Simplicity Parenting (4 page)

The good news is that there are many things we can do as parents to protect the environment of childhood. There are many ways that we can erect filters to stop the speed and stress of adult life from pouring, unchecked, into our kids’ homes, heads, and hearts. As my work has become increasingly focused on simplification, I have seen how effective this process can be in restoring a child’s sense of ease and well-being. It shifts a family’s direction, so that their daily life efforts are in concert, not in opposition, with their dreams.

Before we focus on each layer of simplification in the chapters ahead, I want to give you an overview of the process. I’ll take you through a consultation, asking you some of the same questions I’ve
asked other families to consider. In order to act out of hope rather than fear, out of reverence for childhood rather than fear of our times, simplification begins with dreams. Carl Sandburg once said, “Nothing happens unless first a dream.” This is no exception. Your dreams for your family will be your motivation; they’ll act as your wings throughout the process.

The Process: Hopes and Dreams

Very often families come to me, whether through a school or private practice setting, because of a child’s behavioral issues. The impetus for a call or consultation is similar to a rash; it’s usually just an outward sign of something else, a broader or deeper issue. As I mentioned in the introduction, you can see so much, including what a family holds dear, from the pattern of their everyday lives. In order to get a clearer view of a family’s issues, I often offer them a choice between several months’ worth of family therapy sessions, or a one-day visit from me. Either way, I feel, gives me the same level of insight. Although it amuses me, it doesn’t surprise me how often families initially choose months of sessions, Mom and Dad eyeing each other nervously, rather than the visit. Certainly having someone invade your home for an entire day, from wake-up until after the children’s bedtimes, is no one’s idea of an inviting prospect.

I don’t think the observation days are as painful as parents might imagine they will be. When a family chooses this option, I spend the day taking in the family’s particular dance of daily activities. I might play with the children, help a bit with the dishes. I often bring a little project with me, something I am making or mending, which keeps my focus from seeming too intense. While my presence is noticeable, I don’t sit and stare, clipboard and stopwatch at hand. Essentially I try to stay on the margins, but within the overall mix of daily life. I might also split up my observations to cover part of a school day and part of a weekend day, depending on the particular difficulties or stresses of the family.

Imagine just such an average day for your family, and what it might look like to an observer. What are the difficulties that might arise? What periods of the day are consistently stressful?

A day or two after my home visit, I meet with the parents. We begin these “post-visit” meetings with an interesting, usually very moving discussion about family values. By this I do
not
mean the term co-opted by politicians to convey whatever they may be promoting at the time. I
mean the couple’s own vision of their family, how they imagined it before they had children. It is important for them to dream their way back, before stepping forward, to reclaim the images and hopes most central and dear to them. These are the images that guide them through the work ahead. And simplification helps enormously in recovering those dreams.

One of my favorite pictures of my wife is one I took when she was pregnant with our first child, sitting in a rocking chair looking off, deep in thought. It’s clear she was thinking about the future. We all had these visions, these dreams of how we wanted our family to be. How did you imagine your children? How did you picture yourselves as parents? You no doubt talked about aspects of your own upbringing … those you wanted to emulate, and others that you wanted to avoid at all costs. How did you imagine your home, with children?

As parents we don’t often get to live the ideals. Not a spectator sport, parenting is about being in the thick of it. We may be the architects of our family’s daily lives, but it’s hard to draw blueprints of something that is constantly changing and growing. With kids you don’t have much time to dream, and most parents are surprised by how far they’ve strayed from the dreams they once had for their family. It’s true, they had sketchy data at the time. (Which one of you was pushing for the white couch? And wasn’t there talk of “Let’s just get one toy chest, and keep everything in that”?)

Even if some of the details were unrealistic, your dreams about your family had truth to them. They had meaning, and still do. They show what you valued most when you began this huge undertaking, this family-building. What inspired you then can inspire you still. It has to; families need fresh infusions of hope and imagination. It’s strange how we look for meaning everywhere, as though it will be “new,” not something that we already know, and constantly have to remember, renew, and reclaim as our own.

Do you remember mentally “grafting” what you loved and admired most in each other onto your future children? Do you remember how
you imagined the family group, with shifting heights and shapes as the kids grew? You imagined a life together, with meals shared, games played, school days and chores, sorrows mended, stories told, little triumphs and celebrations. You imagined the milestones of birthdays and holidays, first steps, first words, first days of school. But you also had mental pictures of less eventful moments, the stuff of everyday life: bedtime reading, tying shoes, sharing laughs, pink construction paper valentines, ball games in the almost-darkness of dusk.

You pictured a refuge; your own loving, perhaps quirky, no doubt noisy, funny, supportive, shelter of like-featured but independent souls, with space to accommodate and smells that meant home, and maybe a sweet-natured dog or cat (“Once the kids are old enough to take responsibility for its care!”) lying by the hearth (“Not on the white couch!”). You dreamed of the comfort of a family where each member could be their authentic self, well known and well loved.

But did you ever, in your wildest dreams, imagine this much stuff all over the rug and crammed into every inch of space in the house?! No way. That was one of those “overlooked details” in your “family life” dreams. For a lot of the parents I’ve worked with, the misalignment between what they imagined—what they dreamed—and what their family has become is enormous. And the disconnect is not just in the details—the white couch or the toys everywhere—it is fundamental. “I never thought I would become a sort of taxi on steroids,” I remember one mother saying, close to tears. “Sometimes I feel like I am relating more to their coaches, their flute and dance teachers, tutors and therapists, than to them.” She felt she had become the vehicle (literally and figuratively) for her kids’ lives, lives that had very little to do with her anymore, or with the family as a whole.

A father takes me aside after a lecture. After exchanging small talk for a few minutes he looks down at the carpet, and then into my eyes. “Do you know what really surprises me?” he asks. “I never thought it would be this hard, this draining. Don’t get me wrong, I knew there would be conflicts, and I expected plenty of them, especially when the kids hit adolescence. I remember arguing with my parents a lot as a teenager. But I can’t imagine what it will be like when my son’s a teenager, when our relationship now seems like it’s staggering from one clash to the next. Everything is up for negotiation. Everything is talked about, to death. He is like a miniature lawyer. I never imagined going toe to toe, arguing and negotiating ten times a day, with a seven-year-old.”

“We didn’t think it would be like this.” I have heard that phrase over and over again in meetings. The family structures are variable, but whether I was meeting with a traditional married couple, same-sex partners, single parents—it doesn’t matter—the realizations are pretty consistent. Parents talk about their dreams as something they have not only envisioned, but were working toward. They look back, sure that their families were moving in the right direction for some time, before they veered off and became something else. “Things have gotten so crazy.” “It didn’t use to be this way, so out of control.”

When we think back to what we imagined our lives would be like, we didn’t think we would be fighting for our family’s survival. Yet again and again, these are the terms used and the feelings expressed. I see parents caught in a stress bath, a sort of “fight or flight” state that is not momentary; it has become the norm. Making do, flying by the seat of our pants, barely seeing one another, always improvising, revolving doors, crazy schedules, unchecked emotions, strangers in the same house.

My conversations with parents are far-ranging, and very moving. They begin, and come back, full circle, to this question: What do you need to move forward, in a way that reclaims your hopes and dreams for your family? The dreams are still very much alive, that much is clear. But also painfully clear is the distance between those dreams and the present reality.

What imagination can be brought to the life that you make and remake together, as a family? Remember, “Nothing happens unless first a dream.” Can you recapture your dream of a family life that is big enough to accommodate all of its members? Can you realign your reality with the hopes you had for your family?

With this in mind, the parents I am visiting and I will turn our attention to the day or so we have just spent together. I ask them if they felt that the day held any “flashpoints” or particular problems. After assuring me that I have, ironically, witnessed “the worst parenting day” of their entire lives, they mention incidents that either come up, or often
do. We “unpack” the day, paying particular attention to the issues that caused the most distress to remember. The particulars might be very particular (“And you saw how Joey can’t even sit still through a meal!”), but meanwhile, we are also setting some broad perimeters together. You see, by this time we have already talked about their dreams for their family, and now they are beginning to address their worries and concerns. Somewhere between the dreams and the concerns is the answer … the place to bring imagination, the place to start simplifying.

Parents can sometimes feel overwhelmed by the problems, unable to see a pattern or starting point. Parts of the day may be problematic, such as meals and bedtimes, and we discuss these, looking at them in the context of daily life. Such explosions are rarely the result of the activity itself; they arise from pressures building up long before. As parents become more involved in simplifying, in increasing rhythm and predictability in the home (Chapter Four), they will learn how to build in “pressure valves,” little islands of calm throughout the day.

At this early point, our goal is to take the pulse of the family, to see what is happening. How does this picture differ from our vision of family? What would make it better? This is a process that anyone can do. If you look objectively at the pattern of your days together, what are the flashpoints? The points at which tempers rise, cooperation evaporates, and chaos ensues?

Rather than address the particularly worrisome concerns head-on, it is important first to just acknowledge them. It is important as well to look at the areas of our daily lives and parenting that are well aligned with our best intentions. What makes these areas work? In my meetings with parents I listen to their biggest concerns, and together we back off a step or two. A good massage therapist does not push directly into a sore point; instead they work the muscles to either side, loosening them as they go. Healing work in family therapy needs to be pursued with similar grace, so that the changes engender further motivation, not resentment.

The Process: Getting Started

In terms of areas to change I usually see two categories: what is important, and what is doable. What seems the most important is usually not; what is most doable is the place to begin. If you do enough that is doable, you will get to the important, and your motivation will be fueled by your success.