Girl Called Karen (9 page)

S
ome years ago, I read that doing a crossword puzzle was like taking a pill to prevent Alzheimer’s disease, and so I began working on a crossword puzzle every night. In all fairness, I have to admit that I enjoy doing the puzzles, so it is not a great chore. There is such a sense of achievement when all the little boxes are filled. Through the years, I have gotten better at filling the boxes. I learn new words, and I have to stretch to find different meanings for the clues. It is a good example of how learning and stretching your intellectual muscles can improve your confidence and faith in yourself.

An interest in learning and a capacity for creativity are factors associated with more resilient individuals. If we know that learning and creativity are characteristics of resilient people, then it follows that
encouraging learning will make it more likely that a child or adult will become more resilient.

From the time I learned to read, I was a dedicated reader. My foster mother said that the house could burn down around me and I wouldn’t notice until the flames licked my feet. Books have always been a refuge for me, a place to get away. They have meant enjoyment and knowledge. I learned young that knowing what you are talking about can be very powerful.

I worked with a little boy who came from a family where the written word had no respect. He was placed in a foster family whose members valued reading. They never said that he had to read, but television viewing was limited, and everyone else was reading. The foster mother made sure that there were exciting
age-appropriate
books available to the youngster. Eventually, he read. In the year that he remained with the foster family, his confidence grew by leaps and bounds. His ability to assess a situation and accept consequences increased significantly.

The pure joy of intellectual discovery is both rewarding and expanding. The capacity for, and connection to, learning is an endlessly valuable tool for building personal resiliency.

Creative expression is another powerful means for acquiring personal resilience. When Ginny came into the therapeutic foster care program, she had been diagnosed with multiple problems. Among them was a very low intellectual functioning. She was twelve,
loving and affectionate, but unable to grasp the most undemanding tasks or straight-forward concepts. We discovered that she could learn and retain more if we used music and rhythm. Just by tapping into her creative side, she could achieve a great deal more.

One teen I worked with had a great natural talent for drawing. She used her art in her therapy to help say that which was intolerable. She used her talent to be still and hear. She gave her works to me and to others when she could not express her feelings. This creative outlet made her survival more likely. Regrettably, she was like so many of the young people I worked with – children who had been sexually exploited, raped repeatedly, burned, and battered. Her early years of abuse and neglect were so horrendous that her outlook for the future was very poor, but by tapping into her creative ability, she greatly increased her odds for success.

Sometimes we think of creativity only in terms of the arts and artistic expression through traditional art forms, but artistic expression can be found in many venues. Casey found an outlet for expressing her individuality through her dress. She was not a follower of the latest fad. She dressed herself from the time she was a little girl in her own unique style. She lived through some pretty tough times with a lot more aplomb than one would expect.

Donna was the resident who did all the other girls’ hair. She braided my hair and was inordinately proud of how I looked.

Isaac taught us how to break dance, although perhaps not all that well. It is a lot harder than it looks.

Benjamin could rap. He was a poet in action. He taught me the beauty of a music style that I had summarily dismissed because of hearing some offensive professional offerings.

At our shelter, Christmas trees were trimmed, pumpkins carved, rooms decorated, greeting cards designed, kites built, and there were a myriad of other opportunities for young people to explore and grow with creative expression.

Open the door of creativity for your children. Let them mix the color palette and color outside the box. So much of our youth is spent in conforming to the rules that our creativity gets stifled. If you love to set a beautiful table and prepare a meal with eye appeal, take that extra little time to do so. It frees your creative spirit while modeling creativity in action for your children.

My Aunt Eileen enjoyed finding unique opportunities for having fun. When the children were young and at that age when they loved repetition, Eileen would tell them to get out their pencils and paper. “Why?” they’d ask. Because they were approaching the sign that said “Draw bridge,” she’d explain. That little joke never failed to entertain them, and they loved having the joke sprung upon friends.

Parents often find ways of using road signs and advertisements to make travel more fun.

One sunny summer afternoon, Aunt Eileen took us on one of her famous “adventures.” We went to O’Leno State Park. It is located on the banks of the scenic and unique Santa Fe River, a tributary of the Suwannee River in central Florida. Within O’Leno State Park, the Santa Fe disappears and flows underground for more than three miles before it again becomes a surface stream at the River Rise. When we entered the park, we crossed the river. We hiked through the park and arrived at the exit. Eileen asked us if we had noticed anything unusual. Intrepid outdoorsmen that we were or were not, we couldn’t identify the mystery without her help. When she pointed out that we crossed the river going in but not going out, we were incredulous. We came up with all manner of preposterous reasons before hitting on the correct one. It was a great adventure, and I remember it forty years later. Eileen often made life more fun with her penchant for adventure.

I tried to follow her example when I was raising my children. And I have tried to live my life with joy and creativity. I dance in the grocery store aisles because I hear really good music streaming through the store. I wear orange shoes and red hats and pink jackets because they are fun. My granddaughter, Rachel, wore her pink boa and clear plastic slippers to the Cracker Barrel restaurant for lunch because she was a princess. My son Daniel lifts me off my feet and twirls me around every time we meet because it is fun. My granddaughter, Brittany, is one of the few remaining
letter writers left in America. She hunts for special stationery and decorates with stickers and pictures because it is fun.

Don’t be afraid of being different. Encourage your children to respect their own and others’ uniqueness. In that very uniqueness is the creative spirit looking for release.

E
arly on in my social-work training, I was taught not to solve clients’ problems, but to move them to find their own solutions. Have you any idea how hard it is to lead people who see no possible solution to their dilemma? It is incredibly frustrating. When history and experience have combined to convince them there is no hope, it takes prodigious efforts to change that world view.

I worked for eighteen years in a manufacturing environment, and most of those years I was a supervisor. A machine broke down, a line went down and it was my job to get it going. I had trained operators and qualified mechanics, but ultimately I was responsible for production. One night the packer at the end of the line went down. My crew had been working to repair it for more than an hour when I went
to watch. After several minutes, I walked over and engaged the power button. Behold! The machine was fixed. More than likely, the mechanics had repaired the minor malfunction in the first few minutes the machine was down, but failed to perform the obvious: Once repaired, the packer needed to be restarted. I had had some outstanding training in problem solving. I wasn’t trained to be a mechanic, but I was trained to look for the change.

As a social worker, I took some of this basic problem-solving training and applied it to people’s problems. Often people don’t know what the problem is. They know what the symptoms are, but they can’t identify the underlying causes. Naturally they are not adept at solving problems, nor do they understand when to try harder and when to give up.

My sons were all toddlers when their ball rolled behind the sofa. Rick was the oldest and the strongest, and he tried unsuccessfully to move the sofa. Daniel was the youngest, and he got mad and attacked the sofa. David watched for a while, and then he crawled to the other end of the sofa where he could reach the ball. David had an innate problem-solving skill. It is a skill that contributes greatly to his resilience.

I have a friend who is bright, well educated, and determined. She can identify the problem and appropriate solutions, and she will apply all her determination toward correcting the situation. Unfortunately, she never seems to know when to quit.
Reasonable effort is not a concept that she understands. Consequently she spends considerable effort trying to fix something best left to others.

So, what are attainable problem-solving skills, and what is reasonable perseverance? The first strategy is to identify the real problem, not just the symptoms. Your trustworthy young son has without warning begun to steal money and small items from the family home. Is his larcenous behavior the problem or is something else going on? He may be doing drugs or a pastime equally dangerous. Instead of just reacting to the stealing, it is vital to get to the real issue. Then you can attack the problem with precisely the ammunition needed.

What I learned in the cake-mix factory was that the key to fixing a problem is identifying the change. If your car has operated efficiently for three years and it is stalling out now, what is the change? Sometimes to your sorrow, a day-one deviation produces a lemon. The guy on the production line made a Friday afternoon mistake, and the car has never performed at optimum efficiency. Either way, you have to trace the problem to its source.

I had a client who had been a good driver for more than a decade when she was involved in a terrible automobile accident. She recovered and went back to normal activities except for her ability to make timely decisions. Her work was suffering as well as her personal relationships. When she began looking for
the change that had contributed to her indecisiveness, she realized that it led back to the accident, and she was at last able to begin to deal with it.

So you have identified the problem and the change. What now? Look for your options. The most difficult element in this process is the ability to suspend judgment as to the efficacy of each option. Wait. The more options you can identify, the more chances you have to find a fix.

I have been at many meetings where the leader says that we are going to brainstorm new ideas. There are some people that simply find it impossible to allow the unusual or outrageous idea to sit on the table without denouncing it. Everyone loves to talk about “thinking outside the box,” but few of us are really any good at it.

Not too long ago, I was at a meeting with people from many different disciplines united by their interest in children’s issues. When I suggested that we invite adolescents to sit at the table and participate in the conversation, I was shot down quickly and ruthlessly. One longtime educator said that she had been required to participate previously in meetings that included teenagers, and their “crazy” ideas consumed too much time. This was obviously not a group looking for original ideas or innovative thinking. I’ll grant you, kids don’t always understand the details or recognize the obstacles, but because of that, they often trigger new thinking even when a particular
suggestion is not workable. Don’t be afraid to think out of the box.

Don’t be afraid of other people’s opinions and ideas. You are not going to abdicate your responsibility and obligation to select an option and decide on an action, but the more input you have, the more informed can be your decision.

Don’t get hung up on the idea that there is only one right way to fix the problem. I worked with a young woman who had resolved her issues of abuse by running away, and that became her answer to all her problems. What was a good choice for one issue was not the answer to every problem.

I worked with a social worker who was very good at identifying the most efficient solution, and she would focus on that remedy to the exclusion of all other ideas. The problem was that those people who were left with no ownership in the solution did not feel as compelled to see it through to successful implementation. It is sometimes better to go with the less clever solution and engage the participants than insist on the one best solution.

Now do something. If there is anything that I learned working in the cake factory, it was that it is better to do something than to do nothing. When you do nothing, a line is idle, the order is not filled, and profit is not made. When a client remains in a toxic relationship rather than doing something about it, the children are damaged even as the partners are damaged.

Keep trying as long as there is a clear likelihood for success. If you have tried repeatedly to mend a relationship and your friends or family members cling to their grievances, it may be time to say you have done the best you can and now it is their problem.

Not everyone picks up problem-solving skills as quickly as my son David, but everyone can learn to be more proficient at it. Help your children learn how by letting them work through their everyday problems rather than trying to fix every problem for them. If the solution is not the one you would most prefer but it works, let it be. Listen. Be present.

T
he single most valuable ability that has sustained me through adversity is the ability to positively reframe the situation or behavior.

My girlfriends call me the queen of reframe. Give me a little time, and I will find a more positive viewpoint. I am trapped in a traffic jam on the expressway as the authorities work to remove a wreck. First there is a flash of irritation because I will be late getting home. Then I realize I can’t do a thing about it. Finally I turn on my favorite public radio station, sit back, and enjoy the uninterrupted time.

The ability to reframe begins with looking at things from a different perspective. And that is infinitely more difficult than one might imagine. First of all, we are so influenced by what we have previously experienced that it’s a terrible stretch to get past the historical perspective.

When I train foster parents, I try to explain to them the different perspective that foster children bring to their home. Children who have been in the system for a while know that the placement is predicated on their behavior. Consequently, a birth parent may well berate a misbehaving biological child with words like “not while you’re under my roof” or “you’ll follow my rules or you’ll leave.” Our birth children know that these threats are, usually, just that: threats. Foster children have experienced repeated placement disruptions for many reasons. They know they can be dismissed pretty easily. I remember a family that brought the teenaged foster child and all her possessions in the customary plastic garbage sacks, deposited her in the state agency’s reception room, and departed. Her offense had to do with sexual activity with a young man of a different race in the parents’ very bed.

Foster children need to hear that messing up will not buy them a pass to their next placement. They need to be threatened with words like, “You can’t act up to get out. You are stuck here.” Sometimes reverse treatment works better. At one residential group home for young men, the teen ran away, was picked up by a policeman, and returned to the home. The staff and other residents had a cake and a party to celebrate his safe return. In the past, every time he had gotten into trouble, he ran away and was then moved to a new placement. This time he got an
entirely different perspective. He stayed after that and worked through his problems.

Learn to examine the historical perspective. Sometimes, that old perspective is very positive. Certainly, we all have had experience with the person who succeeds in the face of great obstacles. When asked how they did this, they will tell you that they did something like it before so they knew they could do it again. I read about an entrepreneur who suffered a business failure and subsequent bankruptcy. He went right back to work, saved, begged, and borrowed capital to begin over. He had built a business once, and he knew he could do it again.

The historical perspective is very powerful for good or not. Don’t let the negative experience so influence you that you don’t try. Capitalize on the experiences that empower you. Be deliberate, and examine the past. Too many people allow early experience to define them, to influence their performance without ever really looking at it.

How we see ourselves influences our ability to examine the situation from a different perspective and subsequently positively reframe. I worked with a young woman suffering from anorexia. She saw herself as a fat person. She spent her whole life trying to control the fat even after she was in physical distress due to her low body weight. She went into a residential program and learned to manage her fears, but she still sees herself as fat. She has never been
able to alter her view of herself, even though she adheres to a plan that allows her to survive.

My mother Sally, my mom Doris, my teachers, and some early academic successes convinced me that I was a smart girl. I always approached the situation from that perspective. It meant that I could figure things out, and so I did. When I worked at the cake-mix plant, I was assigned to implement the training program for a new packaging line. Training the line crew was my assignment, but there were, initially, mechanical problems. One of them had to do with cleaning and sanitizing the line between product flavors. The only other plant using this particular equipment routinely pulled the line equipment apart to clean it. This was costly downtime and difficult work. I suggested a way to clean the system without tearing it down, a team investigated the option, tests were run, and the plan was successfully implemented. I wasn’t an engineer, but, from my perspective, I was as smart as any of the other people on that team. I wasn’t afraid to look at a situation from another perspective because in my view, I was capable of solving a problem.

Our ability to positively reframe is impacted greatly by how we view ourselves.

Our ability to positively reframe is also influenced by our physical and emotional health. It is certainly much more difficult to find a different perspective when we are in great pain or emotional distress. Pain can significantly cloud our judgment. One of the best
examples of someone who was able to positively reframe his situation under the most adverse circumstances was a prisoner of war in Vietnam. He was imprisoned for years. In later years, after obtaining his freedom, he wrote that those years had been a powerful influence in making him the strong man that he became. He said that every day in that awful place he told himself that he was growing in power and vitality. He turned his prison into a training camp instead of a concentration camp. Despite physical hardship and emotional suffering, he successfully reframed his situation and his response to it. He was more powerful than his tormentors could ever understand.

We have observed John Walsh, the father whose child died a violent death at the hands of a dangerous criminal. He has made his entire life an example of positive reframe. His child’s death is the pivotal point in a campaign to save the lives of other children. His TV program, “America’s Most Wanted,” has saved lives and prevented tragedies. He couldn’t change the situation, but he could change his behavior.

There are two strategies for positive reframe. You can manipulate the situation. If you have lemons, make lemonade. Or you can change your behavior. If the fish are simply not biting, you use the fishing line to fly a kite.

Through the years, I have taught many classes on the art of positive reframe. I have enjoyed the
responses that I get when I ask for examples of positive reframe. Some of them follow:

• an ugly girl: she’s not a bit like that phony Barbie doll
  
• grounded for a teenage infraction: the opportunity to reconnect with my dog
  
• school uniforms: more clothes for dating
  
• wrecked dad’s car: a chance to wear my cute bike shorts
  
• lost job: the perfect time to attend bartenders’ school
  
• spilled bleach on favorite shirt: learned to tie-dye
  
• teenage parents: young empty nesters
  
• early male pattern baldness: save on shampoo
  
• early male pattern baldness: save on haircuts
  
• early male pattern baldness: eliminate bad hair days
  

People have fun looking for positive reframes to
less-than-
positive scenarios. They also increase their ability to positively reframe. The more you do it, the better you get at it. You have to practice.

You have to listen to your words. Negative words inhibit the ability to positively reframe. I led a workshop for a group of office workers. At the
conclusion of the class, they decided to avoid negative descriptors for a week. They set up a “negativity” jar. Anyone who used a negative descriptor about another person or situation would be fined one dollar, and it would go into the jar. After two days, there were a lot of long pauses in conversations, sentences were begun but quickly aborted, and no money went into the jar. On the afternoon of the third day, the young salesman entered the office, slammed a dollar bill on the table, and said that it was worth the money to describe his unpleasant client of that morning. I will concede that the positive reframe is, on occasion, beyond the scope of the situation, but more often it is a successful strategy.

So we see that the types of words we use contribute greatly to our ability to positively reframe. We also need to listen to our bodies. When you utter a pronouncement and your stomach knots up, it is time to examine what you just said. When the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, you need to find out what is going on. Our bodies will often cue us in to that which is noxious. If your words or actions are harmful to yourself or others, it is time to weigh their value and your true intent.

My oldest son is a warrior. He is a champion of the underdog, and of truth and justice, but he sometimes has trouble figuring out what his underlying goal is. He will attack his adversary with his plethora of facts, his keen wit and satire, and his unrelenting
self-righteousness. It is not a useful way of effecting change. His adrenalin is pumping, and his body is in crisis mode. If he would listen to his body signals, he would recognize that his words are not persuasive, they are, instead, weapons, and people defend against weapons. Listen to your body.

If you want to overcome adversity, the ability to positively reframe is a powerful tool. If you want to get better at it, start and then practice, practice, practice.