Thoughts Are 01.14.18

As my children get older, I am finding I have a lot of time on my hands. They don’t need me during the day. They don’t need me to come to school to be a room mom or drop off forgotten lunches. Heck, they don’t even need me after school to get them to activities much anymore; they walk themselves or figure out rides with their friends. Sometimes I am called upon to be the bus driver but it is fleeting time spent together as we pick up the gaggle of kids they’re headed out with. And, next year, the oldest will get his driver’s license, then what?

I find myself trying to figure out who I am and what I should be doing with this newfound freedom. I am definitely not the same girl I was as a teen, nor the same woman I became as I entered the workforce after college. Parenthood has changed me. For better or worse, I have new things on my mind, new information in my head, and new worries that crowd my thoughts. I find myself sitting here looking at the multiple rough drafts I’ve written in my head about who I will be, what I will become, and how I will affect the world – do I even want to affect the world or do I want to affect a smaller sphere?

I’ve been trying to reclaim the things that make me happy. Over the last 14 years, my happiness was tied up with, or rather, tangled up with, my children’s happiness. Now, I find myself in a predicament, I can’t remember what made ME happy. Was it dancing to music or reading a book? Was it designing rooms and collaborating with people? I remember enjoying feeling needed, both professionally and parentally. How can I bring that into the newest draft of myself? Thoughts are “what we tell ourselves, and how we narrate the story of our own lives” (Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, The Whole-Brain Child). Funny I just read that today considering I’ve owned the book for at least five years but never finished it and now I have a blog entitled Rough Drafts. It is time for me to change the story, not just the thoughts I have about myself and my abilities, but rather, what I’ve learned, the person I’ve become and how I’ve changed over time so I can develop a new story of self.

I hope you all join me on this journey as we discover ourselves, our newest, latest drafts of our selves.

Best,

Mira

Grit, Resilience, and a Whole Lot of WTF: Draft 08.09.17

Much has been written about the kids of today needing to learn grit and resilience. I believe in these ideas wholeheartedly. I let my kids cry it out when they were babies. I did not run to them when they scraped their knees as toddlers. I do not do their projects so they look slick for school.

However, having twice-exceptional children means I cannot look at the world wearing neuro-typical rose colored glasses. I must take each article and book I read, each lesson I learn, and revamp it for the gifted children I have. And then, I must rewrite it again in my head to accommodate for their vulnerabilities. This is not an easy task. It takes practice, knowledge, and a whole lot of patience. It also means I must cut myself some slack as our kids are very complex.

I’ve learned I need to take a step back and think about things more deeply. I make mistakes, I apologize often, and then I try again. A standard tantrum from a tired six year old is not standard in my family. I used to ask the standards; “Is he hungry, is she tired?” Then I learned, there is so much more going on.

Now I stop and think, “What sounds are setting him off, is there sensory overload happening here?” “Is he not getting the in-depth answers from the clerk he expected?” “Is it not specific enough an answer?” “Did the teacher offer wait time?” "Did she just outsmart her teacher?" “Did they explain it in different ways so she could understand better?” And, then, “How do I handle this?”  

I come home and think and talk and think and talk. I spend the night researching what he was asking about so I can provide him answers. My husband and I go over how we could have handled the situation differently. We discuss with our kids how they could have handled the situation differently. It’s not about what they “should” have done differently, it’s what they “could” have done differently. It’s hard for them to come up with ideas since they see nothing wrong with their curt behavior or their standing alone on the sidelines. And, is that ok? Social cues are not their forte.

Emotional IQ is the newest buzz word, what does that mean for my hard working, highly intelligent children who end up annoying people with their curiosity and “too many questions,” taking too much time to think about things, having too much knowledge or too much energy? He works so hard to understand the world around him. She tries so hard to be confident. They’ll get there. Of that, I am sure. It just may not be in the standard time frame.

I am now letting the kids learn that Mom and Dad cannot, and will not, fix everything. We will help them work through their issues when they want advice but they need to find their own grit and resilience, we cannot force it upon them. They need to learn their own EQ. Today we’ve learned that to help our kids is to teach them about themselves and things will develop in time.