I'm not going to do it anymore.

I fought with my son today. 

About sweatpants.

Let me explain:

Because he hadn't been potty trained a year yet, and because he has trouble with jeans flys (and because I don't like the look of elastic-band jeans), I took to dressing The Boy in fleece sweatpants this past fall. But I've gotten a little tired of the sweatpants. And I think his dad has as well.  And they're not exactly a polished look....  Still, he does look cute in them, because he looks cute in everything.

So I decided to try to transition us out of sweatpants.  Accordingly, when I bought some new size 4T pants for the guy recently, I did get a couple of pairs of sweatpants, but I also got these cute elastic-band gray cammo cargo pants.  They even have lots of cool pockets for carrying rocks and acorns and hotwheels and sticks!  With these awesome pants, I would move The Boy into normal pants and away from the sweatpants. 

These were the pants that I wanted him to wear today.  The cute elastic-band gray cammo cargo pants. 

He demurred.

Actually, he flatly refused; I got irritated; he said he didn't like them; I asked him why; he said that they were too big; I said, "You can't know that; you've never put them on;" and just like that, I was trying to force the pants onto his little body while he said, "Stop it, stop it, stop it!"

That's when my husband said, "We don't have to do this today," and he went to the closet to retrieve some sweatpants.

And he's right. We didn't have to do that today. Who, other than me, cares if he wears sweatpants today?  Completely irrational behavior on the part of the mommy....  Basically, I didn't get my way.

For better than 15 years, I've given the following advice to people in various circumstances at various moments in time:  If what you are worrying about or upset about will matter in 5 years, then it's probably worth your worry today. If it won't matter in 5 years, you should let it go right now. 

Whether The Boy wore sweatpants or cargo pants today will not matter in 2020. We wouldn't even remember what he wore today at all, five years hence, but for that pointless fight that was entirely my fault and this blog post. 

And The Boy looks adorable today in his black sweatpants and green Lego men shirt (which is, in fact, the item of clothing I laid out that is actually too big). 

So I'm not going to do it anymore. I'm going to take my own advice. If it won't matter five years from now, I'm not going to have a battle with my son about it.

Before I went to work, I apologized to him for the fight. He seemed unphased, but who knows. I hope the memory of battling his mom over cargo v. sweatpants will not linger for him (like it will surely linger for me), will not be one of those childhood memories he carries forever. But from now on, I vow, I resolve, not to sweat the small stuff. Life's too short to fight your kid over, e.g., sweatpants. 

Bye-bye, Time Out

With this post, I am not about to tell you that you're doing it wrong.

I'm not going to tell you that your method for disciplining your child is inferior to mine. 

I'm not going to suggest that you change what's working for your family. 

I'm just going to tell you about something we've done recently in response to an ever growing problem of finding an effective means of discipline and instruction for our child. 

Time outs don't work for The Boy. They do not teach him anything but to get angry with his parents. His immediate thought when placed in time out is not "what did I do wrong?" or "how can I avoid getting a time out next time?," but "How do I get out of here?" and "I'm really pissed off and I don't know why."  This is despite the fact that we tell him why he's being put in time out.  The problem is that he's so upset and in such a heightened emotional state, he can't understand us.  He hears us, but the intelligent, comprehending part of his brain is not the part that is engaged when he gets a time out.

So it doesn't work.

There is a lot of screaming. A lot of crying. A lot of pleading and begging. A lot of drama.

A LOT. 

There is no evidence of changed behavior after time outs. No, day in and day out, it is nothing but more of the same behavior with the same ineffective means of "discipline," the time out. 

Like I said, time outs don't work for our kid.

And they don't work for my husband and me either...besides the obvious that they have proved to be an ineffective means of behavior correction for The Boy, they increase our anxiety because his anxiety is increased.  He gets upset. We get upset. No real communication occurs in the time out process. Only punishment.  For the whole family.

So we needed a different way.

Enter No-Drama Discipline by by Daniel J. Seigel, M.D., and Tina Payne Bryson, Ph.D.  Seigel is a child psychiatrist.  Bryson is a pediatric therapist/social worker.

In the book, they teach that discipline is not about punishment, but instruction. You teach when you discipline. And when an individual, parent or child, is in a heightened state agitation, no teaching or learning can take place. No discipline occurs.

I'm not going to describe, chapter and verse, what we've done differently. But we don't generally do time outs anymore.  The few times I've resorted to one after reading No Drama Discipline, I've regretted it. It's been just as ineffective as they always were before.  The urge is always there, to just toss him into time out, but I have to remind myself that I need to do what works, not what is easier for me to do in the moment. 

The point of no drama discipline is to connect emotionally and intellectually with the child so that you can calmly give instruction and the child can calmly receive it. If it sounds like more work than a time out, it is. It's a lot more work.  But who said parenting was easy?  And, frankly, I'm happy to put in the extra work to effectively discipline The Boy rather than to continue with the ineffective time outs. 

So instead of time out, we do what my husband has taken to describing as "an aggressive hug."  We sit down with The Boy, and we hold him until he calms down. Sometimes, this involves saying, "I know, I know. I know you want to watch Ninjago right now, I know," (or whatever the issue is). The point is to chill the kid (and yourself) out so that you can proceed with effective instruction.

So when he's calmed down, we redirect his energies and focus onto good behaviors and better choices.  We talk about what happened. We ask him what a better choice would have been. Sometimes, if appropriate and possible, we give him a do-over to make the better decision.  This doesn't mean that he ultimately gets his way all the time. He's still often disappointed. But it does mean that we have engaged him intellectually and emotionally to refocus his brain on appropriate behaviors, responses and problem-solving, rather than heightening in his base, negative emotions that lead to further bad behavior.

Is he a perfect angel?  No.  He's a little boy who is still learning. But his behavior is better, so much better, than it was before we started implementing the No Drama Discipline techniques.  Even his teachers sent a note home last week noting his improved behavior and problem solving skills.  We're seeing real change in his behavior because we changed our response to it.

No drama discipline has worked to bring more calm to our house, and has reduced the number of tamtrums and outburst from The Boy.  He's learning how to use his intellect, rather than his reptilian emotions, to navigate the world.

Does this mean that he won't occasionally burst into singing the Chuck the Truck theme song at volume in the middle of a restaurant? Or throw a tantrum?  Or make pouty demands?  No, because he's three.  He's still learning correct behaviors. But it does mean that our approach to handling that situation will now be more effective at changing the negative behavior.  We're optimistic that more good things are to come.

The Breakfast Club

That's right. The movie. 

My husband and I were talking recently (well, a couple of months ago -- I'm just getting around to writing this now) about movie nostalgia, both the nostalgia for movies from a bygone time, and movies that are, themselves, nostalgic for a bygone era (like American Graffiti, for instance, a 1970s movie about the 1950s).

Anyway, naturally, The Breakfast Club came up. 

Because that's THE film for every 80s teen, right?

Before I go on, let's stipulate that it's not a cinematic masterpiece. It's not beautiful. And it's got no groundbreaking cinematography. The actors are good young actors, but no Oscars were handed out here. 

Still, it spoke to us. The "types" depicted by Claire, Brian, Allison, Andrew and John -- the five kids in detention -- were meant to be "us."  We were meant to pick one and identify with him/her. And then, in the end, we were supposed to come together and know that we are all the same because we all have problems and being a teenager is hard. (And we DO, and it IS.)

Laaaa lalalalaaaa lalalalaaaa lala la lala lala lalalaa

When I first saw the movie, I was in a quandary. I wanted to identify with Claire. But I wasn't prom queen material, really.  (At least, I didn't think that I was....)  Truthfully, I should have identified with Brian, but I didn't want to acknowledge the ugly hubris that comes with being a smart kid who knows it. And, ironically, my incredible insecurity (also natural to a lot of smart kids, and teens in general) made acknowledging that insecurity by identifying with Brian impossible. I obviously wasn't a jock or stoner, so Andrew and John Bender were out. So I was left settling for Allison. The Freak. But that was wholly unsatisfying because...well, that scene where she makes it snow on her drawing with her dandruff is gross.  And that wasn't me.  I'd never do that.  I wasn't a freak. I was a Princess Geek. 

So maybe John Hughs was right and we are all a little bit of each character.

 

I mean, frankly, lately, I've been feeling a little bit like Mr. Vernon, the principal, trapped in his often unsatisfying, stultifying, grown-up existence. Even sometimes I feel like Carl, the Janitor, who dreamt of being John Lennon, but ended up the school janitor.

 

The movie isn't about several different "types," after all.  It's about one type, one universal human theme:  the desire to break out of whatever existence you've got and feel free, and the related understanding that no matter what existence we may have we all, sometimes, feel a little trapped by it, a little too defined by it.

The movie is, as it turns out, about potential. The five kids are full of it. The two main adult characters (and even the parents), demonstrate what happens to that potential when it hits the air outside of high school. So hope, that's what resonated with us when we watched it almost 30 years ago. Hope that we, the teenagers, would do better than the adults around us did. And, as adults, some of us still are able to dream those dreams, and hope those hopes...even if we've wound up being a little bit like Carl or Mr. Vernon. 

 

Richard Vernon:  What did you wanna be when you were young?

Carl:  When I was a kid, I wanted to be John Lennon.

Richard Vernon:  Carl, don't be a goof. I'm making a serious point here.

Please abolish these words and phrases.

I'm cranky.  Here, then, I shall crank about languages for a few lines.

1.  "Disruptive/disruption," as in, cutting edge businesses and people are "disruptive."  Being disruptive is supposed to be good but, just like Steve Jobs -- the ur-disruptor -- it can also be kind of annoying, kind of self-important, kind of only-eats-fruit-and-wears-black-turtlenecks.  It's not necessarily all shiny goodness to be disruptive. Moreover, everything "new" is not disruptive.  Some things are merely innovative, which is still cool, right?  We are not all the contingent from Alderaan challenging the Empire every time we have a new idea.

2.  "Eating clean." -- You are not "eating clean."  You are eating healthy food, as defined by someone who may or may not be you. Frankly, I have seen "eating clean" described variously as food that excludes carb and/or fat and/or refined sugar and/or processed foods and/or organic foods.  So ubiquitous is the phrase, therefore, that it has lost whatever sliver of meaning it may have once had.  In other words, the judgy phrase "eating clean," communicates nothing but that you think what's on your plate is better for you than what you used to eat (and perhaps what others around you are presently eating).  "Eating clean" is just another way of saying "I'm on a diet." Just say you're skipping the pasta and dessert, or whatever it is you're doing, else soap be served next dinner. 

3.  "Just sayin'...." -- Yo, just say it, man. No need for that little verbal underline to signal that you think that you're being pithy or snarky or cute or whatever. If you actually were pithy or snarky or cute, we'll know without you "just sayin'" so. 

4.  "Helicopter parent" -- I am not an overprotective parent because I stand close to the monkey bars in case my three year old decides to launch from the height of six feet in the air. I am a parent who would prefer her child not get a concussion. I promise I won't do his homework for him when he's 11.

5.  "Life Hack" -- I get it: tips and tricks to make life easier, but when I hear you say "life hack," I think "life hairball."  Foul phrase....

6.  "The War on ... " --  There is no war on Christmas, Women, Men, Cantaloupes or Persimmons. There IS a war in Syria. And it's scary.  Approaching 200,000 people have died in it, many of them noncombatants, many of them children.  Stop calling your personal offenses "wars" against your favorite things.

7.  "With all due respect...." -- That really just means "F-you," right?

8.  "YOLO" -- Carpe diem. Seize the Latin.

9.  Similarly, "boho."  Just say bohemian.

Aaaaaand....  Well, I'd written the number 10 there thinking I'd surely have an even 10 linguistic crimes to crank about, but there's honestly not a 10th one I wish to abolish. So there. Be gone, Words of Irritance to The Working Mom!

(P.S.  Irritance is not in Merriam-Webster online.  I checked, to see if I'd spelled it correctly.  And www.m-w.com replied, "The word you've entered isn't in the dictionary. Click on a spelling suggestion below or try again using the search bar above."  And then it gave me a list of words that I don't want.  These are not words of "radiance," for instance.  So, not a real word?  Hmm.  And yet, it's not on my list of irritating words and phrases and I persist in using it, even though the use of a non-word should by all accounts be pretty annoying.  The Working Mom is a fickle creature.)

A November Sunday In Pictures

Get Out of the Office and Into the Kitchen

There's a study out that the suggests that the home cooked family dinner, idealized by the likes of Michael Pollan, Ann Romney, Michelle Obama, and June Cleaver alike, might not be all it's cracked up to be if you're the mom doing the cooking.

From the abstract:

Sociologists Sarah Bowen, Sinikka Elliott, and Joslyn Brenton offer a critique of the increasingly prevalent message that reforming the food system necessarily entails a return to the kitchen. They argue that time pressures, tradeoffs to save money, and the burden of pleasing others make it difficult for mothers to enact the idealized vision of home-cooked meals advocated by foodies and public health officials.

To a certain extent, I reject the study authors' suggestion that a reform of the food system does not entail a return to the kitchen.  Mass produced, restaurant food is, by and large, not that great for you.  You're better off making it yourself.

But I take their point:  the burden, disproportionately placed on women, often outweighs the benefit.  There are many problems:  picky eaters (including the adult men in their lives!), time, physical exhaustion, food prices.

I am lucky enough to be well-off enough that, though they are concerning, high food prices are not an obstacle to me cooking a meal.  But I feel the pressure of the foodie culture too.  I want to have a delicious, nutritious, sit down, home cooked meal every night with my family.  I think it's better.  It's the one time in the day when we're all together.  We can talk about our day and share, you know, good old fashioned family time.

Although, if I'm honest, the everyone 'round the table, every day meal from my childhood that I remember the most isn't dinner.  It's breakfast and that bowl of oatmeal and glass of orange juice and Flintstone's vitamin next to my spoon.  My mom may have had dinner on the table every night, but it's the mornings I remember.

And that's Point Number One that I'd like to make:  It doesn't have to be dinner.  If breakfast works better for you, why not bowls of cereal and a little morning conversation?  But if breakfast and dinner aren't feasible, well, maybe a snack.  Or maybe your family just doesn't share a meal together.  But the family meal to me is more about the family and less about the meal.  Finding a time to be together as a family without the TV blaring for about 30 minutes a day is really important.  No family time, no family connections, no family.

And so that's my Point Number Two:  If you only have thirty minutes free in which you can either cook a meal or spend time with your family, I vote you throw a frozen lasagna in the oven, open up a bag salad, and spend those thirty minutes hanging with your family.  Yes, good nutrition is important.  But careful label reading can steer you towards healthier pre-packaged options.  If feeding your family something quick gives you more time to have a conversation with them, do that.  (And, by the way, The Working Dad pitches in and cooks too, and his fajitas rock.)

Which brings me to my Point Number Three:  Holy smokes, give yourself a break and take some short cuts.  Some people make a lot of crockpot meals.  That's never really worked for us, but if it works for you, do it.  And I hereby give you permission to buy prepackaged stuff.  Just read the labels, friends.  Mrs. Dash even has sodium free marinades, for instance, that are pretty good.  And it's okay to make Kraft Macaroni & Cheese every once in a while.  It won't kill your kids, just like it didn't kill us.  Use canned food.  Use frozen vegetables.  It's okay.  (Obviously, if you've got food allergies, lots of the prepackaged things are irrelevant to you, or even dangerous. But not all of them. If this is you, though, you're probably already a good label reader, so keep doing what you're doing.)

As much as I love Martha Stewart, I understand that Martha has a whole staff backing her up and bringing her her farm fresh eggs and "best" vanilla.  When it's just me in there, I'm okay tossing a bag of frozen, tail off gulf shrimp into my quick creole that I will serve over Uncle Ben's boil-in-bag rice.  Go ahead and order in or carry it out every once in a while.  You've worked all day.  Sometimes, there's not the energy, even if there is the time.

So to my Point Number Four:  Dads, if you aren't helping out in the kitchen, you need to start, particularly if your wife is a working mom.  That you do not know how to cook or that your wife is a better cook is not an excuse.  She works hard at her job just like you do.  She's tired when she gets home from the office too.  Give her a break:  learn a couple of tasty meals that you can reliably cook once or twice a week.  (What?  You can't grill burgers or chicken breasts and toss some frozen veggies into the microwave?  What kind of man are you, anyway?  Just kidding . . . a little.)  She will appreciate the effort you make, and the opportunity to play with the kids while you cook, for a change.  Trust me.  I relish every bite of The Working Man's excellent fajitas every time he makes them.  (And the great thing about his fajitas:  I can't replicate them.  I can make my own version, but not his.  His are far superior.)

So, I may not have all the working parents' culinary solutions. But I've got a few. If you take nothing else from my little tirade tonight, take three things:  relax, help each other out and spend time with your family. Somewhere in there, you should eat too, but don't let Michael Pollan make you feel badly about your canned green beans. You're doing okay. 

Procrastination Tips From A Professional

Have a big project?  Are you working under a deadline?  Clearly, you need to procrastinate. Here, I present to you in real time (sort of) procrastination tips from a master:

1. Organize the papers you're going to be reading today for your project. Organized papers are much easier to read. 

2.  Aren't your nails a little too long?  You should trim them now.

3.  And file them.

4.  Arrange the first paper you need to read in the manner in which you plan to read and take notes on it. Something like this:

5.  Good. You need coffee. 

6.  For Heaven's sake, check your email. This is a law office!  (Or wherever you work....)

7. Obviously, you need to respond to at least one of these emails, probably lots of them. 

8.  Oh, look!, an interesting news article related to your field of employ (or not). You should email your two good work buddies about that article. It's important to be engaged in the discourse of the profession. 

9.  Once you have read about half of that first paper you arranged earlier, you should probably start a blog post, if you haven't done so already. 

10.  And it's probably time for a potty break too.  (You should get more coffee on your way back.)

11.  Are you a trial lawyer?  Have you checked the docket today to make sure you haven't accidentally forgotten about a hearing you need to handle?  Don't you think you'd better had?

(Approximately one and a half hours of productive reading and thinking later.....)

12.  Hey, lunch!

13.  Back at the desk after a refreshing lunch break, it's time to stare at the computer screen until it tells you what to write. 

14.  Hey what's up on your Facebook feed?

15.  And Instagram....

16.  You need to play a word in all seven of your Words With Friends games. You can't let your friends down. They might be procrastinating too. Don't be selfish.

17.  You should probably add something to that blog post, now.

18. Um, potty?

19.  If you haven't done so already, text your spouse/friend/significant other/child about dinner.  Or at least plan it out in your head.

20.  Better write it down. 

Okay, time to get serious:

21.  How about a snack?

22.  You should stretch your legs.

23.  And get some water. 

24.  Do you need to go visit your friend up on the 14th floor?

25.  Gawd!  Look at the size of your in-box. You'd better archive and delete some of those emails before you run out of space and all of your emails bounce back to their senders.

And, now, with nearly two-thirds of the work day gone, your mind should be well aimed on the task at hand. Now, you can think like you've never thought before; you can think like it is impossible to think when you have hours and hours of time on your hands (like this morning). Now, your brain is so keenly and sharply focused by adrenaline that, were you not working furiously on your project until the end of the day, you could surely shoot laser beams from your eyes.  And, hooray for you!, you've managed to write about five good pages of your (let's be honest) pretty dry work product that will nevertheless (we hope) please and impress your boss (once the entire thing is completed...because you still have loads to do). 

You're Welcome. (But, let's do a little bit less of this tomorrow, okay?)