In my teaching job as a Spanish teacher, I teach all 9 grades at my school (K-8). I’ve mentioned this before, but I’m a secondary educator by formal education training, and so I am relying heavily on my background as a Kindermuisk instructor to help me with the younger grades. The first graders come to class right after recess, just after I’ve said goodbye to my fifth graders. It is quite the switch.
At first, I was overwhelmed with the frenetic energy they brought to the room. With only 25 minutes to help them learn Spanish, spending 10 trying to get them to calm down was proving to be problematic. About 3 days into the job, I attended Kindermusik with my daughter and as I entered class to meet with her and Ms. Carol, we did some “breathing arms.” Of course, I have known about breathing arms for many years, but on this day, I noticed the immediate change in energy of the Kindermusik class—for both the kids and the grownups. In addition to providing us with a little routine that said, “Time to stop talking with your little ones/grown-ups and focus on class together,” it immediately relieved my own level of stress. The next day I implemented breathing arms with my first graders when they come in for recess (I could probably do it with everyone), and the difference was remarkable. They are much calmer before they even come into class and our time together is more relaxed, effective and enjoyable.
I’m not surprised to find science to back-up my claims. NPR cites research by Esther Sternberg, physician and National Institute of Mental Health researcher:
“(Breathing exercises) can be used as a method to train the body’s reaction to stressful situations and dampen the production of harmful stress hormones,” Gretchen Cuda writes. Who doesn’t need a reduction of stress these days?
Jon Kabbat-Zinn is one of my favorite people. He created the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, and his work has influenced me tremendously in recent years. If you have 3 minutes today, especially if you are overwhelmed with the day-to-day challenges of balancing life and laundry and childcare, this little breathing meditation is awesome:
I heard it said last week that parenthood is a continual journey of letting go, from the moment our children enter our lives.
Next week my youngest daughter will enter Kindergarten. I rather pride myself on being the mom who doesn’t have a hard time with the fact that her kids are in school (Are you kidding? After all the typical sibling fighting that I endure each summer? He was referring to OUR family when he sang, “And Mom and Dad can hardly wait for school to start again,” even though we’re some months off from that particular song.). Nevertheless, I think I may actually tear up on Monday. Or, burst into a chorus of “Sunrise, Sunset.”
Two years ago, I began spending less time with her in Kindermusik. We went from the toddler class (when I was with her the entire time) to the preschool class (when I joined her for the last 10 minutes or so), which meant I got to sit outside and get some reading done (hooray!). However, it also meant that I wouldn’t be able to cuddle with her during quiet time in class any longer. This was oddly sad for me. (OK, maybe I’m not the stoic mom I think I am after all.)
But I realize, even being in the toddler class meant more letting-go than it had when my daughter was in the baby class with me. Most babies, of course, love the infant massage and the dances. My toddlers only wanted me around on their terms.
This year, my baby enters the Kindermusik for the Young Child class. I’m so excited for her to learn rhythm and note reading. And she’s eager to finally learn about all the instruments we have lying around our house—she was filling the house with sounds from the recorder just the other day. Still, no longer will sharing time be about pretending to be cars going through the car wash. Instead, we’ll do a Mexican hat dance or some rhythm games together. Kindermusik, ever mindful of where most kids are in their development, has structured this curriculum to be exactly right for her stage. Still, even as we enter one exciting stage, we leave another one behind.
I don’t think I’m sharing any perspective that is particularly unique in its profundity. But I also see this process stretching ahead with my oldest daughter who will be entering seventh grade this year. This will be her third year in her particular middle school, so we don’t have that particular jump the way many seventh graders do into middle school. However, she is very much becoming a teenager, choosing solitude at home over spending the day with her grandma.
One day, if I’ve done my job, my kids will leave home. . . Yeah, I can’t even bear to think about that stage on a morning like today. Let me just focus on getting through Kindergarten.
I think this process of letting go applies to my own life. I mean, not just that I’m doing the letting go of my own kids. Rather, as an adult, I sometimes have to abandon certain cultural messages that I have previously held onto—ideas about how I to live “happily.” I saw this video the other day and the tune (and of course, the message) still rings in my head:
Melody Beattie, author, said, ““Letting go doesn’t mean we don’t care. Letting go doesn’t mean we shut down. Letting go means we stop trying to force outcomes and make people behave. It means we give up resistance to the way things are, for the moment. It means we stop trying to do the impossible–controlling that which we cannot–and instead, focus on what is possible–which usually means taking care of ourselves. And we do this in gentleness, kindness, and love, as much as possible.”
May you find gentleness, kindness, and love today as you let go.
[By the way, I couldn’t access that Colbie Caillat YouTube video with my safe search filter on. However, I’m a little dumbfounded that it is flagged as being possibly inappropriate, as you can find it on the Disney channel music videos. If you prefer, you can access that particular link here. Unfortunately, WordPress seemingly wouldn’t let me embed it from Disney.]
Last night, while sitting at my nephew’s baseball game, the antics of my other nephew reminded me just how important it is to young children that we adults see them. We had a rousing game of peek-a-boo going on, for one, but about every five minutes he climbed up the bleachers to get a hug from mom or dad or show us something he’d found, or share something he’d seen or said while playing with his cousins.
I’ve written about this need before here, along with some insights from Becky Bailey about how we can respond to children in such situations without judgment. One of the advantages of noticing our children and observing them without judgment is that they are less inclined to misbehave from a place of seeking any attention, even if it’s negative. We can pre-empt much of this by making sure they know that, just like we did when they were newborns and we oohed and aaahhhed over every little body part or gurgle, we still see them as the miracles they are.
This morning, however, I wanted to share some thoughts about noticing kids from the book I’m currently reading, Playful Parenting. The author, Lawrence J. Cohen, Ph.D., talks about noticing, “what children need” (pg. 36). In a Kindermusik class, for instance, if your child is unusually cranky or disengaged with the activity, noticing what he or she needs might include wondering if breakfast was sufficient or if the big trip to the zoo yesterday means being extra tired today. Maybe some quiet time away from the commotion is in order.
Most pointedly, the author says, “I’m always amazed when adults say that children ‘just did that to gedt attention.’ Naturally children who need attention will do all kinds of things to try to get it. Why not just give it to them?” (pg. 36).
Of course, there are many reasons I don’t often given my kids enough attention, as I’m sure there are for you. There is food to get on the table, laundry to clean, and sometimes, I’m the one who needs some attention, too! (In which case, a lunch with my friends is clearly in order.) Still, remembering just how valuable it is for the long-term emotional health of our kids can be extremely important.
The author also adds that it is important not to “cut off” our kids when “they are talking about ‘unimportant’ things, or when they are chattering away about nothing, or when they are repeating themselves” (pg. 39). I know I don’t like it when my kids cut me off or ignore what I am saying—and the best thing we can do is teach by example, right? Eventually, they’ll get around to the part that is really interesting for us, and then the payoff will be pretty great.
I’m knee deep in summer sibling rivalry. As an only child growing up, I often find this kind of behavior to be extremely draining, and the logic behind it escapes me. Today, however, in the middle of the 4th of July family madness, I’m going to see how well the day goes if I focus on noticing their good behavior (without judgment) and wondering what they might be needing (from me or from the situation) when they’re fighting. I’m also going to tune in to myself—to note what it is that may be preventing me from playfully engaging with them. With any luck, such a tweak may help the day go better.
I find the science of how music connects to memory to be fascinating. Not only does it aid in language acquisition, it actively connects with our “autobiographical memories,” according to a study published by Cerebral Cortex and as reported in 2004 in LiveScience. The author writes, “(E)vocation of autobiographical memories and associated emotions by music counts among the most poignant experiences associated with music,” and shows in his study that music is tied up in our memories because they are both activated in the same spot of our brains, the medial pre-frontal cortex (MPFC). This is true even for Alzheimer’s patients—they can “recall songs from their distant past,” even when they have lost other, substantial memory, because the MPFC is one of the last areas in the brain to be affected by their disease.
The summer I was 15, my parents and I took one of the best trips of our lifetimes. With our little pop-up trailer, we drove from Salt Lake City to Washington, D.C., and back home through parts of the south. We ate at a fantastic Italian restaurant on Dupont Circle, stood in awe while watching the changing of the guard at Arlington, toured Monticello, got a flat tire in the scorching heat of Oklahoma, witnessed the most incredible lightening storm through the panhandle of Texas and climbed through the ruins of Mesa Verde.
Of course, being 15, and an only child, much of the time I spent “tuned out” on my Walkman (speaking of memories). So, when I wasn’t listening to Frankenstein on tape (now they’re called “audiobooks,” but I still find myself inclined to call it a book-on-tape, as it actually was “on tape”), I found myself engrossed in U2’s Rattle and Hum, which had just come out. It seemed the perfect soundtrack for the trip—just enough rebellious spirit in the music to quench my need to disengage from my parents from time to time. And lyrics that, more often than not, seemed to match our experience on the road: “like a drifter needs a room,” and “a highway speaks of deserts dry, of cool green valleys.” I ask you, is there any better place to hear “The Star-Spangled Banner,” (at the time, my first exposure to Jimi Hendrix) than when you’ve just come from a walk along the Mall? Even today, when I hear those opening lines, “This is a song Charles Manson stole from the Beatles, we’re stealing it back,” I cannot help but be transported immediately to the back seat of the car, my dad at the helm, crawling along on the scenic BWI parkway.
Several years ago, I made a mixed-CD of my favorite Kindermusik songs. (Yes, they used to be called “mixed-tapes,” and yes, I know that people now put together “playlists.” I am somewhat of a Luddite, cut me some slack?) At any rate, the other night, as we were winding down after dinner, my preschooler decided she wanted to listen to some music, and chose this particular Kindermusik CD. Soon, “Los Pescaditos” came on and I found myself on my living room floor, in New Mexico, holding my baby boy (who, at that point, was about 15 months old), with my oldest daughter and husband and all the other Kindermusik parents I was teaching at the time. It was such a calm moment of connection, not just with my children, but also with people who I had come to love during our short residency there. Lullabies in Kindermusik have been by far my most favorite moments in class, and now that my youngest is in with the preschoolers, they are by far the things I miss the most (probably because of this same music/memory connection). Not only did this lullaby calm my stressed-out mama soul at the end of a long day the other night, it reminded me of the many times I have felt joy and comfort just being present with my kids. As much as I love Rattle and Hum, that moment was infinitely more nourishing for my soul.
I talk about mindfulness a lot in this blog—about the importance of taking time to just notice what is going on around us and being present for our kids. I probably do it because it is something I have come to really value, but it is also one of the things that most eludes me as a parent. Even still, I consider it to be a gift that I have such a rich history with the Kindermusik songs that those memories and those moments present themselves to me at unexpected times.
What are some of your favorite music and memory connections? Please, share!
I overheard a mom this week tell a friend that her son was in the process of being diagnosed with some severe learning disabilities. She was clearly experiencing a lot of pain—it was palpable in her conversation, wondering aloud if she had done enough of the “right” things or too much of the “wrong” things.
It struck a chord in me, as I imagine it would for all of us. I often wonder if I’m doing enough of the right things, or too much of the wrong things. Personally, I see some similarities in the challenges we each face as parents, despite the huge differences that there may be in those challenges. Let me be clear: I’m not trying to suggest that I have any real idea of what it’s like to be a parent who deals with a child on the Autism Spectrum Disorder. Nor am I suggesting that having a kid who is addicted to drugs is anything like having a child who struggles to get along with his or her siblings. Plenty of unique situations present themselves when we look at the wide variation in the experiences we have as humans.
What I do mean to say is that, at least speaking about the parents and caregivers I know, no matter where our kids are, we all want them to be successful (according to however we may define that). We love them fiercely, even in those times when we don’t like them very much. We worry about them when we see them struggle. We do our best, at any given moment—and sometimes, that “best” falls far short of what our children need. We make mistakes (as my father-in-law was known to tell his kids, “It’s hard raising parents!”). The emotions that we share as parents, then, are the same—in the good times and the bad: fascination, gratitude, calm, ecstasy, optimism, apprehension, numbness, agitation, outrage, discouragement, envy. The details may differ; the reasons that we feel those things may vary. Even still, anyone who loves a child (or, frankly, who loves another human) is bound to share those feelings.
Much of my job here in writing for the studio blog is to talk about all the ways that Kindermusik benefits our children. And I believe this passionately. I could talk about it for hours.
However, does that mean that if your child is struggling, that you haven’t done enough Kindermusik? If Kindermusik has all these great benefits, what if your son or daughter still struggles to read? Or fails to follow the trajectory of a neurotypical child? What then?
Brené Brown, one of my all-time favorite women, has this to say about shame and vulnerability in parenting—that question of whether we’re doing enough of the right things, or too much of the wrong things.
“Most of us would love a color-coded parenting handbook that answers all of our unanswerable questions, comes with guarantees, and minimizes our vulnerability. We want to know that if we follow certain rules or adhere to the method espoused by a certain parenting expert, our children will sleep through the night, be happy, make friends, achieve professional success, and stay safe. The uncertainty of parenting can bring up feelings in us that range from frustration to terror.
“Our need for certainty in an endeavor as uncertain as raising children makes explicit ‘how-to-parent’ strategies both seductive and dangerous. I say ‘dangerous’ because certainty often breeds absolutes, intolerance, and judgment. That’s why parents are so critical of one another—we latch on to a method or approach and very quickly our way becomes the way. When we obsess over our parenting choices to the extent that most of us do, and then see someone else making different choices, we often perceive that difference as direct criticism of how we are parenting.” (Daring Greatly, pg. 216)
In other words, the question this mom had was universal and stemmed from the very difficult truth we experience as humans: everything in our lives is transient. And so is there something more we could be doing as parents? What if we asked ourselves, instead, “Am I treating myself with as much love and compassion as I want my kids to have for themselves? Do I believe I’m worthy of this journey?”
“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest.” (When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times, pg. unknown)
So what is the answer? How do we find the balance of striving to create as rich and nourishing an environment as possible, while still holding compassion for ourselves when we don’t get the results we were expecting or hoping for? In my heart of hearts, I believe that THIS is the work of parenting—modeling for our kids how to respond to the joys and frustrations of life without allowing the pain to consume us.
The last couple of weeks of my life have been really hard. Not in any life-threatening or debilitating way—I’ve had those weeks (or months or years), and I’d rather take the stress that I’m under right now, thankyouverymuch. Still, a bunch of things have piled on top of me and the background noise of “gotta do more, gotta BE MORE!” is taking its toll. Not that this is something I take joy in admitting, but I’m hoping that in sharing I can connect with the other parents who also feel somewhat overwhelmed, trying not to blow it.
A couple of years ago, I had a life changing experience, and I found myself meeting people who had parenting challenges far greater than my own. When my kids were babies, there were lots of things that worried me. I’ll never forget the moment that my first baby spit up, hours after being home from the hospital. Yes, we called the on-call pediatrician at 11 pm. I hope he got some extra karma points for being patient with us. Still, talking with these parents, I realized that as my kids get bigger the things that I worry about won’t get any easier for me (after all, I sincerely was in a panic that night with my baby!). Instead of the worry about a little bit of spit-up, however, it may become a worry about the consequences of a binge-drinking episode. (Please tell me I’m not the only one who thinks about this from time to time!) Of course, I’ve seen some of my friends deal with big crises with their little ones, so I’m not trying to suggest that our babies can’t be in situations that are deadly or very serious. Just, as I sat with those parents, I realized that the love I have for my kids, and the vulnerability I feel when I realize that those joyful moments are fragile—those emotions aren’t going away any time soon.
Like most parents, I imagine, what I want for my kids is to take care of themselves. I want them to deal with their stress without resorting to activities that will do more harm than good—please, don’t let them think that underage drinking will be the solution to their problems! (Sitting in a cave reading poetry: OK. Smoking a pipe: Not OK) I want my kids to love their bodies so that they eat healthily and exercise. I want them to have lots of practice making small decisions so that, when faced with a choice of getting into a car with a drunk driver, they can predict the consequences of their decisions. And I want for them to know and understand their feelings so that they can deal with them in a way that works best for them, coming to me for help if they need it.
Still, sitting with those parents, I also learned that I can’t give my kids what I don’t have. If I don’t take care of myself, I can’t teach them to take care of themselves. We know that one of the most powerful ways we have of learning, especially as we’re growing, is through observing others. So, if my kids see me indulge in the ice cream rather than go for a run as a way to negotiate some frustration, that’s what they will most likely learn (this part of parenting can really stink at times!). Additionally, if I’m taking care of myself, I will be less likely to cause additional problems for them. I know, for instance, f I’m uptight about some problem I’m having, I’m much more inclined to lose patience with them or yell, shaping their nurturing environment in toxic ways. Finally, if I don’t take care of myself, things could go south in a really serious way—the very last thing I want is for my kids to lose their mom.
So, I woke up this morning with still far too many items on my to-do list. Realistically, I can shift some of them around a bit, and I recognize that in a couple of months some of these deadlines will have passed and my schedule will loosen up. But, through my meditation practice, I’ve also learned that I can tell myself one of two stories. I can keep telling myself that there isn’t enough time, and I can’t do it all, and life will fall apart if I don’t get an A in my class and I’m a failure because I didn’t get to the guitar to practice, and I’ll probably make a fool out of myself next time I play (there you go—the thought patterns of a perfectionist). Or, I can tell myself that I’m using my time as best I can, and that even a getting a B in class means that I’ve passed, and that slowly and surely wins the race, and even if I don’t get everything done, I’m still worthy of love (the thought patterns I’m trying to develop as a recovering perfectionist). When I work on the second script, even though my to-do’s haven’t changed, the way I carry that list does. (Well, “write blog for Kindermusik” is now off the list,” so it’s changed a little bit, anway.)
At any rate, the reason for this blog post is to remind myself that slowing down, being mindful, and taking care of myself need to be at the top of the list today. Everything else will wait. If you’re having one of those days, I challenge you to do the same.
My in-laws live in the Puget Sound area.I’ve landed at the Sea-Tac Aiport more times than I can count and I have always enjoyed looking at the bronze fish swimming along the floor (which I have just learned were created by Judith and Daniel Caldwell and are called, “Flying Fish”—thanks, Google!)
Last year, something magical happened.I traveled through the airport for the first time with my kids.
Fresh off the plane and with lots of energy, they had the good sense to actually look at each fish.Most of them are normal fish, of course–your regular, run-of-the-mill salmon swimming upstream.But every so often, one of them carries a suitcase, or is shaped like an airplane.
I’ve walked by a thousand times (well, maybe dozens) and hadn’t stopped to actually observe what I was seeing.
Pema Chödrön, a Buddhist nun from America, says, “We train in being present with whatever arises in our experience, whether it is pain or pleasure, something agreeable or disagreeable. This is our path. We need to be mature about the fact that the terrain in which we are waking up is rough as well as smooth, churned up as well as calm, sour as well as sweet.The challenge is to be completely present with whatever comes up and see what you discover.”
Sometimes what “comes up” isn’t as pleasant as luggage-carrying fish.Sometimes, its vomit.Or sleepless nights.Or long-term illness.Still, I’m learning that to be present for the good stuff, I have to also be present for the bad.The discoveries I’m making, are pretty amazing.I’m so grateful for the little lessons my kids teach me daily.
What about you?What have you discovered today?Any journeys planned (of the exotic or close-to-home sort)?What have your kids taught you today?Let us know!
