Loving When You Don’t Like

Mornings can be an adventure at our house. We have a bunch of non-morning people, which is a polite way of saying "cranky before 8am." And, at times, one of my cranky little ducklings will do something one of the other cranky little ducklings.  I've been known to say any of the following: "Stop kicking your sister" or "You may not hit your brother" and once even "Biting is not OK in our family!" But when I'm saying this for the second or third or millionth time in a morning, I always want to try to make it clear to my kids that although I don't LIKE what they're doing, it doesn't mean I don't love them.

Who we are and what we do are two different things.  This tends to get blended together often.  I've had parents in my office tell me that their children say, "If you don't accept my choices, you aren't accepting me." I'd disagree with this. There is a difference between the person and the action. True, our actions can say a lot about who we are, and those actions do impact us over time. Virtues are just an ingrained pattern of making the good choice. Bad habits form over many instances of choosing something bad, and don't just set in after one mistake. 

So with this in mind, it's possible to love our children (or anyone in our life) without condoning every decision they make. By extension, we can disagree with a person's action and not have that be a rejection of the person.

Part of parenting is being able to say, - clearly, calmly, and compassionately - I love you but the choice you’re making or the behavior you’re engaging in, is not OK. By separating the person from the behavior, we can guide and encourage our kids in the most loving way possible.

Today take the opportunity to let your children know that they are always good, even when the decisions they make aren't.

Make The Change

My job with Catholic Charities takes me all over the Diocese of Arlington. The running joke is that my office is a Toyota Corolla moving at variable speeds along I-95. So I spend a lot of time in the car. I schedule phone meetings, listen to audiobooks, and try to say my rosary. I also think. A lot.

Because I'm part Irish (and by default a pessimist) I tend to think about things that didn't go well. I'm not a brooder by nature, but I do find myself thinking about the ways I didn't do an awesome job in a number of areas. Parenting screw ups are often high on that list.

I had one of those moments earlier today when I realized that I hadn't had any one-on-one time with my son in a few days. It wasn't intentional; I just didn't have the opportunity for him and I to spend time together just the two of us. We'd planned on watching a little bit of football together Sunday but it didn't work out (stomach flu making the rounds among the other ducklings). He was disappointed and got frustrated. I responded to the frustration (with much less patience than I wanted) but never empathized with his disappointment.

As I realized this today in my office-on-wheels, my first thought was "Nice job, you jerk. Way to not be patient with your son AND not even find another way to make up that time you were going to spend together."

Introspection can be a good thing. It helps us understand ourselves better, and as part of that, can help us see the areas of our life where we're doing well, and where we need to make improvements. Introspection without a willingness to make changes isn't helpful. It just becomes internal griping or a pity party for one.  If we see things that could have gone better, address them. If you see you've done something that requires an apology, apologize. And if you see you missed an opportunity for something good, don't spend all your time kicking yourself, go try to create a new opportunity instead.

My son and I couldn't watch football together tonight, but we could watch highlights and read a story together. And I had the chance to tell him how grateful I was to have the opportunity to spend time with him.

This week, what changes can you make to create opportunities for connection with your kids?

A Brand New Year

Happy 2018!

About now, the shine has come off our New Year’s Resolutions.  Grand plans of eating better, getting to the gym, not staying up too late watching Netflix or cruising Pintrest have fallen by the wayside.  The most successful resolution I ever made was in college when I told a friend on New Year’s Eve that I planned on eating more marzipan.  I then polished off a box of marzipan fruit while watching a Texas football game on New Year’s Day.  Mission accomplished!

Most of our resolutions never stick.  We try to change too many things at once (This year, I’m going to learn Spanish, and read a new book every two weeks, and organize the garage, and participate in a Bible study, and…) or try to make too large of a change (I’ve never really tried running, but this year, I’m going to qualify for the Boston Marathon!).  Or we don’t have a solid plan or structure in place to sustain the changes we want to make.  One of the biggest challenges is motivation.  What are we hoping to achieve from making a change?  Are we working toward something positive or are we trying to avoid something negative? 

Avoiding a negative is a much harder motivation to maintain.  For example, let’s say (hypothetically) that I need to lose 20 lbs because my doctor says I’m carrying too much weight and my knees may start giving me trouble and my pants don’t fit quite right.  I could take up jogging.  Or I can buy new pants.  There’s no positive motivation for me to make a change, just reducing the chance of a bad thing happening.  But if losing 20 lbs helps give me more energy so I can play longer with my kids, or helps me feel less tired at night so I can spend a little more time with my wife rather than pass out, then that’s a clear positive for me to work toward.

So what do I want to achieve this year?  Since I’m fresh out of marzipan, I want to work on being more present to my wife and the ducklings.  I need to answer a few questions in making this a success.

1)       Why am I doing this? (What is the good I’m trying to pursue?)

2)       How will I get there?  (What changes or actions need to take place?)

3)       What will my response be the first time I fail? (How will I keep my motivation?)

This week, think about what you want to achieve this year and create a plan on how to make that a reality.

'Tis The Season

Somewhere around December 15th, Christmas stops seeming fun.  There’s more to do than we have hours in the day.  Fight the crowds. Purchase the gifts.  Wrap the gifts.  Spend an hour in line at the post office trying to mail the gifts.  Address cards.  Bake cookies. Send treats.  And that’s just to take care of the people outside of your house.  There’s still a frantic rush to make sure we have everything for the kids (let alone our spouse).  Did you get the bleeping-blorping robot hovercraft your son wanted?  Did you get it in the right color?  What about the E-Z homecraft stained glass window kit your daughter is really hoping for?  The one that has the converted lightbulb powered oven that melts the glass right there in your kitchen?  No?!?  ARGGGGH! I QUIT.  I’m going to bed. Let me know when the New Year is here.

Sound familiar?  Does your heart rate start steadily increasing from Thanksgiving until Christmas Day?  If so, take five minutes and just sit down quietly.  Preferably with a cup of tea.  Christmas shouldn’t be driven by stuff. The obvious point is that Christmas is, first and foremost, a celebration of Christ’s birth and the tremendous joy which that brings.  Christmas is also a time to come together as a family. 

Sure, kids like stuff.  I think most of us can remember the excitement of opening presents on Christmas morning.  But what kids remember best are the family activities and traditions that surround Christmas.  I can’t tell you exactly what presents I got as a kid on a year-by-year basis.  There were some Transformers and GI Joe in there during the mid ‘80s, and I definitely got a sweet New Orleans Saints football when I was 10.   But what I remember most clearly and fondly is how my family celebrated together.

I’d be lying if I told you that I’m doing this perfectly.  I’m not. I still try to hustle the kids to bed early these days to try to squeeze out a few more minutes of pre-Christmas prep.  But I don’t want those efforts to come at the expense of my wife and children.  We want to do what’s reasonable, rather than over-extend ourselves so much that we’re miserable and cranky with each other starting on December 23rd.

This week, think about the things you can do as a family this holiday season and make a plan to directly connect with each person in your home for at least five minutes every day.

Merry Christmas from all of us at The Duck Effect.

The Importance Of A Strong Marriage

Having kids, especially young kids, takes up a lot of time. Kids have a lot of needs, both physical (my two year old duckling can't change her own diaper and my five year old isn't really able to make her own lunch) and emotional (they've never met a cuddle and a story they didn't like). And sometimes in the divide-and-conquer world of team parenting, parents can start to feel less connected. It happens. We get pulled in a lot of different directions and often, it's time spent on our marriage that tends to get dropped.

So is this about to turn into a blog on the importance of date night? Not really. Date night is great but it's not the "getting out" part that's important. What matters is the effort we make in intentionally connecting as spouses. My wife and I are homebodies, so the idea of "out" is much less appealing than sharing some ice cream and watching an old episode of The Office. It's not the activity that matters but the time to connect. Even if it's only in 15 minute chunks.

Why am I talking about marriage on a website about parenting? Because whether we realize it or not, we can't be good parents without first being good husbands and wives. If I were to say that I was disrespectful and rude to my wife but was really a great dad, people would find that hard to believe. 

Marriage affects our kids in two ways. First, if the spouses are getting along well, the home is calmer and more peaceful. This is a better environment for kids to grow up in than one with a lot of yelling, screaming or violence. Second, our kids base their model and expectations of marriage on how they see their parents interacting. Sadly, I’ve seen situations where clients will talk about why they tolerated domestic violence in their marriage for years was because they saw their dad abusing their mother and just assumed that was a normal, albeit upsetting, part of marriage.  Because they grew up in a home where spousal abuse was common, they didn’t realize that domestic violence is never an acceptable part of a healthy relationship.

When we model warm, loving, respectful and affectionate relationships with our spouse, we teach our kids about the healthy and appropriate relationships that husbands and wives should strive for.

Today, think about the sort of marriage you hope your child will have one day, and what positive examples can we give him or her now?

Being Present

Oftentimes I find myself thinking about the future. I imagine watching my kids graduate from high school, or dancing with my daughters at their weddings. I think about Christmases and grandkids and a million different variations on what life might look like. It's human nature to be curious about what comes next.

But sometimes, thinking about the future is less about what God has in store for us, and is more a focus on the laundry list of tasks that need to get done. Wash the dishes, clean the bathroom, mow the yard. I caught myself doing this a few weeks ago. I was reading a bedtime story to one of my kids, but my mind was on the projects I needed to get done around the house that night. I realized that I was rushing through the story without meaning to. Worse, I was treating time with my kid as just another item to cross off my list as I plowed through the end of the day.  I was so caught up in my self imposed to-do list, that I was missing a chance to be present to my child. I was passing up an opportunity to genuinely encounter a person that I love.

Being present doesn't cost us anything.  If I spend five distracted minutes reading Goodnight Moon out loud but am really thinking of how I need to mop the kitchen, the kitchen will still need to be mopped.  And the time it takes me to mop will be the same if, rather than dwell on the chores, I allow myself to focus on being engaged with my child for those five minutes of story time instead. We want to actively choose to tune into our kids, rather than just go through the motions.  When we focus too much on what comes next, we might miss what's right in front of us.  

Today, pay attention to the times when it's difficult to truly pay attention to your kids, and gently refocus yourself back to them when you feel distracted.

Forgiveness

I was tucking my son in bed recently when told me that he wished I was more patient with him. Ugh. What a gutshot! It made me feel like, if not the worst dad in the history of the Western Hemisphere, definitely in the top 5.  The kicker was that I'd been patting myself on the back earlier that night for staying cool when all three of the kids had a choreographed meltdown.

I asked him if he could think of a specific time when he believed I was being impatient with him. He could think of several and proceeded to share them in vivid detail.  The first reaction I had was to get a little defensive inside; to justify and give an explanation for why I hadn't been patient during those times. But then I realized two things - 1) the rational explanations wouldn't help and 2) it wasn't really about me. My son felt hurt. And I had a chance to help him.

Asking for forgiveness is never fun. We have to face the fact that, whether we meant to or not, we hurt someone we love. I've met some parents who don't believe they should apologize to their kids; they're worried that admitting wrong doing will somehow undermine their parental authority. Not so. Admitting we aren't perfect (which our kids figured out ages ago) is a great way to model humility. Asking for forgiveness is a great way to repair relationships. And it also teaches our kids the skills to repair relationships too.

John Gottman, a marriage therapist and researcher, has done some great work on what makes a healthy marriage, and by extension, a healthy relationship. It's a myth that happy couples don't fight. I've seen plenty of couples who don't fight because they avoid each other like the plague. Happy couples, Gottman says, are the ones that - when they fight - can repair the relationship. So being able to show our kids the value of admitting when we're at fault, and seeking forgiveness is one of the most important lessons we be able to teach.

Today, take a few minutes to reflect on whether there is anything you should apologize to your child for, and gently approach them to ask for forgiveness 

Patience

I like to have a plan. My wife teases me that I think in schedules and charts and time tables. It's true. Growing up in England gave me an odd sense of things-should-be-done-in-the-appropriate-way-and-order.  Our children did not get this gene from me. They're a little more spontaneous, and like to do things their own way. This can make bedtime tricky.

If I ask my son to clean up his room and get in his pajamas, in my mind that's the order it should go in. Clean up first, then pjs.  Otherwise he...uhhhh...might get his pjs dirty while he's cleaning up? Probably not. It's totally arbitrary, and I just happened to say it in that order. So why do we get so worked up if things aren't going exactly to plan?  Often we want things to go the way we imagined they should because we're much more comfortable with the "known" as opposed to the "unknown."  If things go the way we want, we can move along to the next thing quicker. If not, there's always the worry that we just have one more mess to deal with.

But do things always have to go our way? Does it really matter what order my son does his nighttime routine? Not really.  But when things deviate from our plan, do we rigidly try to force things back on track or are we able to take a step back and ask ourselves if this is really a big deal.  Not everything can be a big deal. We can't make every disagreement with our kids the hill that we die on. Sometimes we need to take a deep breath and try to be patient.  This is particularly true when our kids are trying to learn or master something.  Letting our kids do things their own way, when appropriate, is an important part of them learning how to be independent and successfully solve problems.  Even if it means they have to start by learning all the ways how not to do something.

Today see what you can do to allow your child to try tackling a problem or chore his or her own way.

How To Spend Time With Your Kids

Spending time with our kids is important.  We get that.  We all understand that, just like we understand that we need to eat vegetables or turn off the stove before leaving the house.  The question is – how?  What is “time with my kids” supposed to look like?  Here are three things you can try.

1)      Meet your kids where they are.  As adults, we tend to think about meeting people half way; compromising with both sides being willing to move toward the other.  With kids, we need to be all in.  Dive right into our kids’ worlds.  Learn what they like, try to understand what they like best about those things.

2)      Show interest.  Does your son like dinosaurs?  Great, try to develop an interest in dinosaurs.  Does your daughter enjoy mermaids?  Fantastic, see if you can find a mermaid story at the library to read with her.  When we show our kids that we are interested in their interests, what we’re really demonstrating is that we’re interested in them, and their thoughts.  By moving toward our kids, we’re showing them that they’re worth the effort.

3)      Make them a priority.  Quality time matters for kids, but quantity is important too.  As parents, we all have a zillion things we need to do, and that’s not even counting the stuff that we want to do.  So where are our priorities?  Yes, the dishes need to get cleaned and the lawn needs to be mowed.  But can we find 15 minutes to spend with our kids before we start the housework?  Otherwise, we run the risk of putting off that connection time while we take care of that one chore, and then just finishing up that other chore, and finally that one last chore while we’re thinking about it and then… You get my point.  It’s too easy to put off the important things, because we always think we have the opportunity to come back and do it later.  But our kids must take priority because otherwise they start to believe that they’re less important to us than a sink of dirty dishes or a slightly overgrown yard.

I heard someone once say that it isn’t enough to let our kids know that they’re loved.  We want our kids to feel treasured.  What a great image.  We want our kids to know that they are precious in our eyes.  This is how they learn that they have dignity and are worthy of being loved by others. 

Today try to spend 15 minutes with your kids, engaging in their world, before getting caught up in the day-to-day tasks.