I know how you feel, but you’re wrong

Young kids are hard to work with.  They can’t always tell you what’s going on (neither can older kids, but at least you know that most of them have the ability) or what’s bothering them or simply why they are doing things.  They aren’t there yet.  This can be particularly frustrating when it comes to those young kids who seem like their far ahead of their peers, quicker, more knowing.  When those kids suddenly behave like the young, complicated, frustrating, ridiculous child, that they actually are, you sometimes want to lose your shit on them.  Why the hell were they awesome one minute and then a complete tool the next?  I’m going to go with “It doesn’t matter.”

This applies to so many kids I’ve met and dealt with over the years, but there’s one in particular who’s prompted this entry.  She’s adorable and smart and sometimes really really sweet.  She can be thoughtful and caring.  She can be an utter asshole.  Passively stonewalling her teacher and other professionals, grinding some activities to a halt because she’s decided that it’s not for her or that she’d simply rather be doing something else.  It’s sending some people around the bend.

The fact that she’s cute and obviously intelligent really plays against her in these situations.  Some people see it and, right away, they’re thinking that she’s spoiled.  I get it.  The thought passes through my head as well.  When her refusal to participate in something, takes an entire activity off the rails, however briefly, the first thought is “She’s getting what she wants.  She’s winning!”  Followed very quickly by, “We can’t let her win.”  The implication being, that if she’s winning, we are losing.  It’s a feeling I understand, a feeling I have often shared, It sticks in your craw, it’s a infuriating, to think that some little spoiled five year old has all the power.  You’re wrong.  She’s five.  If you look at it like she’s winning, you’re losing (and wrong).  Seriously, roll with it.  There are some really difficult little kids, and the passive aggressive ones can be the most frustrating; they aren’t putting anyone at risk, and they’re not damaging anything, they are just refusing to do stuff. How do you reason with that?

If you have to see things as win/lose, please remember, for the love of all that is holy, that you are the adult;  in the end you will always win.  Eventually.  She never ruins the class, unless you let her.  She never throws the entire day off, just small moments of it.  Sure, kids like her, can often display a stubbornness that is kind of amazing, but a little extra patience and maybe some ignoring, or the opposite, some extra one on one time, can often be the answer.

But what if it doesn’t work?  What if she just keeps refusing?  Honestly, who cares?  There’s no way to force her to do what you want.  There’s also very little chance that she’ll be able to look beyond her immediate desire to not do what you want, she’s five.  Five year olds are not really wired that way.  In the end, she will come around.  If she doesn’t, then fucking wait longer.  If the end of the day comes, well, then you give her back to her parents.  Let them know how the day went and then rejoice that you aren’t going to see her until the next day.

I really do understand how you feel.  I’ve felt and hated the feeling that some little kid is beating me.  But you’re wrong.  There’s no win or lose her.  It just is.  She (and all the others) are who they are.  We work with kids and they are all different and all infuriating from time to time.  We just need to roll with what we’re given.  If you are getting upset because the behaviour has changed your plan for the day or the moment, well, that’s making it about you and not about them.  The other kids will roll with the changes (sometimes), especially if they see that you’re rolling with it too.

 

Let me tell you about Steve and Bob

So, I work in a grade school (JK through 6).  I’m an educational assistant.  This can and does mean many different things, depending on the day or even the time of day.  The first month or two I spent at my school, I was in a kinder class focussing on a particular child.  As his behaviour stabilized, more or less, I began spending more time with the grade school kids.

My first day out of the kinder class, I was pointed in the direction of a grade 2 student, let’s call him Randall.  Randall was refusing to participate in an outdoor activity and was out of sight of the teachers.  The principal asked me to bring Randall in to the office.  I wandered over to Randall and asked him how he was doing.  He growled at me and climbed in to a bush.  “Tough morning, huh?”  Another growl and some thrown leaves.  I Introduced myself. “I’m Mr. Geoff.  You might not know who I am cuz I’ve been hanging out in the kindergarten classes.”  Hissing and then a growl.  “Hmm.  What’s your name?” Silence.  “Listen boss, you don’t actually have to tell me your name, but it’d be a load easier for having a conversation.”  Silence.  “Don’t want to tell me huh?”  A very low and small “No.”  “Totally ok dude.  The only problem is that I’ll have to make up a name for you if I can’t find out your real name.”  I explained that having an invented name for him would be better for me than simply referring to him as “that kid in the bushes.”  “So, yeah…  not doing so well this morning, I guess.”  Silence.  “Anyways, the boss asked me to walk you to the office.  I guess you don’t really want to be doing all this fun stuff so we figured you could use a break.”  I told him he could have a minute to think it over.  When the minute was up I tried to get him to come out of the bush.  “Come on Steve.  Seriously, aren’t there mosquitoes and stuff in there?”  “My name’s not Steve.”  he tells me. “Oh, I know that Steve, but you won’t tell me your real name, so I’m stuck calling you Steve.  You kinda look like a Steve.”  (He doesn’t actually look like a Steve.)  “Anyway, Steve, we should head in.  The principal said to me “Mr. Geoff, go bring Steve in.” So I think we should go.  I hear they have a very nice office here, we should check it out.”  He came out of the bushes, trying hard not to laugh and looking rather confused, and began to walk in the other direction from the office.  Of course, I walked with him.  “Where we going Steve?”  Silence.  We wandered the yard for few minutes and then her pipes up, “My name isn’t Steve.”  I agreed with him and again told him that I didn’t want to be rude and call him “Hey You.”  That got a smile.  “Look Steve, we can check in at the office and let the principal know that you’re with me and that you aren’t missing and then ask her if you can just head to class, I mean you did get out of the bushes and you are letting me call you Steve, so you know…”  I began to walk towards the office and Steve followed.

Just before we got to the main office, he turned to me and said “My name’s Randall.”  “It’s a pleasure to meet you Randall, but I still think you look like a Steve.”  This got an actual laugh to go with the smile.  By this point, all the anger that he’d had, seemed to have faded away. We talked to the principal for a minute and then I walked him to class.  Once there, I said “It was pleasure hanging with you Steve.  See ya later.”  He threw me a wave and said “See ya later Bob.”  I laughed my ass off.

That was around October.  Every day I’d greet Steve and he’d call me Bob.  We confused the hell out of his mom whenever she’d drop him off in the morning.  One day she took me aside and asked “You’re name’s not really Bob is it?”  I told her it was Geoff.  She was relieved because she’d been sure that my name was Geoff and though she’d been calling me by the wrong name.  I told her the story of why Randall calls me Bob and why i call him Steve.  She nearly cried, she loved it.

Today was the last day of the school year.  Randall is one of my faves (yes, we have faves).  He and his mom came up to my office and presented me with a little gift to thank me for hanging with and helping Randall this year.  It was one of those gifts that you don’t see coming and though I kept my composure at school, writing this is plucking at my heart strings.  Other than the bottle of wine one of the parents gave me, this is the best.

G.

 

 

 

NO! I will not talk to your kid about it! You talk to your kid about it! -OR- How dress codes in school have very little to do with clothing.

So, this is a short and rather simple take on a complicated subject.  There are so many more factors at play than the ones I will mention.  The conversation I’m suggesting take place is much deeper that this post implies.  Basically I’m trying to highlight something that I see as the essence of the problem.  Thanks in advance for reading.

A dress code for students, both middle school and high school, is important.  As a parent and an educator, I really do see the need.  I will enforce the dress code as part of my job.  My job does not include explaining to the kid why there is a need for a dress code.  This is anathema to being an educator;  I really like explaining things and it’s a great opportunity for learning and debate.  The dress code conversation is way above my pay grade.  Would you like to know why?  Of course you do.  Let me explain, as best I can.

The reason that I’m not going to engage any student in the debate over dress code or try to explain to them the reasons behind it is, it’s not my job.  That lovely task falls to you, the parents.  But, Geoff, why should I have to defend the school’s policy?  It’s your policy, not mine.  Let me ask you something, dear parent:  Do you want me, an admittedly amazing person, talking to your preteen or teen about sex?  Your answer better be no.  Perhaps you’ll say that you don’t want me to talk to them about sex, but do want me to discuss the dress code.  Well, they are the same thing.  That’s why it’s difficult for any school to justify/explain/debate/enforce a dress code, and it’s also why a dress code is needed.  Your kids are changing in shape and hormone content.  They are also becoming more and more aware of their own bodies and the bodies of their peers. When it comes right down to it, puberty and all the changes that come with it are about reaching sexual maturity (not mental maturity). The changes are already screaming “Look at me! I’m fertile/virile! Let’s do it!” There’s a feeling if power that comes with these changes. You’re turning heads and having a visible effect on others. It’s about sex.

Your kids need be defined by more and noticed for more that long legs or cleavage.  The problem being that the media’s influence makes that harder and harder.  Peoples’ worth is so often and so unfairly tied to their appearance. This is not a new thing, but is so prevalent in our society that the battle against it is overwhelming.  It’s insidious and is present everywhere.  You don’t need me to point out to you all the ways that girls and women are told that their looks and attractiveness to others is the most important thing.

Fashion has always tried to test the limits of what society deems appropriate.  Teens are discovering themselves and the world around them and in the process they also want to test all boundaries.  I don’t want that to change.  That is innovation and is always needed.  This is not what we are talking about here.  We are talking about the broader lesson that our children need to be taught.  They are more than their physical appearance, more than the sex that will inevitably become a part of their lives, so much more.  As parents you can safely explain to your kid that they are beautiful and sexy and that they are also more than that.  There are times and places that are great for strutting your stuff and revelling in the physicality of being a teen.  Despite it being the most social place in a teen’s day, school just isn’t the place for that.  Some restraint is needed.  It’s up to you, the parent to explain this to your child. Please, please think about all of this before you complain about the school’s dress code or the enforcement of the dress code.
END OF PART ONE. Stay tuned.

So, the childrens’ aid society has gotten involved.

(A note:  This is a simplified view of things, but still, I feel, very valid.  Not all situations are the same and some are so very complicated that they defy simple advice.  This is a sort of starting point.  I have worked with children all of my adult life.  I have worked in child protection and have also been investigated by child protection services.  I’m not making light of anyone’s situation, I’m just trying to give you some good, if simple, advice.)

So, child protective services are in your life…

Whatever they’re called in your neck of the woods, it amounts to pretty much the same thing.  Chances are good that you are not happy about it.  No, it doesn’t feel good and you are probably angry and ashamed and embarrassed.  All normal emotions to be having.  There’s no way it’s going to feel good, right away.  What if people find out?  What are they going to think?  Well, it’s unlikely that anyone else will know about it, other than the people directly involved.  If people do find out, they may judge you.  Hey may think less of you.  They may be happy that help has arrived.  Though we want everyone to think we’re awesome, it’s not always going to happen.  Fuck em’.  You have your own ducks to get into a row.

Something you need to know.

Child services don’t want your kids.  Period.  Sure they’ll remove them from your care if they have to, but they would so much rather leave them with you, the parents.  Generally that’s the best place for them.  There is no quota to be filled by the social workers.  They do not get paid by the child.  The worker does not hate you, even if you are hateful.  The worker wants you to be better and will do what they can to make that a reality.

What do you need to do?

In a nutshell…  Calm the fuck down.

Seriously, calm down.  I know you’re angry.  They know you’re angry.  You’re asking, “who the fuck do they think they are?”  Well, they think that their job is to keep kids safe.  Ask the average person on the street if it is a good thing to ensure the safety of children.  Seriously, go on.  I’ll wait.  No one, anywhere, would ever say that this is not a good thing.  That is unless you and you’re family are the focus of their attentions.  In that case, fuck them.  So yeah, calm down before you make things worse.

I’m not kidding about making things worse.  Let’s say the concern that’s been raised has nothing to do with your anger or your temper.  Well, if you put your anger and temper on display, front and centre, then that becomes the focus.  The worker can’t get to the meat of any problems if they, first, have to deal with you being an obnoxious, belligerent twit.  Maybe your temper and anger are the problem that’s being looked into.  Well, showing that you can’t control it certainly doesn’t play in your favour.

So take a deep breath.  Find out why they are involved

So take a deep breath.  Find out why they are involved.  You can ask and they will tell you.  In fact, they’ll tell you even if you don’t ask.  Why would these evil, life invading, day ruining bastards do that?  Well, you see, you need to know.  If you know what the problem is, you can fix the problem.  Maybe there isn’t a problem.  Maybe it’s all a misunderstanding.  Great.  These bastards don’t want your children, I promise.  So they are going to listen to you too and if there’s no problem they’ll thank you for your time and get the fuck outta there.  There is nothing they want more than to be allowed, legally, to leave you and your children alone.

Accept it

So, now that you know what the problem is, you can do something about it.  If they have determined that there is a problem, they will also provide you with some ideas about how to change.  They even look into ways to make it as easy to do as possible.

For example, let’s say you have a temper and sometimes your kid pushes you just far enough that you snap and hit them.  Well, the first thing that pops into one’s head might be: Don’t hit your fucking kid!  Here’s the thing though… everyone knows that there’s more to it.  The folks with child protection will suggest anger management of some sort.  Why?  Well, hitting your kid isn’t the biggest problem.  The biggest problem may be that you have serious anger issues and they take you to a place where you hit your kid.  Helping you with your anger will help you in general and also, hopefully, stop you from hitting your kid.  (One thing to note: even if you have anger problems, it’s not ok to hit your kid.)  You have to accept that there is a problem and that it’s your job as the parent to fix it.

Maybe you don’t have an anger management problem.  Maybe you have crippling depression and have difficulty getting out of bed, let alone making a meal for your kid and taking care of all the other little needs they have.  Guess what, there are things that can be done to help there too.  Help the depression and maybe the safety of your kid stops being an issue.

Or, my favourite, you are just a shitty parent.  You’re parenting skills are nil.  You have no idea how to meet the emotional and physical needs of your kid.  Maybe you can barely take care of yourself  Well, guess what?  The nice social worker can help you there too.  Amazing.  There are people who’s only job is to try and help people learn how to be parents.  There’s classes.  There’s one on one training.  For fuck’s sake, there’s the internet!  Seriously, look that shit up.  Make an effort to fill in the gaps in your knowledge.  “Oh yeah?  Who the fuck are you to tell me I’m not a good parent?!”  The best answer to that question is, “Fuck you.”  It doesn’t matter if you think that the child protection worker needs to be involved with you.  Once they are involved, they have to be able to legally show that your kid is safe.  If you have to bend a little to make this happen, then fucking bend.  Pretty simple.  You are not being targeted.  There is no vendetta against you and yours.

You don’t even have to fix the problem right away.  What you need to do is make an effort.  Work with the social worker.  Putting in the effort shows a lot about how important your child is to you.  No, things that are important are not always easy to fix, but hopefully your kid is worth it to you.

So, please, find out what the issues are.  Stay calm.  Find out what you have to do to fix things.  Accept the help that is offered.  Put your kid’s needs ahead of your own.

Life is not a Buzz Feed article -OR- No, those 32 pictures will not restore my faith in humanity -OR- That thing that happened, in real life, that made me happy.

Anyone who knows me (in the real world) knows that I have a really hard time with stupid. Stupid annoys me and can easily make me mad. To me, stupid is often willful or simply lazy. Some people would rather say something stupid than spend a little extra energy on an actual thought. The titles of those buzz feed articles and picture sets, drive me right around the fucking bend. The assumptions that they are making are awful:

1. What makes you think my faith in anything needs to be renewed?
2. How do you know I think humanity sucks?
3. How do you know that my opinion isn’t valid?

Sometimes, life is wall to wall shit. There are not enough lol-cats or inspirational sunsets in the world to change that. How dare you think that my feelings and or convictions could be so easily changed. Pictures of people doing nice things or good deeds should not be so out of the ordinary that a picture of it will change my outlook on the world. Those things should be the norm.

On to the real world thing that made me happy….
I should mention that there are a great many things that make me happy. I think that there are more things that make me happy than there are things that make me angry, though some days it’s too close to call.

I work in a grade school as an educational assistant. This means, broadly, that I’m there to support the teachers and the kids in a variety of ways. Very specifically, I’m the one who deals with a lot of the behaviour problems and also with those kids who have special needs of some sort. This is a very simplistic view of what I do, but a more complicated explanation would be very, very long. One of my little guys has autism. He’s in a regular classroom, which is awesome, but needs a fair bit of individual support to navigate the routines, social interactions and sheer chaos of a grade 3 class. This kid is awesome. He’s seriously the highlight of my day, even when he tries to bite me.
We’ve recently started trying to get him out on the main yard for recess. For the past few months he’s been inside at recess, with me. Being on the yard with a couple hundred other kids was difficult for him. Yesterday was day two of recess on the yard. Generally I keep him away from any tag type games. They usually end with him tackling some one to the ground or initiating a game of tag with people who don’t know that they are now playing tag.
Yesterday, about 50 kids were playing a game called Manhunt. If I understood it properly, someone would be it and anyone they caught would also be it, so on, until there was no one left. Sounds fun. My little pal wanted to join in. He didn’t seem too ramped up by the idea so I let it happen, staying close to prevent any problems. He volunteered to be “it” because he LOVES to chase people. The game starts and everyone scatters. He’s about to start running when a grade 6 girl approaches him. She’s one of the nicer kids I know. She can take and joke and make one of her own right back (an important skill for anyone who spends more than a couple minutes talking to me). She says to my guy “Hey ________, are you it?” He tells her he is. She holds out her hand to be tagged, which he does. She then tells him “Awesome! Let’s go catch everyone else.” She took his hand in hers and off they went. She made sure he knew who was fair game to chase. She was quickly joined by two of her friends from grade 5. The four of them spent about 30 minutes playing together. They would tell him who they should try and catch and then work with him to try and get them. He had an amazing time. He finished recess, beet red and out of breath and smiling from ear to ear. He played an amazing chase game and didn’t tackle anyone. It was an utter joy to behold.
The thing that moved me the most and made me happiest, was the choice by those girls, to play with him. You see, he’s often targeted by other kids because he’s so easy to get going and once he’s going it’s a bit like a hurricane – it’s loud and scary and potentially dangerous. These girls did the exact opposite with him and it had been a long time since I’d seen anyone make that choice.
Each one of those girls got my sincere thanks and a large colourful award ribbon, made out of duct tape: The Mr. Geoff Award of Awesome.
Those girls are the kind of thing that will restore a person’s flagging faith in humanity.
Thanks for reading.
G.

 

I can’t really argue with the logic

An actual conversation I had last week.

“Jerry?  Can you tell me why you chased those boys, in the washroom, around with your penis?”

“Because I like my privacy!”

“Uh… but wouldn’t taking your pants down and running after people be the opposite of privacy?”

With a huge eye roll and an exasperated sigh “If I chase them with my penis they’ll leave the bathroom!”

“Ah.  OK.  So, uh,  then why did you grab Stewie’s hand and make him touch your penis?”

“Because chasing him wasn’t working.”

 

If you’re not having, at least a little bit of, fun…

So, as I’ve mentioned, I used to work in a residential group home for teens. Most of the teens were there due to some sort of behaviour difficulty at home and in some cases (probably more than we ever knew at the time) for mental health problems.

On a fairly regularly basis some of the kids who lived there wanted to leave.  We used to work with a level system; if you had a high enough level, you could plan an outing and go out in the community.  Not high enough? No outing without supervision.  Not every one liked this little system and they would often choose to leave the house anyway.  We called this going AWOL (not like that fucking Project AWOL shit I’m sure you’ve all heard about/from.)

So, when a kid went AWOL, there was a fair amount of paper work involved and phone calls to make.  We needed to notify our supervisor, their social worker and in many cases their family.  If they didn’t return before curfew we needed to also notify the police and file a missing persons’ report (as well as fill out the police report which we had copies of, courtesy of the police).

So, generally, for the kids it was pretty simple.  They would let us know that they intended to leave, we’d try to talk them out of it, or at least find out why they wanted to leave.  Then, if they were calm, we’d open the shoe cupboard, give them their shoes and let them leave.  I loved the shoe cupboard.  You see, we needed to know when the kids went AWOL and if they needed to ask for their shoes before they left then we’d know about it.  The other thing that I loved was the need for the kids to be calm.  The idea was, we didn’t want to unleash angry teens, with behaviour issues, on the unsuspecting suburbs.  Calm can mean a great many things.  Mostly, as long as they weren’t being aggressive or overly abusive towards the staff or their peers, we would let them go.  Sometimes we’d really stretch the bounds of what it means to be calm.

A lot of times when working with kids and even parenting, you need to pick your battles.  You can push some kids pretty far before they snap and some you can look at funny and it’s over.  On one very memorable occasion  my coworker, Peaches, and I decided that we needed to make going AWOL a bit of a chore.  In this case and with that kid we were able to stretch things to ridiculous lengths without breaking anything.

Cody wanted to go AWOL.  He’d been doing it on a pretty regular basis recently and was never a problem about it.  He was good natured and generally a bit dim.  OK he was a lot dim.  His stand out quality was that he was pretty good natured and he had a pretty decent relationship with Peaches and I.  Peaches and I had talked about his inevitable request to leave and decided that we’d try very hard to keep him home.  It was a slow day and we had low numbers in the house and were pretty sure that the other kids wouldn’t interfere with our shenanigans.  When Cody asked to leave and wouldn’t be talked out of it, we told him that we were getting really tired of filling out all the paperwork for his AWOL’s and making all the phone calls we had to make.  We then informed him that he’d need to make the phone calls for us and would need to help us with our paper work.  He was not happy about this but remained pretty calm about it.  He did at one point loudly swear in frustration.  As soon as the lid “Fuck!” was out  of his mouth, Peaches casually informed him that he didn’t seem calm enough to go AWOL and as per our AWOL “routine” he’d need to go up to his room and remain calm for 30min (up to an hour depending on how upset or angry they were).  On his way up there was more swearing and he punched a wall, at which point the 30min became an hour.

An hour later, without incident, Cody asked to go AWOL and stated that he would call his mom and his social worker before he left.  We reminded him of the paper work too.  He told me to “Fuck the paperwork.”  Peaches let him know that swearing was not calm behaviour and he’d need to wait another 30min.  To his credit, Cody did not snap.  We were pretty sure, ahead of time, that he wouldn’t or we would never have pushed it as we did.  Cody managed to leave voice messages for his mom and for his social worker, letting them know that he was going AWOL but that he’d be back by curfew (11pm).  Once the calls were made, low on patience, Cody asked “Now can I have my fucking shoes?”

“Sure, once you wait 30min to calm down. If you’re swearing at us, you’re not calm.” I replied.  He hung his head and went to his room.  Most other kids would have tried to kill us by this point but Cody really did manage to stay calm and put up with our bullshit.

When Cody came back downstairs we began a sort of interview process with him, asking him questions so that we could fill out the various bits of paperwork for his AWOL.  When we asked him what he was wearing, so that we could write it down on the missing persons’ report, Cody loudly asked “Do you want me to draw you a fucking picture?! You can see what I’m wearing!”  Without being asked to, he went back to his room to wait 30min because swearing is not calm.  He left with a bit of a smile on his face, realizing how funny this really was and that we were basically fucking with him because we didn’t want him to leave.  We’d told him as much several times, but no it was sinking in.

When he was allowed back down, Peaches had lain out a huge length  of brown paper, the kind that comes in huge rolls and gets used for arts and crafts in schools.  When he asked what it was for, Peaches explained that it was for the picture he was going to draw, to be included with the missing persons’ report. We told him that the bigger the picture, the more detailed it would be and the better it would be for the police. One of the girls who lived in the house had been sort of watching everything burst out laughing and couldn’t stop.  This got Cody going as well.  Through her laughter she told Cody that if he laid down she would trace his outline so that it would be easier to draw himself.  He agreed.  This sent Peaches and I over the edge and laughter ensued.  We tried to point out to Cody that he was not going to have this much fun wherever he was going and that he should just stay home.  He politely declined.

As Cody finished colouring in his self portrait, he began to pick at a scad on one of his knuckles.  He’d skinned it earlier when he punched the wall.  He then smeared a bit of blood on the drawing, on the hand that he’d hurt.  He told us that if the police wanted a description they’d want to know about any injuries as well.  He said this in the most sincere manner ever.  At that, we asked again if he’d reconsider, and of course he declined.  I unlocked the cupboard and gave him his shoes.  As he left he assured us that we didn’t need to worry about him and that he’d be home before curfew.

Peaches and I had incredible amounts of fun together, but this one stands out in the top five.

Clearly not a fucking problem OR Why I don’t mind being a parent. OR things that make putting up with ridiculous shit ok.

If you’ve read either “What the fuck’s my problem?” or “What the fuck’s my problem? (again)” posts, you know that I’m a parent to an 11 year old girl and that sometimes we struggle.  We’re both a little to reactive at times and stubborn and the kid HATES to be wrong.  It’s not that she so much wants to be right, it just upsets her to know that she’s wrong.  I’d like to share with you something I received from the kid, a few weeks ago, after a particularly challenging parent child moment (this means that she was probably being a bit of an asshole and then I responded in kind).

No matter how angry and frustrated I get with her (a lot), it’s this shit that reminds me that she is wonderful (and not really an asshole).  She melts me.  When I think about how hard parenting is (really fucking hard), I always have to remember that there are so many amazing things going on and that they outweigh the shitty stuff.  I didn’t feel prepared to be a parent when she was born and to be honest, at some point every day I don’t feel prepared to be a parent.  That’s totally ok.  I’m pretty sure the kid isn’t always prepared to be parented either.

Here’s the other side of the note she gave me.

What the fuck’s my problem (again)?

Fuck mornings, man.  Seriously.  I start off with the best of intentions, as does my daughter.  Somewhere along the way we manage to either push each other’s buttons or to find some sort of self-destruct button and push that one.

Both of us desperately need set routines.  Now, I have had 40 years to get used to how life works and though I love and need routines, I can roll with changes and little disruptions.  The kid, not so much.  She’s had 11 years and that is so not enough time.  Some mornings are great.  We do everything we need to and leave for school on time and then I go to work, on time as well.  Some mornings, not so much.  We’ve had enough crappy mornings recently that I set a really nifty (if I do say so myself) visual schedule for the kid to follow in the morning.  We also had a great talk about the need for the schedule and how, if she can follow it, she’d have time to do whatever stupid shit an 11-year-old wants to do before leaving for school and I’d be able to do what I have to do.  Sometimes it works great.  Sometimes it’s like it doesn’t even exist.  That was this morning.

The kid has like five things she’s responsible for: eat, brush hair, brush teeth, get dressed, pack school bag.  They don’t have to be in that order, although eat is always first.  Eating is the only one of those things that happen while the wife is still home before she heads off to work.  Today, it seems my first mistake was to ask the kid to get dressed before eating.  She did not like this at all.  I thought it was reasonable because she’d asked for French toast and I had agreed to make it.  I figured that while I made her some amazing fucking french toast she could get dressed.  She did it, but under duress and while arguing the merits of getting dressed before eating.  Breakfast went off without a hitch.  She got to spend time chatting with her mom and all was good.

After the wife left, the kid had a few things left to do.  She’s supposed to do these things while I shower and get ready myself.  Basically she managed to do half of each thing she was supposed to do.  While I was showering, she comes flying in to the bathroom.  After first complaining about the smell (the other part of my morning routine), in a panic, she start talking very quickly about how she forgot to get us to fill out a Scholastic order form (books and shit you can order through the school).  I was annoyed by her initial complaint and seriously annoyed by the panic in her voice.  Her panic voice hit my angry button with a hammer.  She panics over some stupid shit.  When I asked her (from the shower) what she wanted me to do, her answer was “Maman said I could get this writing set.”  This is not an answer to the question “What do you want me to do?”  I did not remain particularly calm about this.  I very much want my daughter to understand that there are almost always solutions to our problems and that the best way to see these solutions is to not Fucking panic.  I suggested to her that we could most likely order the writing set online.  Now in tears, she said that we couldn’t.  She then tearfully asked if we could fill out the form now. “I’m. In. The. Shower!”  She yelled back “I meant after!”  So now that we are both less than completely rational, I asked her if she was done all the things on her morning schedule.  When the answer was “No, but…” I cut her off and told her to finish and then maybe we could talk about other things.  Did I say this calmly? No.  She’d hit the angry button with her panic voice and I was still in the shower.  I yelled.  Basically I told her to get the hell out of the bathroom and let me shower and to finish the things she needed to do.

Where’d I go wrong?  Well, I let myself get a bit behind schedule and this made me rush a bit more than usual which brought my patience level down.  Next, I spent several minutes pondering the fact that I can no longer escape  to my balcony and have a smoke.  This is a sure-fire way to remind me to be cranky.  Add the kid’s panic voice and voila.

So, once out of the shower and at least half-dressed I tried to calm myself and her and to explain why it seemed reasonable that we could order her shit online.  Of course, this was not working for her, and she tearfully told me that she and maman had tried to order online and there’d been nothing worth ordering.  My patience was pretty much gone.  I asked her why she was mentioning this to me monday morning.  She had forgotten the oder form in her bag, for two weeks.  I’m sure that I did not use the calmest tone in my repertoire when I informed her that the writing set could not have been that important to her if she hadn’t given it a thought for two weeks.  This was utterly unfair of me.  I know this.  I knew it as I said it, but part of me was fully behind this thought, even though I know that everybody forgets shit, even important things; my little family is very good at this. Seriously, what the fuck’s my problem.

I want the kid to know what I know; so many problems are what I call “solvable problems”.  We just need to stay calm long enough to see the solutions.  It so doesn’t help that I tend, in the morning, to not be able to remain calm in oder to teach this lesson properly.  I think that the biggest challenge in parenting is maintaining that calm little centre where you can teach and parent from, in the face of, what can only be termed, mind boggling insanity.

Again, as with the last post on this subject, it’s not her fault or my fault.  It’s our fault.

P.S.  I just realized what I can do that will make the mornings so much smoother.  I’m going to shower upon waking, before coffee and that way I’ll be free to prod her through the routines and I’ll be free to respond to Scholastic order forms.

What can I teach my daughter?

Here’s the deal.  Smart phones and all the attendant crap that goes with them (texts, snapchat, vines, and sexting) are here to stay. We’re not going to put that genie back in the bottle.  It’s like pornography on the internet.  I’m 40 now and I’m pretty sure that I’d still be in my basement room if, as a teenager, I’d had access to the kind of porn that’s out there now.  A decent Sunshine Girl or really good Sears catalogue could keep me inside for hours.  I have no idea how I would have navigated relationships with girls if I’d had a phone with a camera and so did she.  I do know that there are a few girls/women that I’ve been involved with over the years with whom there’d have certainly been some sexting and risqué messages.  (Actually, now that I think about it, I wish I’d had access to this tech back then – wow.)

All that to point out that this stuff isn’t going away.  There’s been  instances where sext pictures have been spread around used to bully people, to horrible effect.  But the bullying isn’t new, neither is the sex or the exploration of sex.  I started  the exploration on my own and continue a certain amount of solo research into the subject.  Around grade eight I had some help from my then girlfriend.  I remember that there was a lot of innocence to our time together and at no point did we feel like we were doing anything wrong.  I look back now and realize that either one of us could have taken what we learned about each other and used it to make the other person miserable.  We could have spread rumours about each other and made private things public.  It would have been horrible to be the victim of that and to be the perpetrator of it.  There was trust between us.  Granted, teenagers are not great judges of anything, including who you can trust.  I don’t know that I was a particularly good judge of character, but I do know that I never really found myself in an intimate situation with someone I didn’t trust (at the time).  Being a guy, it’s probably a bit less important that I feel I can trust someone before I get intimate with them.  For women and girls it’s much different.  Any kind of intimacy means opening yourself up to someone else.  You lower any defences you have and let them in.  The hope is that while they’re in there (so to speak) they’re not doing any damage.  Obviously not everyone will be deserving of the trust that we give them.

My daughter is eleven years old.  She’s a little girl, but one day she’ll be a big girl and then a woman.  She will become intimate with people.  She’ll explore and share and become a sexual person.  What can I teach her?  I can teach her about trust.  I want her to know that she can kiss and fool around with her chosen partner (though I’ll hate knowing that it’s happening) or send them sexts and such.  It’s ok to do all of those things, but I want her to know that she needs to trust them first.  If someone deserves my daughter’s trust, them maybe they deserve her.  She’ll make good choices and she’ll make disastrous choices.  I plan on being there for all of them.  My fervent hope is that if I can teach her to recognize the importance of trust them maybe we can avoid some of the bad ones.

So, if you have to send them that naked or almost naked picture of yourself then please ask yourself if they have your trust.  If you have to think about the answer then they don’t.  The genie is out of the bottle and it’s not going back in.  Once the picture is out of your phone, it’s not going back in.  The person you sent it to can keep it and cherish what you decided to share with them or they can send it out into the world for others to see.  Are you ready to show yourself to the entire world?