Very few people enjoy
pain, and those that do are likely not reading a blog about social and
emotional well-being. From an early age we try to teach our kids how to
avoid pain and how to be cautious so that they do not end up in a place
where pain is the outcome. Billions of dollars are spent every year on
everything from pills to therapy to acupuncture to massages to
self-healing books all in an attempt to remove as much pain as possible
from our daily lives. And yet pain is still here.
I live a very blessed
life. I am married to a wonderful woman and I have 3 of the best kids a
father could ever wish for. I have a job that lets me help people and
feel good about what I do. I have friends who genuinely care about me
and my well-being. In fact, there are very few flaws with my life and
very few things I can look at and feel bad about with the exception of
one big one – pain.
About 9 years ago I was
playing golf with a friend. I was not a great golfer, but there were
usually very few on the course who could hit it as far as I could. In
fact, I could reach the green from 300 with a fairway wood pretty much
every time. I could reach the green from 225 with a 6 iron pretty much
every time. What I couldn’t do was reach the green from 50 because I
would either knock the ball 50 yards over or dig a hole in the ground
where my ball used to be. I had no finesse, and I putted as if I were
trying to knock the back out of the cup. But I could really smash the
ball.
One beautiful Saturday I
am playing golf with a close friend and we are at a 500 yard par 5. I
blasted my drive close to 300 yards and was sitting just inside 200 to
the green. My friend was a solid 60 yards behind me and of course I let
him know about it. I offered to carry his bag since he was too weak to hit the ball any farther than he had.
I asked him if he needed me to break out the binoculars so that he
could see the green from so far back. I laughed when he pulled out a
3-wood (one of the big woods for non-golfers) and swung with all of his
might and still ended up about 40 yards short. We walked up to my ball
and he was fuming; I was laughing and I got a little too cocky.
“I bet I can hit the green from 200 out with my pitching wedge.â€
Now, for those of you
who don’t play golf, most people – at least most smart people – use a
pitching wedge when they are inside of 100 or so yards. Some heavy
hitters will use it up to about 120 yards but it was never meant to hit
anything over 130 yards. I was 200 yards out and I was relishing the
sweet anger of my friend, because I was putting it to him and my
confidence had turned into cockiness. And, as does so often times
happen, my mouth just wrote a big check that my body now had to cash.
“No
way you can hit a pitching wedge 200 yardsâ€, he said. “You hit it 200
yards then I will buy the cokes back at the clubhouse. You don’t hit it
that far, you have to play the rest of the match with your mouth shut!â€
The gauntlet had been
laid down. Yes, I wanted a coke at the turn, but more importantly, I
wasn’t sure if I could play golf without my tongue wagging. I wasn’t
sure if that was even humanly possible. So, I pulled out my pitching
wedge and took a couple of swings that sounded like a plane passing by
as they making a “whoosh†sound. I lined up the shot and I pulled the
club back and held it at the top of my swing for a moment and then I
swung harder than I have ever swung before. I nailed that ball. I hit it
as pure as a golf ball can be hit and when I made contact I knew it was
going to get to the green, if not farther. And it did. That ball sailed
as straight as an arrow and covered the 200 yards in a high fader and
when it landed it was a solid 20 yards on the other side of the green. I had just hit a pitching wedge 220 yards.
But my victory was short lived, because as I had swung at the ball I
followed through so hard that I twisted and ruptured a disk in my back. I
immediately went to my knees as it felt like someone had just stabbed
me and was cutting down the back of my left leg. My friend had not
noticed me on the ground, because he was so engrossed with the fact that
I had just knocked a pitching wedge 220 yards. When he turned to give
me a high-five he literally found me on my side in a fetal position
trying to scream but not having the breath to do so because of the pain.
I ended up having back
surgery to remove the torn portion of the disk. When I woke up from the
surgery, I felt pain-free for the first time since that swing. It felt
great. In fact, it felt so good that I blew off physical therapy and within 2 weeks I was in Miami to speak at a conference.
I never slowed down and I never made any adjustments to my life even
though I had back surgery. I wasn’t hurting, there was no need for a
change.
Nearly 2 years after my
surgery, I had been blowing and going and I found myself in Orlando,
again for a speaking engagement. I got up early to go set my room up for
my presentation and when I was walking across the street I stepped off
the curb and felt that familiar pain shoot through my back and into my legs.
I had just popped another disk stepping off of the curb. When I made it
back to Austin and dragged myself to the doctor, sure enough, surgery
number 2.
Again, I woke from this
surgery feeling great and jumped back into life full force. I felt good
so there was no need for a change. (I know what you are thinking, but I
have never said I was a fast learner). You know what happened next, I
turned wrong and out went the first disk that had been repaired. Surgery number 3.
This surgery was different. It had become obvious that my lower back was unstable, so the decision was made to fuse my back. This
involved a big incision, a graph from my hip, and 2 titanium rods held
into place by 4 bolts that looked like they were forged in hell itself.
I didn’t wake up from this surgery feeling good. In fact, it hurt. I
remember waking up in the recovery room and feeling like I was being
stabbed over and over in my hip and in my lower back. I couldn’t even
muster a word but apparently I woke up screaming because they knocked me
out. I was in the hospital for 4 days, and when I went home I was told
to stay in bed and not move much for at least a week or two… and then
therapy would begin.
I had been home for
about a week when I told my wife I wan ted to go sit on the back porch
and breathe fresh air. We have a really nice porch overlooking our pool
and it is a great place to just sit and relax. She helps me to my chair
and yes, I needed help. As I sink into the chair, we hear the doorbell
ring and Sylvia goes back into the house to answer the door. As soon as
she closes the door to the porch my youngest daughter, who was a toddler at the time, takes off running straight towards the pool and falls right in.
Seeing my little girl go
over the edge and into the pool apparently triggered the full fight or
flight response, because I was out of that chair and running before pain
could be registered in my brain. I ran in a flat out sprint and jumped
feet first into the shallow end of the pool to grab my daughter. When my
feet hit the bottom of the pool I was partially bent over reaching for
my daughter and the impact of landing in this position caused the bolts
in my back to press against the titanium rods to the point that the rods
actually bent and the combined force caused the bolts to break into the
anchoring vertebra, effectively breaking my back.
To
make a long story short, I ended up having 4 more surgeries fixing my
back. My last major surgery was a cage fusion where they cut a foot-long
incision down my stomach and removed my insides to fix the spine from
the front and then flipped me over and cut 2 equally long incisions down
both sides of my back and completed the full cage. I woke from that surgery experiencing a level of pain I did not know was possible.
I remember waking and feeling like I had literally been ripped apart in
front and back. The pain was more than I could bear; I am told that
when I woke up I immediately passed out from the pain. This happened
several times as they tried to re-sedate me. I spent the better part of 2
years in a hospital bed, and my last surgery was to implant a spinal
cord stimulator that lets me dull the pain by basically shocking the
nerve sleeves in the spine into dormancy.
There have been no normal days since that fateful day by the pool. Pain has become a fact of everyday life for me.
I can lay down about 3 hours before I wake up with my hips on fire, and
I have to move to a chair to try and sleep. I take pain medication on a
regimen to try and keep the pain from building. I walk with a limp, and
I cannot bend my lower back because it is completely fused. Pain is an
everyday fact of life.
Why am I telling you
this story? Why am I telling you something personal when, if you knew
me, you would know that I do not like to open up personally to other
people? I am sharing this because I want you to know that I understand
pain. I know what it is like to hurt. I know what it is like when the
pain is so great and, more importantly, so consistent that it dims your
hopes for life. I know what it is like to wish for simple moments when
it doesn’t feel like your body is fragile and again to feel like a
strong man. I know what it is like to be humbled through pain and have
your confidence taken from you. I know what it is like to be made frail,
physically and emotionally.
But I also know what it is like to learn to live with pain and to learn to live by the necessity of endurance and forbearance. I have learned through that necessity how to begin living with pain rather than being controlled by it.
I have learned that out of frailty comes a strength that cannot be
explained to someone who has not had pain as a waypoint of life. I have
learned that the moments when pain is severe will too pass and that a
moment of relative calm will come. I have learned because pain has
taught me.
Pain is not something we
should wish for or should actively seek. This life is hard, and pain
will eventually find most of us. However, I think we are doing ourselves
a disservice when we think of pain as something that should be avoided
to the point that we do not let ourselves, or our children, live life. We
are so fearful that our kids are going to get hurt that we are
sterilizing their world and taking the adventure of life and putting
rubber guards around it. We are missing the grand adventure out of fear of the great fall.
Life is uncertain, and no matter how hard you try to avoid pain it will come.
And because life is
uncertain, and because a modicum of pain can be a great teacher, we need
to remember that little boys need to run and climb trees and tackle
each other and jump in mud puddles and romp and stomp and act like boys.
Girls may not be as physically rambunctious, but they can rip each
other’s emotions apart and inflict far more pain that the tackle of a
boy. This doesn’t mean we should create such a politically correct
bubble around our kids to where they are in a constant state of
readiness to be offended.
Political correctness
and this constant drive to eliminate all possibilities of physical and
emotional pain is a mistake. Life is fragile but it is also short. Yes,
you should be careful but no, you shouldn’t miss life because of fear of
pain or fear of rejection or fear of being embarrassed.
Do I wish I could go
back to that beautiful spring day and not swing that golf club so hard?
Absolutely. But every day that I did get to play golf was a blessing and
a memory that I carry with me now. Do I wish I could run and keep up
with my son? Absolutely. But my kids have learned a lot of life lessons
watching their Daddy get up and get on with life even though pain is his
constant companion.
Would I avoid all pain if I could? Probably
not, because when you spend your life avoiding pain, when you spend
your life guarding yourself against others, and when you make sure that
you have no emotional vulnerabilities then you are not really living.
You are just surviving. Sign me up for those who want to live life. I
spent a couple of years in a hospital bed trying to survive. Getting up
and accepting pain and learning to live is a far better option.
Those of you who live with pain – don’t miss out on life because of it.
Those of you trying to avoid pain, don’t mistakenly avoid living out of a fear.
Life is short and pain is a fact. But so is joy when you learn to truly live.
In my last entry
I wrote about pain being a fact of life. Everyone has pain from
injuries or illnesses or just the process of living. We all have scars
from falling off our bikes or out of a tree or from holding a
firecracker a second too long. Between 7 knee surgeries, 6 back
surgeries, and 2 hand surgeries I am covered in scars. We wear our scars
as reminders of a time when pain came to us. Our scars also tell a story to others, letting them know that we have endured pain and have come back from it. Our scars are a part of who we are and where we have been and what we have done.
But what about the pain that leaves no scar?
What about the time when we feel a pain far beyond a scraped knee or
even a broken bone? There are those around us bearing unimaginable
emotional scars, but because these scars reside on their hearts and
minds we don’t know that part of their story. We don’t know that they
have endured something that we hope is never thrust on us.
A close friend and his wife live in a beautiful neighborhood; his
is one of those streets that could be in a movie. It is lined with
large trees and it is a block away from an elementary school, so there
are always little kids on their bikes followed closely by attentive
moms. It is the type of neighborhood where you’d imagine most homes have
a pool and envision kids running from one home to the next with their
towel over their shoulder. It is a great neighborhood that a lot of people would hope to live in someday.
It would be easy to think that everyone in that neighborhood and on
that block has it easy and is truly blessed. But those trees and pools
and jogging moms and swimming kids do not tell the whole story. They do
not let you see the real scars.
This friend sent out an e-mail earlier this week asking us to pray for his neighbors because their 8 year old had fallen sick earlier in the week… got a little better… and then he passed away. It was that sudden; it happened that fast.
♦ How do you process that?♦
♦ How does a healthy 8-year-old suddenly no longer yell to his friendly neighbor cleaning the pool over the fence? ♦
♦ How does life leave one so young? ♦
♦ How does that family live with that scar? ♦
…And how do we help?
I spent many years in school to become a
psychologist. I did all the practicums and research and counseling and
clinical rotations. I have helped people bounce back from injuries and I
have helped people whose mind is scarred learn how to cope again. I
have done all the training necessary to be a healer of emotional scars. But I don’t have answers for people who ask how they deal with the scar of losing someone so young and so alive.
I know words that will provide comfort and I know how to help a
grieving person compartmentalize and understand the grief. But I don’t
have an answer for the question of why. I don’t have an answer for the
scar that will always be on their hearts; even when those of us who
cannot see that scar move on.
So what do we do? How do we help? What do we say?
♦ Let’s start with the first question, “What do we do?†♦
The answer to this one is fairly straightforward – do something.
When someone is hurt, when their world has not only been turned upside
down but has been permanently redefined, they will need to understand
that there are people around them that can help them cope with the day
to day tediousness of life as they try to cope with this sudden change.
This sounds simple, but for many people the natural inclination is to
avoid involvement and avoid putting themselves into the emotional
whirlwind of loss. It is easy to rationalize that family and close
friends will be there so the most compassionate thing to do is to keep
your distance. That’s not compassionate. That’s avoidance.
You do something because there will come a time when it matters.
In the early days of loss the family is
likely surrounded by loved ones and close friends, but soon they too
must go back to their lives. And there will come a quiet time when those
who are still living with the loss will suddenly feel very alone and
very vulnerable… and then they will see a card or remember a meal or
think back to a hug… and then they will recall that they are not alone. We all need to feel connected to life, but when it is taken from someone too soon then
those who are left behind need the rest of us to help keep them
grounded in hope and the prospect of a future when the grief seems
unbearable. Providing a meal, sending a note, working up the
courage to stop by and let them know you are there may not be fully
appreciated in that moment, but there will come a time when it will
matter. There will come a time when that act is a tether back to the
hope of life. Do something because those who are hurting will need those “somethings” when loss deafens the sound of hope.
♦ The second question often asked is similar to the first, “How do we help?†♦
This one is tricky, because it really depends on your relationship to the person who is grieving. If it is someone close, then your boundaries of aid and assistant should be as liberal as you can allow them to be.
It is ok to clean their home or ask if you can help make sure their
bills are sent on time or plan a menu for the coming week. Those tedious
demands of life can easily become a nuisance to someone who is
grieving, and the frailty of the grieving mind can let those tedious
life details slip by. Then, at some point in the not to distant future,
the fact that those details went unchecked and unattended will create a
stress. And stress can be a trigger to emotional responses that at any
other time would seem disproportional. But when the soul is raw from grief, the mind often times has a difficulty with perspective.
If you are not close to the grieving family, make sure you offer to help- -realizing they probably will not take you up on the offer– and then do something
that is helpful. A meal or even a dessert is helpful. Collecting
newspapers and mail is helpful. If you are mowing your yard then mow
theirs. Help, but do it in a way that is nonintrusive.
Do it so that at some point in the near future they won’t have to mow
the yard or fix a meal or collect their newspapers. Your actions, even
if anonymous, will provide a moment of happiness and a moment of peace
and a moment of comfort and sometimes those simple moments are what
keeps us tethered to the hope that things can get better.
♦ The last question I am often asked is the hardest, “What do we say?†♦
What words can be sufficient for a mom
or a dad or a grandmother or grandfather who has just lost a part of
their life? What words can salve a pain that will leave a scar that will
never truly heal? What words matter to someone who is hurting? Believe it or not, the words are simple… but they are so hard to say.
When someone has suffered a loss that
seems unimaginable. When parents go from watching their little boy
playing soccer one week… to trying to figure out how to breathe again because he is gone the next, what can you say? Tell them that you are there when they need you. Tell them that you will be a shoulder to cry on or ear to listen. Tell them that if they need something you want the privilege of helping.
Don’t tell them you understand or that things will get better.
Don’t affirm for them that you cannot imagine the pain they are feeling.
Don’t give them words that trivialize or over-emphasize what they are going through.
Instead, be that tether to the life beyond pain.
Be the voice of someone who will be
there when the time comes for need. Hearing that you are there for them
is much more comforting than trying to convince them that things will
get better. That is a conclusion that they will have to come to on their
own and it will happen in their own time.
What do you do? What do you say? How do you help?
The answer to all of these is simple – be there. Be there in support. Be there in assistance. Be there in word and deed. Just be there.
I cannot imagine losing a child. I
cannot imagine the pain of losing someone so close. I pray that is a
life lesson I never have to learn. But for those who do, they need the
rest of us to be there.
One last thing:
that ideal neighborhood on that tree-lined street, with those moms and
dads and their kids, will never be the same. But thanks to good-hearted
people like my close friend and his wife, that family dealing with the
loss of their son knows that someone is there. They know there is a
shoulder to cry on and an ear to listen. They know there is an extra bed
for close family friends who will be coming into town to lay a young
child to rest. They know when everyone leaves and when the day comes
when silence is deafening that they can knock on a door and that tether to hope will be there.
They know this because they have been told by word, shown by deed, and
cared for and cried with out of love. Hope is a very fragile thing. It
cannot be truly lost but it can be well hidden. Gather the courage
necessary to open yourself to the vulnerability of grief so that those
who are in it can someday find their way out.
Why do these things happen? Because life can be cruel. It is up to the rest of us to help make life worth living again.
No hard bedtime for the kids and great
movies at the theater and, best of all, tons of family time. This past
week, my family along with my in-laws spent the week at a great condo on
South Padre Island. We would get up in the mornings and slide open the
back porch door and sit and listen to the waves crashing against the
shore. We went for lazy walks on the beach and collected seashells that
my youngest daughter handed out to her friends as souvenirs. We went out
at night with our flashlights and hunted sand-crabs. We rode the waves
on boogie-boards and swam and fought the tides until we were exhausted.
When we came back to the condo in the evenings, we would play cards
while the kids fed the birds and read and eventually just crashed. I
remember waking early one morning while everyone was still asleep and
sitting on the back porch and thinking that, at that moment, there was
no one more blessed than me.
I have been married to my wonderful wife
for nearly 25 years. In fact, we are 6 weeks away from that incredible
milestone. My time with Sylvia has been one of my great life blessings.
Not only is she a wonderful person but she is the best mother I have
ever seen. I have never known anyone more dedicated to her children and
more committed to making sure her kids are grounded and loved and have a
strong love for the Lord. All of these traits endear her to me, and as
an incredible bonus, her parents are two of the people I love most in this world.
George and Wynell Bell are 81 and 78 respectively.
Now you may think that at that age they
might be a drag on a trip to the beach, especially considering Wynell is
only about 8 weeks removed from double knee replacement. George(better known as Papa)and Wynell(better known as Memie)not only are not a drag,but they are the life of the trip.
I can’t keep up with Papa, and Memie, replaced knees and all, doesn’t
stop smiling and serving until her grandkids are fast asleep and she can
lay her head on her pillow knowing they had and the great day.
Sylvia and I decided many years ago that
when we vacationed we would include Papa and Memie, because we want our
kids to have as many memories as possible with these two incredible
people. We want our kids to hear
the stories, see the commitment to family, understand the work ethic and
desire to improve that these two people have had their entire lives.
More importantly, we want our kids to see how two people can be
committed to each other and their Lord for all of these years… and
still walk on a beach holding hands. There is just too much wisdom and
example and fun and family-first to not have them with us.
Some of you may be reading this and thinking, “Well they sound like nice people, but why do I need to read about them?â€
George and Wynell are part of a generation that we need to keep fresh
in the hearts and minds of our kids. They are part of a generation who
knew struggle and knew sacrifice and was committed to giving of
themselves in order to make their family and their community better.
This generation volunteered when wars broke out. This generation worked
in the fields to produce a living and built the industrial foundation
that has led to the age of convenience and technology that we have
today. Most of all, this generation worked. They got their hands dirty. They considered work as an opportunity, not a bad word.
I want my son to hear stories about how
George rode a horse into town to get supplies for his mom. I want him to
hear how George slept on the front porch because the nighttime wind was
cooler than the house they lived in pre-air conditioning. I want my son
to hear about how George spent a chunk of his early adulthood in Korea
because that was what his country called upon him to do. I want my son to know and understand what incredible value George, and people of his generation, brought to us today.
I want my son to understand that when we go to his Papa’s house and his
Papa has the motor pulled out of the car, or he is up on the roof
repairing it, or he is building an addition to their home that it’s not
just an incredible feat for an 81 year old, but instead he is doing it
because it needs done. I want my son to understand the generations that
made this country great, because when things needed done they did it.
I want my daughters to hear how their
Memie worked at an early age in order to contribute to her family. I
want them to hear how she overcame some very difficult family issues and
decided that her family would be better. I want my daughters
to hear how their Memie gave up so much in order to support her husband
while he sacrificed for his country. I want them to hear how she worked
for many years because that was what her family needed. I
want them to see a 78 year old, weeks removed from a double knee
surgery, be the first one up from the table offering to serve others.
I am sharing all of this with you
because we are nearing a point where the people who plowed fields with a
horse and walked from school to the cotton fields and served their
country while their country was still being defined and lived under the
dogged determination of family first are quickly fading away. We are nearing a point of losing those generations who knew that survival meant work and work was an opportunity.
We are quickly losing our greatest of generations, and when they are
gone so will be the foundation that made this country the most
prosperous in the history of the world. And we desperately need to hear
their stories and understand their lives and emulate their commitment
and strive to be as centered on service and work and family and God as
they were.
Last week, my kids built sand castles
and saw the beauty of a beach sunset and witnessed the glory of an ocean
dawn. More importantly, they spent 6 days with their Memie and Papa and
built memories and learned lessons and heard stories and played games
with the people who have made today what it is. Look around you. Who are
these people in your life? Cherish
them, because when they are gone so too will be the generations that
worried more about us, their kids and grandkids, than they did for
themselves. Every day I thank God for George and Wynell
Bell, and every day I selfishly pray that they live long enough to forge
indelible and unforgettable memories of who they are in the minds of my
children. Because one day, I want my kids to tell their kids about two
amazing people who worked harder and yet smiled more than anyone else
they ever knew. Let’s cherish and lift up and learn from our greatest
generation, and just maybe we can recapture the values that made this
country the greatest the word has ever known.
The best kid in the world will do something at some time that they should not have done. Part
of being a kid is messing up, and part of being a parent and an
educator is using these “mess ups†as teaching and thereby learning
opportunities.
My oldest daughter,
Megan, is one of those kids who so seldom does something wrong that when
she does, on the rare occasion, I almost too shocked to react. For
example, she had been a camp counselor at her school’s basketball camp
this past week, and she worked long hours and came in tired each
evening. My youngest daughter, Abbie, is 8 years younger than Megan and
energy was not a problem for her last week. One evening Megan came home
and she was obviously tired; she had not even sat her purse down when
Abbie immediately started pounding her with questions and statements and
demands for her attention. Very uncharacteristically for Megan, she had a “mini-snap†and raised her voice to Abbie and said, “Can you at least let me sit down before you start on me?â€
This shocked Abbie, and I
think it also shocked Megan. Abbie went away on the verge of tears,
because her idol had just snapped at her and made her feel bad about
herself. Now don’t get me wrong, Megan was well within her rights of
wanting some unwind time, but it was so out of character for her that
her words cut through Abbie like a knife. I walked over to Megan and
gently reminded her that her sister is a little girl, she is the big
sister that is idolized, and her words hurt Abbie. I also reminded her that we don’t hurt each other in our family. Megan immediately went to Abbie, apologized, and then heard all about Abbie’s day.
Some of you reading this are probably saying, “Really? That’s your idea of a behavior problem?â€
The simple answer to
that is, NO. But for Megan, that is about as bad as it gets, and for
Megan a simple reminder is about all that is necessary as an
intervention. I can honestly say that I have never had to ground Megan
or take steps beyond reminding her of who she is. My son on the other
hand spends a good deal of his time reminiscing about the days of having
a phone or playing his video game, because he can’t help himself but
stay grounded.
When you talk about behaviors, the hardest thing to talk about and to realize is that every kid is unique and the behavioral needs of every kid is different.
This sound like common sense, but it is surprising how many teachers
and how many parents try to approach behaviors with a blanket for all of
their kids rather than something that works at the level each kid needs
individually.
I told you about my son.
He is a great kid. Hunter is the life of the party, and he will have
you smiling and laughing in no time. I have a blast with Hunter, but the
boy thoroughly confuses my wife. Even as a 14 year old, few things
provide more pleasure for Hunter than bodily functions. The prettiest
girl in school can be sitting next to the boy but if the urge hits, he
lets ‘er rip… This mortifies my wife. She doesn’t understand the boy and, for the most part, I am on standing orders to take him out at any given time.
I just stand by prepared to get into trouble as well, because usually
when Hunter does something stupid I end up laughing and getting in as
much trouble as him.
There is no way you
could have the same approach to behaviors for Megan, Hunter, and Abbie.
They are too different. Besides their differences, they also have
significant age differences. Megan is 17, Hunter just turned 14, and
Abbie is 9.
So
how does a parent, or even a teacher, fairly apply behavior rules and
change when dealing with different personalities and different life
stages?
Let’s start with a couple of easy concepts.
First,
realize that all kids are different, and some will require more
attention and more work than others. Parents really struggle with this
because they want to “treat all my kids the same because I love them all
equallyâ€. Sorry, but that just won’t cut it. Loving
them equally is great, but treating them all the same is tantamount to
throwing mud against the wall and hoping some of it sticks.
Kids are different and their needs are different. Treating them all the
same means that none of them ae getting what they need.
The second
concept to understand is that even though kids need to be treated
differently based on their personalities and needs, there is a common
baseline from which you can work. That baseline, or foundation, is that even though each individual child has individual needs – the rules can still be consistent.
There are certain fundamental rules that should apply to every child
and should be non-negotiable, and will require punishment if they are
broken. These rules should be well known and well applied for each and
every kid.
Some are obvious – lying is wrong for everyone at all times.
Some are personal – in this family, all beds will be made every day.
Some are not so obvious but well known in my particular classroom or home – not saying “please†and “thank you†will land anyone in trouble.
Here’s the tricky part: you need to understand that there is a difference between the rules and actual behavior change.
Having rules is not the same thing as having discipline.
Having rules is the
foundation from which you can build your discipline which will include
not only the consequences but the rewards, the communication, and the
enforcement.
Rules are the equalizer amongst kids. Rules are the foundation from which to understand where each individual kid’s needs lie.
Rules can be the constant that allows you to individualize without
creating favoritism. But this means that rules need to be known, they
need to be consistent, and they need to be applied. Certain rules can
even have very specific consequences that will be applied to everyone
consistently. For example, not making your bed will result in having to
make everyone’s bed the next day. This sort of rule with a “blanketâ€
consequence works, because it is based on a task. Tasks are easily
monitored for completion, and therefore non-compliance has an equally
distributed consequence. Tasks don’t have to take personalities into
account but rather are duties that, when performed, do not equal
rewards– but when not performed equal a consequence.
Where it gets trickier
is when the base, or foundation, of rules becomes applied unequally.
Sometimes this is done out of favoritism… sometimes out of exhaustion.
When rules are applied unequally and unintentionally, the enforcement
of all rules is compromised. The application of rules and the application of discipline needs to be planned and consistent.
However, there does come
a time and place when rules are not applied equally amongst all kids.
For example, my 17 year old is allowed to watch shows my 14 year old is
not allowed to watch, and my 14 year old is allowed to stay up later
than my 9 year old. My kids have
rules that apply to everyone at the same levels with the same
consequence. But they also each have rules specific to them because of
who they are, their ages and personalities.
Several years ago we had a rule that my son was not allowed to bark at
wait-staff in a restaurant. We never needed that rule with my daughter.
My youngest has to go to bed at 9:30 on school nights and my oldest
stays up until 11:00. My youngest might think it is not fair, and too
bad if she does. That is the rule, and it is applied consistently and it
is known. Being a good parent or being a good teacher is not about
winning a popularity contest; instead it is about being prepared and
being fair, having a plan that guides your children and your students to
being better people.
Kids mess up. They are
supposed to mess up. The job of a parent is not to clean up the mess but
to instead hold their child accountable for the mess, have them clean
it up, and then use the mess to teach them so that they don’t do it
again. Teachers are in the same boat, only you get to do it with 25 kids
at once. Rules can be your best friend and your students’ guide to success. Consistency is the affirmation those rules need to make them work.
Jolie wants to dress
like Kyla and Erin, but her folks just don’t have the money to spend on
fancy designer clothes. Even if they did, Jolie is pretty sure her folks
wouldn’t spend a hundred bucks on a pair of jeans, just out of
principle. So Jolie wears her non-designer jeans and her no name-brand
shirts and her anonymous shoes, and she knows that everyone stares at
her and talks about her and looks down on her because she doesn’t have
the fancy clothes. She also doesn’t have the fancy backpack and binder
and the cool mechanical pencils with the cushioned grip. Her pencils
have to be sharpened in the old crank sharpener on the wall, and she is
pretty sure she is the last person in the school still sharpening her
pencils. In fact, Jolie is pretty sure she is the only person in the school who is “doing without†while all the other kids have so much.
Sure, she wishes she had
those fancy things, but what really makes her mad is that Kyla and Erin
don’t even act like they care about their fancy clothes or their fancy
backpacks or their fancy school supplies. Every time Kyla throws her
backpack to the ground, Jolie wants to take it away from her just
because she would never throw a $75 backpack on the ground.
Every time Erin gripes about not getting her way, Jolie wants to scream
at her because Jolie is sure she would never gripe if she had on $300
worth of clothes and was wearing fancy makeup. Jolie is
pretty sure that Kyla and Erin have everything in the world going for
them, and she has nothing. What is really keeping Jolie on the edge of
boiling over is that they don’t act like the appreciate what they have.
Lunch time is hard for
Jolie. She eats in the cafeteria and has her card punched for her meal.
Kyla and Erin almost always have a homemade meal, and when they don’t
bring a meal they have plenty of money to spend at the snack bar line. Jolie can just hear the lecture in her head if she were to ask her folks for $7 for a snack bar hamburger and soda.
Jolie sits down with her meal and sure enough, here come Kyla and Erin.
They sit down right beside Jolie and start talking. Jolie can feel her
eyes rolling as they walk towards her. She just can’t understand why
they are so nonchalant about all that they have. Jolie just seethes as
she watches them unpacking their fancy lunches, and she can’t even fake a
smile when they start trying to include her in the conversation. “What a couple of fakes,†Jolie thinks to herself.
∞ ∞ ∞
Jealousy is one of the purest and most prevalent forms
of preteen and teenage emotions.
Because our kids spend
much of their time in a highly socialized environment, they are
constantly comparing themselves to the other kids. They are constantly
looking and watching and listening to see who has the latest and
greatest and who doesn’t. And when they are in the “have-not†crowd, it is very easy for jealousy to become a problem.
The funny thing about jealousy is that it is a one-way emotion.
There are times when one kid will be trying to stoke the flames of jealousy, but more often than not it exists in silence – only in the heart and mind of those who are jealous.
This can make jealousy an even more dangerous emotion than others,
because it means it will often have to fester for some time until the
person who is jealous either gets over it or blows up. Jealousy is also the type of emotion that is a starter for other negative emotions.
Anger, self-loathing, depression, and meanness can all stem from
jealousy. And the hardest part about all of this is that jealousy is
based on perception. It is based on perceived sleights and perceived and
transference intent.
∞ ∞ ∞
Kyla is a little take
aback by Jolie’s grouch tone. All she said was, “Hey, Jolie. What’s
going on?†What she got in reply was a rude, “I’m just eating my crummy
cafeteria lunch, unlike you.â€
Kyla doesn’t know why
Jolie is so angry. She doesn’t know why she is being rude. In fact, she
feels a little hurt by Jolie being so rude when all she was trying to do
was be nice. Erin on the other hand isn’t as timid as Kyla, and when
she hears Jolie’s rude response she jumps back at Jolie saying, “What’s your problem? Mad at the world again today?â€
Now Jolie is taken by surprise. Why would they think she is mad at the world? Why would Erin say something so mean?
Now all three girls are in a bad mood. Kyla has her feelings hurt, Erin
is mad, Jolie is still jealous but she is also feeling like she put her
foot in her mouth and is also embarrassed. All because Jolie was
jealous of the other girls and she let her jealousy override her common
sense and she said something dumb.
Jealousy has a great way making you feel sorry for yourself
and then saying or doing something dumb because of it.
∞ ∞ ∞
It is hard being a kid. There is always a smarter, better looking, more athletic, more popular, wealthier, better complexion, better hair color, better talker, better listener, better walker, better
dressed kid. In fact, one kid can be the absolute genius of the class
and she will wish she was the cheerleader. The cheerleader will wish she
was smarter. The singer wished he had computer skills and the jock
wishes he understood what the teacher was saying. Every kid
looks at all of these other kids and is running a constant self
comparison and then focusing primarily on the areas where they think
they do not measure up.
So what can a teacher or parent do?
Jealousy is going to
occur and comparisons with other kids will occur. But a great way of
keeping jealousy from spreading and to contain it with perspective is to
remember to build up each kid individually and point out that every
single kid has something they do better or have better or say better or
sing better than any other kid. You
have to be able to prop up the confidence of a preteen or teen based on
their positives and help them see that they have both intrinsic and
extrinsic value. Then you have to carefully build this value and brag about this value.
Finally, as you are building up your kid or your students take great caution that you never tear down another in order to build up yours.
Never use the flaw of another child to make yours feel better about
themselves. All this does is convert jealousy to contempt and take a
one-way emotion and offer it a platform to reach out in a hurtful way to
another child.
Every day our kids will
hear, from others and themselves, that they do not measure up. They just
aren’t as good or have as much as others. Counter
that with a constant flow of praise for that child while at the same
time recognizing the gift of others and the wonderful nature of
individuality.
Jealousy is real.
Perspective and confidence are the best remedies for keeping it in check.
