Category Archives: Parenting Parkour

May 9, 2013

Sheep Need Underpants, Kids Need Play… And You Need a Free Book

I am very excited to be hosting Lee Hull Moses today at The Blue Room. She is co-author of Hopes and Fears: Everyday Theology for New Parents and Other Tired, Anxious People, available from Alban and from Amazon. Believe me, it’s good—really good. Smart and funny, eloquent and real. It’s John Wesley meets Tiny Fey.

We’re also excited to be giving away a free copy of this book. See the bottom of this post for details. And now, take it away Lee…

“Let go of your tongue!” the mother next to me shouts to her daughter, who is lining up with the other five-year-old soccer players in the middle of the field. The girl looks over at her, still gripping the tip of her tongue with her finger and thumb. “Let go of your tongue!” the mother shouts again.

The girl lets go long enough to shout something back, something about a hurt finger. Neither the other mother nor I can figure out what this has to do with her tongue, but then the coach blows the whistle and play resumes. The mom looks at me in exasperation: the things you never thought you’d have to say out loud.

(“Yes, sheep wear underpants,” I once told my daughter Harper, trying to move along the getting-dressed routine on the morning of the church Christmas pageant.)

This is our first foray into organized sports, and I have to admit, it’s not as terrible as I feared. I signed her up for this 8-week league partly out of peer pressure (all the other parents seem to have their kids in activities like this), partly out of guilt (she’s been asking for dance classes for years and we can’t seem to get that together), and mostly out of opportunity (a half-price Groupon offer showed up in my inbox.)

I thought she would probably enjoy it, but I didn’t think I would. It meant getting her to practice every Monday night, and games on Saturday mornings, and buying new equipment (and keeping track of it), and getting used to new schedules and people and procedures. I was wary of another evening commitment, and dreaded tying up our Saturday mornings – our only at-home family time. Also, there was this: I’m pretty awful at not being in charge of things. Most of the activities we do are related somehow to the church, and I generally know everybody involved and have made a lot of the decisions about how things get done. To be just another parent on the sidelines is a weird place for me to be.

So these eight weeks of practices and games and looking for the shin guards have probably been as good for me as they have been for her. And I have to say, I’m a convert. It’s been, well, fun. There’s something wonderful about 5-year-old soccer. Nobody keeps score. The teams are small so everybody gets to play a lot. There’s no ref – just the coaches, who nudge the ball back onto the field if it goes too far out of bounds. Everybody cheers when somebody makes a goal, regardless of whose team it is. I’ve heard the horror stories, of bad-tempered coaches and mean-spirited parents, but for us, it’s just been fun.

One night recently, we were in the kitchen laughing, all four of us, in a few found minutes before the next thing happened – before I had to leave for a meeting, before bathtime needed to begin – and for once I was ignoring the pile of dishes in the sink and the mess on the living room floor. I don’t know what silliness we were laughing about but it doesn’t matter; I could see that Harper was watching us. She was laughing, participating in the silliness, but also she was watching. And all of a sudden I could see that she is hungry for this, this all-out fun we are having. This sort of moment is rare enough that she noticed, and soaked it up. More than any meal, this whole-family laughter feeds her, fills her up.

I forget that sometimes, I’m afraid. I forget that she needs us to have fun together, to know that we are happy.

I’m firmly in the I-won’t-martyr-myself-for-my-children camp. I like doing grown-up things. Reading books with more depth than the Berenstain Bears. Walking across the kitchen without stepping on smashed up raisins. Watching West Wing reruns after the kids go to bed. I like the work I do beyond my family, and often, I wish I had more time to do it. And sometimes – oh, I love my children dearly, but sometimes – the kid stuff, packing lunches and signing up for soccer and cleaning up the puzzle pieces for the eight-hundredth time, start to seem like chores that get in the way of what I’d rather be doing.

But my kids are not tasks we have to take care of, not items on the to-do list to be checked off.

My daughter needs those tangible things, certainly: food, shelter, clothes and shoes that fit. She needs me to sign the permission form so she can go on the field trip, and she needs me to remember to make her an appointment at the dentist. But she needs more than that. It’s her family, too. She lives here. It’s her life, and she needs me to help her live it. She needs me to listen to her stories. She needs me to ignore the dishes so I can play with her. She needs me to laugh, and mean it. She needs me to have fun, with her. She needs me to sign her up for experiences she’s never had and stand on the sidelines with the other parents and cheer my heart out, for her.

Turns out that sometimes, that’s what I need, too.

Lee Hull Moses (right in photo) is the co-author, with Bromleigh McCleneghan, of Hopes and Fears: Everyday Theology for New Parents and Other Tired, Anxious People. She is also the pastor of First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Greensboro, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband Rob and their children, Jonathan and Harper. She will be spending this Saturday morning cheering at the final soccer game of the season.

BOOK GIVEAWAY: To be entered in the book giveaway, leave a comment, sharing your thoughts on this post and/or a similar sense of joy in the midst of the busyness of life. We’ll choose a winner Monday morning. Limit one comment per person per day.

Soccer ball photo credit: Great Beyond via Photopin

Apr 23, 2013

On Failing for Our Kids

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Every third Sunday at Tiny Church, we have guest musicians come in and play for the service. Our accompanist plays the hymns and leads the congregational singing, but the guest musicians play music at the beginning and end of the service, plus two pieces in the middle.

This past Sunday, my fourth grader was scheduled to be the guest musician. She chose four pieces she knew well, and for a week prior, she practiced them to flawlessness.

And on Sunday… well, who can say how it happened. She’d been to three birthday parties that weekend and as an introvert was peopled out, perhaps. She was tired. She didn’t have a good breakfast. I don’t know. But she got an attack of stage fright the likes of which I’ve never seen in her. No pep talk could snap her out of it.

She is old enough to be aware of what I write here, so the details are between her and those of us in Tiny Church. Let me just say that she made it through the first piece beautifully.

Robert took her out afterward so she could compose herself, and I went right into the call to worship. It’s one of the most uncomfortable moments of ministry I’ve ever had. I wanted to be with her, but I had a job to do.

Since then she’s talked to her parents, her grandparents, and her piano teacher about what happened. We’ve laughed about the fact that no matter where people start, every last one of us concludes with the same expression: Get back on the horse.

Myself, I was flummoxed about the whole thing. What brought this on? Then I remembered playing The Baker’s Wife in a college production of Into the Woods. It was a fantastic experience, but very intense—several nights of performances, but with the same classload and homework as always. My worst performance of the entire run was when my dad was in the audience. My Dad was never one of those hyper-critical, impossible to please types. Still, I so wanted to do a good job that night. But my timing was off, my voice sounded terrible, and realizing this just made me sieze up even further.

Remember when I said intense? One of the RAs found me outside, crying uncontrollably between scenes.

Oh.

So what’s a perfectionist raising a perfectionist to do?

I told her later that I wished I’d asked the congregation for a show of hands: how many of you have experienced stage fright? Or nervousness at doing something new? And let her see the sea of hands. Surely everyone would raise a hand, except people who a) are lying or b) have never challenged themselves.

It’s probably just as well that I didn’t do that, because it would’ve put her on the spot. Plus, I don’t think kids get it. They don’t get that adults had (and have) fears and phobias. Adults must seem so… competent to kids. Sure, kids see us lose our cool; they see us spill the cereal and scrape the car door against the garage. But mainly, they see us succeed. Hold down a job. Set a goal and meet it. Be where we’re supposed to be, more or less on time.

I read a lot of stuff about parenting, and of the many critiques of helicopter parenting—and there are many, and rightfully so—the most significant is that it doesn’t serve kids well. Children don’t learn resilience when we’re always smoothing things over for them. But I also wonder whether resilience gets built when children witness adults taking risks. I don’t mean stupid risks (no cooking meth in your basement). But I don’t mean cute risks either (taking a ballroom dancing class). I mean real, authentic, bowel-quivering risk.

Maybe just letting them in on the risks we do take would help. Every night at dinner, we do a modified examen with our kids—we all share our most and least grateful moments (framed as most/least favorite when they were younger). Often my least grateful moment is something in the news, or concern for someone who’s sick. It’s less often that I share about the rejection letter I received, or the withering comment that came when I stuck my neck out about something. But maybe those moments are important for children to witness.

Of course, parents should provide a sense of stability and security for their kids. We don’t want to come off as capricious. But the world our children are inheriting is a world of rapid change. The roles and rules are not spelled out. People who can conquer their own fear of the unknown, take risks, and shrug off disappointment will be much better off in life.

On Sunday I said to Caroline, “You were really scared, you tried something hard, and you didn’t die.” Let me be clear that I do not think she failed. But maybe children need to see us fail. Or more to the point, maybe they need to see us fail and not die.

Apr 17, 2013

Just for Fun: B-List Kid Milestones

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My dear ones.

When we were in Johnstown for Robert’s grandmother’s 90th birthday, we were talking to her about being the matriarch of such a good and large family. “Look what you did, Mama Ruth!” we laughed as we beheld the 50-some people there.

Margaret must have overheard this because I heard her tell a friend the other day, “We call her Mama because she made our whole family.”

This phraseology tickled me, but it also made me a little sad. Margaret is 7 now and is moving into older-child territory. She hasn’t said something little-kid-cute like that in a long time, and those occasions will become even less frequent.

There are all kinds of milestones in childhood. There are the obvious ones—walking, talking, riding a bike, going to school—and there are the ones that pass you by without you realizing. James recently fell asleep on Robert’s lap, which he hasn’t done in ages, and we realized that that may be the last time. Whenever that bridge gets crossed, we will not know it when it happens. We’ll only know it in retrospect.

I was telling a friend recently that the big milestones are great and worthy of celebrating. Potty training is a huge one. Caroline is now at an age where we can leave her by herself for short periods of time. Margaret is 8 months away from No More Booster.

But there are so many lesser-celebrated milestones that are just as delightful. Yes, every move towards independence is poignant. But from a parenting perspective, make life so much easier.

Let’s build a list of B-list milestones, shall we? Here are the ones that have made me rejoice recently:

When they are tall enough to turn the faucet on and off themselves.
When they can pour their own milk.
When they can swim in the pool with you supervising them poolside, with a book.
When they can wipe themselves successfully.
When they can pack for a trip from a list.

What would you add?

Dec 4, 2012

Kids Have Emotional Labor Too

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(By the way: there’s a new post up at the Sabbath blog, on how to handle interruptions to one’s Sabbath.)

Of all the learnings from CREDO, the stuff on emotional labor and deep acting has given me the most food for thought. You can read my original post about emotional labor here, but in a nutshell:

Emotional labor is the work involved in responding appropriately to different emotionally fraught situations. Many professions involve heavy doses of emotional labor—ministry is one of them. We might go from leading a staff meeting, to celebrating a job promotion on the phone with a parishioner, to navigating a conflict with a co-worker, to visiting a dying person in the hospital, to teaching a group of 6th graders at the mid-week children’s program. And that’s before we get home and have another set of emotional issues to respond to among our families and friends. Lots of stops and starts. Lots of switching gears.

Everyone has emotional labor, even children. Two things happened recently to highlight the emotional labor of kids:

1. I’ve been reading to the girls Gary Schmidt’s wonderful Newbery-honored book, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy. We are nearing the end, so they are asking for it in the various cracks and crevices of our days. Last Saturday morning we got to the climax of the book, which involves a disturbing act of violence. It was a sad, tense moment.

Immediately afterward, we had to get into the car so they could go to their ice skating lesson.

Talk about a stop and start.

2. This morning I drove the girls to the bus stop, which I do on Tuesdays and Thursdays so James and I can leave from there to go to preschool. When we got to the bus stop we realized that Margaret didn’t have her backpack. So I zoomed back to the house, hoping we wouldn’t miss the bus.

On our way back to the bus stop, I gave her this mini-lecture about responsibility and how I would not be able to bail her out should she forget again. (This is not the first time this has happened.) We got her to the bus stop on time.

As a busy parent, I felt good in the moment that I was able to check that little issue off my list: Well, that’s taken care of. But later I realized—it could’ve waited. For one thing, it would have been a more fruitful conversation had we not been zooming up the street in the car. But also: I sent her off to school feeling down on herself for forgetting, and worried and sad that she had disappointed me.

In the first instance, I didn’t have control over the emotionality of the situation. In the second instance, I certainly did.

No real conclusions here. Just an awareness that our kids go through the same kinds of gear-shifting that we do. And as parents, we can make those transitions easier or harder.

(We can also be gentle with ourselves when we miss the mark.)

Parents, or people who work with kids—where you have you seen this kind of dynamic at work?

Nov 27, 2012

Help Two Little Girls Help the Homeless

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Margaret with one of her creations

The week before Thanksgiving, Caroline (age 9) came to me with an idea. “I want to do something to help the homeless at Christmas, but I don’t have a lot of money.”

We give each of the kids a small sum to donate at Christmastime, but this impulse felt like something to explore more deeply. So we began to think about the gifts she does have and how she might use them to help others.

It’s true—Caroline doesn’t have much money in her allowance jar. Instead she will give the gift of time and music. She plans to record a collection of holiday piano music as a way to encourage people to donate, and to say thank you to those who do.

Margaret (age 6) has decided to get involved too, through her interest in drawing.

Please help us prevent and end homelessness through a gift to Homestretch, a non-profit organization that helps people in our very own community.

See our GiveBack page for details, including a list of the thank-you gifts that the girls are creating to send to donors. We hope to raise $500. [Edit: We are almost there after only two days! We may need to increase our goal!]

Donations go directly to GiveBack, which funnels the money to Homestretch, and you receive a donor receipt for tax purposes.We’ve already seen some donations come in and Caroline is SO excited at each one. She said the first night, “I feel all fizzy inside.”

So… go to the link give. You’ll feel fizzy too.

Peace and Seasons Greetings…

Fine Print: If you want to claim your gift, you must send me an email with your donor receipt. I cannot tell who has given otherwise. Details on the GiveBack page.

The Blue Room

MaryAnn McKibben Dana