled by the machine, the lights, the magical production of a shiny ticket which he now understood could win him big bucks. His eyes were wide.

“So he could win $500?” my child asked, pointing at the man in the green coat.

“He could,” I reiterated, “but the odds are against him. Most people lose.”

My child was in a zombie-like state, drifting over to the man and the machine.

I tugged on his arm. “Would you like to go over and ask the man some questions?”

I did not have to ask twice because my child was now running towards the man in the green coat.

After introducing my son and myself, I asked the man in the green coat if my child could ask him a few questions, and he was more than agreeable.

My son had a million questions.

Boy: How many tickets did you buy today?

Man: 10.

Boy: How much is each ticket?

Man: $2.

Boy: How many times a week do you play?

Man: Every day.

Boy: Every day?!

Man: Every day.

Boy (incredulous): You spend $20 every day on scratch-off tickets?

Man: Yup.

Boy: Do you ever win?

Man: Sometimes. Not usually.

Boy: What’s the most you’ve ever won?

Man: Just a few dollars. Maybe $20. Usually I lose. But like they say, “You can’t win if you don’t play.”

Boy: Who says that?

Man: It used to be on a commercial for the New York State Lottery.

Boy: What’s ‘lottery’?

Man: It’s another gambling game where you place a bet on numbers.

Boy: Do you play that?

Man: Sure do. Once a week.

Boy: Wow! You must be rich! How much money do you spend in a week on all these numbers games?

Here, I apologized profusely to the man in the green coat as boy was probing relentlessly about his finances and what he did for a living so he could afford to spend $20 a day on “these numbers games.” The older man graciously dismissed my apology with a wave of his hand.

Man: I suppose one day when you are bigger, you’ll be able to figure out how much money I spend in a week, even a year, on these tickets.

Boy (nodding): You gonna scratch now?

Man: Yup. You wanna watch?

Boy didn’t need to answer. He stood on his tippy-toes at the service desk, watching the man in the green coat burn through his scratch-off tickets with his “lucky” quarter in hand.

I was thinking to myself, if you usually lose, wouldn’t that be an “unlucky” quarter? Maybe you should pick a new coin.

In a short time, the man in the green coat was down to his last ticket, which he kissed dramatically. I am pretty sure he did this for my son’s benefit.

But whatever. I didn’t care. I was so happy. I had my car lecture ready to go in my head. It went something like this: You see, son, the man in the green coat spends $20 a day on scratch-off games, which is $140 per week. That’s about $560 per month, not counting whatever he pays for lottery tickets. That’s a lot of money, I would say. I was prepared to point out that our grocery bill that very day had come to $146, so that man’s habit was just under a week’s worth of groceries for our family of three. I was prepared to discuss car payments and mortgage payments and savings accounts, the money market, the stock market, 401K plans, stocks and bonds.

And then it happened.

The man in the green coat shouted, “Hey-o! She’s a winner!”

He leaned over and showed my son the three matching numbers lined up in a row.

“Five hundred dollars!” he said, “Kid, you are my lucky charm!” he declared with a wink, “What time can you be here tomorrow?” Then he wandered off to stand in the line, I assumed, to collect his winnings.

My son looked at me and said, “I thought you said people almost never win!”

My beautiful lesson was destroyed. What was a mom to do? I shrugged my shoulders and swallowed my perfectly prepared lecture. “I guess you have to be willing to take a little risk if you want to do something where the odds are against you.”

My soon-to-be 11-year old has no recollection of this event whatsoever, but he did recently use his own $5 to purchase a raffle ticket that a friend was selling. I don’t mind him supporting his buddy’s youth hockey team, but I kind of hope he doesn’t win.

If he does, he might start asking for a trip to Vegas for his 11^th birthday.

Have you ever had a teachable moment go horribly awry?