Category: Health

There are times when I’m sitting with other moms and we’re talking about one of the standard subjects: If there’s a mom with a baby, we’re talking about nursing or sleeping. If there’s a mom with a toddler, we’re talking about a house full of mayhem. Any kid-related topic that comes up gets us talking about that subject, even if we’re long past it in our child-rearing lives.

Those times are wonderful and create such a great bonding experience, especially between moms. But then, occasionally, it occurs to me that we could actually be talking about something else. The thing is, we may know very little about the other parents amongst us outside of their child-rearing lives. Do we know what she thought she’d be doing as an adult when she was a teen? Do we know the bawdiest story she has from her days working as a barrista? Do we know about her former passion for roller derby? Do we have any idea what she used to talk about before she had kids?

That’s why I’m a big advocate of moms getting out of their mom circle and into the wider world. Even if the subject matter still involves kids, being with other adults passionate about the same thing feeds our inner lives and makes us much better parents.

This weekend I went to a children’s writing conference in Big Sur. Now, this may not sound so far from hanging out with a group of moms, and in some ways, it wasn’t. Though the majority of participants were female, and the majority of those were moms (and grandmas), we spent very little time exchanging information about our kids. Number and gender were the most common pieces of information, and possibly an anecdote or two would follow. But for the most part, we talked about our own passion for stories.

Many of the participants were probably like me: I’ve always loved children’s stories, but it was only as a mom that I started getting interested in writing them. But a fair amount of the participants were not yet parents, or were parents whose interest in children’s writing pre-dated parenthood. In any case, it was a weekend of intense talking about something that only tangentially related to our mom-lives, and the combined creative energy was invigorating.

For a few days, I handed my mom life off to my dad (since my mom was off being a mom to one of my siblings) and then my husband. As soon as I stepped out the door alone, I had that liberating feeling of being responsible for my self only. It’s not that I dislike being responsible for my kids, but when I step out of that life I feel like I’m a professional jockey on a horse bareback or a ballerina who kicks off her toe shoes and goes for pure personal expression. Just like the rider and the ballerina, I’m going to come back to my real life. But striking out on my own for a few days reminds me who I am, separate from my kids.

No matter what your interest, I recommend that you make a commitment to get out and do it occasionally without your kids. When you come home, I promise that you’ll be that much better of a parent, and that much happier of a person.

I know that this is an experience common to many parents, though we parents of “quirky” kids experience it more often.

I was sitting and watching my daughter’s soccer game with dismay. This is a girl who has great skills in practice, who simply falls apart on the field. Or rather, she becomes hypnotized. That day, she had pulled up a handful of grass and was fingering it, watching it fall from her hands, as the ball and 7 charging girls whizzed by her. She didn’t even notice.

This is the same girl who can get in the 99th percentile on a math test, but can’t sit through a math class. It’s so frustrating to see unfulfilled potential. Even more frustrating to know that there’s no worn path I can follow to help her approach her potential.

As I sat watching the game, a man came by handing out flyers. It was Bill Trimpi, who runs Santa Cruz Soccer Camp, an amazing program we stumbled upon some years ago. Bill and I did a double-take and then I explained what I was doing there. My daughter was sitting out for the moment so he couldn’t see her playing, but I explained my misery.

“But Suki,” Bill said in his patient way, “You have to remember that it’s such an achievement that she’s out there at all.”

He’s right, of course. The first time I spoke to him, I was sure that she wasn’t going to be able to handle camp. She was six years old and all fired up to play soccer, but I didn’t think she’d be able to follow their schedule, get along with the other kids, and be willing to work on the skills they were teaching.

In time, she has learned to do all of those things. Last summer she did three weeks of camp, and though she had her up and down days, she really did it. She was there and she was present in mind and body.

Talking to Bill got me focused on the goal: To get her to come out of herself and at least try to take part in things that I know she very much wants to take part in. So after the game, I pointed out to her that she’d spent much of her time on the field studying grass rather than watching the ball. We talked about how it was disrespectful of her teammates to do that, and that if she wanted to be on a team, she needed to support the team. This all made sense to her. So I issued a challenge: I said it is not important how well she plays soccer, but it is important that she enjoy it and that she be there to support her team. She had been wanting to go back to the science store to buy a little robot she’d fallen in love with, so I told her that if she stayed present in her next game, she’d get to do that.

Now really, this wasn’t such a grand motivation—she would have gotten to do that anyway, and she wanted to use her own money. But by tying soccer to something she’d been obsessing about, I got her attention, which was what she needed. At the next game, she succeeded in staying present in the first half, but did lots of grass contemplation in the second half. To her dismay and anger, I said it wasn’t time to visit the science store. All I asked, I reminded her, was that when she was out on the field she stay present in the game and support her teammates.

At the next game, I made sure to remind her before the game and at halftime. And she was on. She had a specific goal and she knew how to get there. Now, she in no way got anywhere near her potential on the field. She still was largely passive and watched her teaammates play, sometimes jumping out of the way rather than going for the ball when it was coming towards her. But she did something important, and she knew it. When one of her teammates got a goal, I watched as the other girls piled on and hugged her. My daughter kept her distance, but then in a pause a few minutes later in the game, she gave her a high-five. She was present, and that was the prize.

Yes, she got her little robot. And it will amuse her for a while. But she also got the feeling of actually being in a game, which was much more important.

I’ve come to the conclusion that good parenting without others to support us is probably nearly impossible, at least for us mere mortal moms. And when our kids throw us special challenges, as they all do at some point, we need others even more. My daughter’s coach has been outstanding in welcoming her to the team; her teammates, who must find her baffling, have been kind; I hear other parents cheering her on. On top of that, there’s Bill to happen by and reset my expectations. All of this is part of how we support each other in the hardest, most important job we’ve got.

In general, I’m a proponent of “moderation in everything.” I believe, as my parents did, that allowing not necessarily healthy but pleasurable activities, as long as they’re balanced with healthy ones, is a good thing. In raising kids, this translates to a household where:

• We eat sugar, but not as a replacement for healthy calories
• We let kids play and explore the world, even when it replaces academic pursuits
• We watch movies, but as a treat instead of a way of life.

The place where I’ve had trouble with this approach in my parenting is with activities that are completely a waste of my kids’ time, and which have addicting qualities. So we simply have never turned on commercial TV, and I don’t think that’s hurt our lives at all. And my kids don’t drink soda at all, except for the very occasional (real) ginger ale (with no high fructose corn syrup). Again, I think my kids have missed nothing by missing out on Coca-Cola.

We’ve also avoided video games almost entirely. When they were small, I didn’t think they needed to be staring at a screen when they could be interacting with the real world. Now that they’re getting older, I don’t like the violence and sexism of games, and research is showing more and more that the addictive quality of games is something we should be paying attention to. Since my husband and I aren’t gamers, it wasn’t hard to keep them out of our house.

Then the Minecraft party happened. A friend’s son wanted a treasure hunt for his birthday, but  a huge rainstorm was expected that day. So his dad programmed a treasure hunt in the interactive game Minecraft, and my son got his first taste of online video game playing.

Minecraft is a world made up of blocks. Each player is a character in the world, which can be run locally or on a server so others can join in remotely. Players can choose to play in a world that has dangers, such as evil beings called Creepers, or they can play in “peaceful mode,” where there is no random violence. (I’m pleased to note that “peaceful” is my kids’ default choice.) The main pursuit in Minecraft is crafting—building things. The kids build castles, lakes, houses, shops…. whatever occurs to them. They can also destroy things (which my daughter and a friend are doing right now as I type, with virtual TNT!). But mostly, the game (as my kids play it) emphasizes creativity.

We’ve had some really positive changes in our household that come directly from Minecraft. First of all, social changes. Our son had a rough first year of homeschooling. He’s slow to warm up to other kids, and since he wasn’t seeing other students all day, every day, he hadn’t really warmed up to any of the kids we were meeting. Minecraft allowed him to connect with some other kids, and all of a sudden he relaxed around them.

Our daughter has problems with social situations and understanding interactions with other kids. Once she started on Minecraft, she found a world where she could make mistakes and learn from them in a much more forgiving environment. She and her brother, who had been warring for years, suddenly had an interest in common. One day as we were walking behind our kids, who were intent on a Minecraft conversation, my husband and I remarked to each other, “They’re actually talking to each other!” This was news.

Another great thing that has happened is the creativity. My daughter is endlessly creative in the real world, producing piles of pictures, signs, inventions, and machines that I have to sift through before we get buried in them. Similarly, she loves the creative aspect of Minecraft. She and her brother talk endlessly about new things they are creating, and all the different qualities these things will have.

My son has taken it to a different level. One day he announced to me, “I decompiled Minecraft so I could play with the code.” He’s been taking an online Java programming class through Cabrillo College, and he decided that programming in Minecraft was how he was going to learn. Looking at other people’s code and altering it is, I know from experience, a great way to learn. When I started learning web design in the 90s, there was one book about web design. (That is: 1) The way I learned how to write HTML was by looking at other people’s code and altering it for my own use. My son is now doing that in a world full of textbooks… and learning a lot more.

So far, my son has created a “mod” (modification) that allows people to float if they can catch a chicken and place it on their head. Also, he and a friend are now collaborating on whole new aspects to their world, creating things that don’t exist in this world and giving them specific properties. Yes, the online Java class is fine. But no, it’s not inspiring him. Minecraft is inspiring him.

I haven’t gone all the way over to the other side. I don’t kid myself that most games inspire creativity and improved social skills. Most games — like most entertainment — are aimed at the lowest common denominator. They exist to sell, not to inspire.

Also, I have noticed that the addictive quality of games is very real, and very hard to combat. My son, the more compliant of my two children, will play at any chance he gets, and grumbles when I force him off. My daughter, who displays a greater tendency toward addictive behaviors, has been much more difficult to work with. She has a terrible time regulating herself. When I give her a five-minute warning, the words just fizzle away in her brain. When I give her a one-minute warning, she becomes frantic, working harder and harder to achieve goals that she’ll never reach. More often than not, in the beginning, I had to remove her hands from the keyboard and close the computer. If I had to do that, she would lose privileges for a few days. Lately, she’s regulating better because I imposed consequences outside of herself. I’d like to think that this is teaching her to be able to regulate her own behavior, though I can’t say that for sure. Most former addicts I know of have had to force themselves never to imbibe their addictive substance again. When their brains are receiving those endorphins and screaming for more, no amount of internal pressure can overcome it. In the end, it seems, addicts need to acknowledge their inability to partake in the addictive substance and move on. Perhaps this will be my daughter’s experience — there’s no way to know at this point.

But I do acknowledge that, once again, moderation has been the key. My kids are not going to start playing violent video games under my roof, no matter how creative anyone tells me they are. We still have our boundaries, and we’re sticking to them. But in smaller amounts, video gaming has brought some positive changes into our lives. Just like fine chocolate, real ginger ale, and an occasional great movie, a moderate amount of gaming suits us just fine.