Author: Katherine Ludwig

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Magazines Village

Shy children: What’s normal and what you can do

File photo

Children’s birthday parties typically offer a bird’s-eye view of the broad spectrum of human temperaments. You’ll likely see socially bold kids, vying to be first in line for the piñata; socially comfortable yet milder-mannered kids, who prefer to exuberantly observe the piñata mayhem; and socially reticent children, who hang way back and mutely shake their heads when concerned grown-ups encourage them to join in the “fun.” If you’re a parent of a kid in the third camp, you might be concerned. After all, every kid loves a birthday bash filled with cake and noise and flying candy, right?

Not necessarily. The truth is that your child’s shyness may be temporary or he might never be the life of the party, but that doesn’t mean he has social anxiety disorder.

“People come into the world wired differently. It’s not pathological to be shy,” says Dr. Amy E. Wilson, a Charlottesville clinical psychologist who specializes in cognitive behavioral interventions for anxiety-related disorders.

Wilson explains that shyness only becomes a treatable condition when it results in avoidance of normal social functioning or interferes with social or emotional development.

Exposure needed for social development and competence

Wilson says it’s important for children to develop normal social skills through regular social interaction. That means parents of shyer kids may need to gradually expose their kids to uncomfortable situations.

“You don’t want to push them so far that they have a negative experience,” says Wilson, “but anxiety isn’t dangerous, and having kids work through their fears and get to the other side is very valuable.”

According to Wilson, many parents mistakenly compensate for shy children in the spirit of easing the anxiety, but that only perpetuates the shyness or seeds an even bigger problem through social avoidance. 

“I know of very competent teenagers whose parents still order for them at restaurants,” she says.

When further help is warranted

Some shy kids may always be slower to warm up in social situations, and that’s O.K. as long as they can handle normative social situations without too much discomfort. If, however, your child can’t seem to deal with day-to-day social interactions such as school, it may be time to seek outside help. A first step might be to consult a school counselor, who will be trained to evaluate your child’s social development and offer an action plan.

First steps

Desensitize shy kids through an activity they already enjoy

“A lot of kids work through their shyness when they are motivated to do something that requires social interaction,” says Dr. Amy E. Wilson. Summer classes and camps can be great for this, but don’t throw them into the deep end of the pool, so to speak, too fast. Also don’t hold their hands the entire time, she advises.

Arts and crafts lessons or science and engineering activities side-by-side with other children would allow for gradual social interaction. Some options:

Bricks 4 Kidz Lego-building activities

charlottesville@bricks4kidz.com

Curry School of Education, the Saturday and Summer Enrichment Program for gifted students

curry.virginia.edu/community-programs/student-enrichment/sep

Les Fabriques Sewing Workshops and Camp Stitch

lesfabriquesinc.com

McGuffey Art Center Classes and Camps for Kids and Teens

mcguffeyartcenter.com/kids-teens

A group physical activity that stresses health, confidence-building and other life skills would provide more supportive incremental socialization than a competitive team. For example:

Bend Yoga

bendcville.com

The Little Gym

thelittlegym.com/charlottesvilleva

SuperStarters Tennis & Teamwork

(917) 834-5717

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Magazines Village

Losing your parenting ego: Keeping the kids’ needs in mind

Repeat after us: "Put your hat on! (Or don't. Whatever.)" File photo.

There’s an old saying: “A sweater is what you put on when your mother is cold.”

I’d like to add that it’s also what you put on when your mother fears judgment from fellow parents at the bus stop for possibly allowing her child to go slightly underdressed.

My own mother forced me to wear a coat until the spring equinox every year of my childhood regardless of the actual temperature. Back then it was still commonly believed that you could catch the flu from inappropriate attire, so I’ll cut my mom some slack. But that myth is no excuse for my own status as an occasional sweater pusher. I do it because, well, I’m always cold, but more importantly, I don’t want to spend the day worrying that my children might be cold—I just don’t have time for that! Also, and this is embarrassing to admit, but I really do care what other people think. If my daughter doesn’t wear a sweater, will “they” think I don’t care for her comfort? Will they label me a lazy parent? Will they assume I’m incapable of handling a second grader who whines every morning having to wear an outer layer?

Deep down I believe that if I’ve ensured my child’s warmth, packed all the right things in her lunchbox and checked that she did her homework correctly, then everyone, including me, will know I’m a good parent—that day anyway.

The parenting ego is a powerful thing, but as hard as it is to fight, it really has no place in child rearing, according to the experts. With research to back it up, they say that when parents focus, consciously or not, on meeting their own needs—whether that’s to keep up appearances, be proud, or just feel engaged and involved—they might not be satisfying their children’s needs to become self-sufficient, confident, resilient, capable adults. To do that, children must have age-appropriate autonomy and the freedom to make mistakes and take risks. When children have the physical and psychological ability to do something or make a decision, they should be allowed to do it from that point on—whether that’s tying their shoes, choosing their outerwear, riding their bikes to a friend’s house three streets over or giving up soccer.

Also, according to renowned social psychologist Carol Dweck, parents should praise children’s efforts, not their actual accomplishments, even if that means parents don’t get to put one of those “My Child Made the Honor Roll!” bumper stickers on their minivans. Dweck says praising or labeling children as “smart” or a “star” athlete may actually tamp down on their motivation to take on new challenges that could jeopardize their status.

All of this is easier said than done, of course, especially when you’re already 10 minutes late for work and forced to watch your child struggle to make bunny ears with her tennis shoe laces. For fellow parents who, like me, are valiantly battling their egos, but just need to celebrate little victories once in a while, here are a few suggested new bumper stickers for the family truckster:

“My child went sockless in 30-degree weather and the world didn’t end.

Also, she says she’ll wear socks tomorrow!”

“My child struck out all four times at bat at Little League and still showed up and tried his best the next time!”

“My teenager decided to drop all of her AP classes,

but at least now she doesn’t totally hate school anymore!”

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Magazines Village

Ebb and flow: Finding the family’s scheduling sweet spot

With one child still in preschool and one in grade school, I’ve already fallen into the typical yo-yo family routine phenomenon: By the last month of the regular school year, I’m just done. Done with daily lunch packing. Done with backpack checking and bake sales. Done with incessant clock watching, brush-your-teeth demanding, shoelace tying, and the no-you- cannot-wear-the-same-shirt-again-because-it’s-covered-in-paint explaining—the whole getting-out-the-door-at precisely-7:29am business. Done! By the end of summer vacation, however, I just cannot endure another night of children bouncing off the walls and still in their swimsuits well past Mommy’s wine time because the sun will not, for the love of sanity, set already! Bring on the school bell. Bring on the regular bedtimes and wake times and the kids who are tired and hungry at predictable intervals. Bring on the kind of days that allow the children to be tucked in, the next day’s lunches prepared and outfits selected, and Mommy on the couch by 8:01pm with her Rioja and her laptop, frantically catching up on work while also watching bad TV and having quality time with her husband doing the same thing on the adjacent couch cushion.

I’m starting to think, though, that this swinging of the scheduling pendulum is neither ideal nor inevitable. The experts tell us that kids crave routine and predictability, but they also say that kids’ internal clocks and rhythms are much different than ours and fluctuate depending on age and developmental phase. Anyone who has tried to explain that Mommy has an 8am conference call to a 4-year-old who’s too busy drawing shapes in her maple syrup with her little finger to JUST FINISH HER PANCAKES understands this dynamic. So where’s the happy medium between mayhem and rigidity? Darned if I know. I’m the kind of anxious yet lazy person who checks her alarm clock three times past mentally stable every night, only to hit my snooze button several times past reasonable the next morning. But the following tips have made their way into my brain, perhaps from the stack of parenting manuals on my bedside table, or maybe the blogosphere. Probably it was my mother. In any case, they seem to make common sense:

Provide for extra time

This one hurts. Really it means that we have to get up even earlier so my kids can lie around in their pajamas or play with their cereal a little longer and not feel “rushed.” Also, this one can backfire as anyone who has missed the school bus after a two-hour snow delay can attest.

Cut back on activities

This means grownups too. Leaving plenty of room in the day for free play and special parenting time means the kids’ tanks will be full and better able to fuel them through those rushed and robotic—no, you may not get out the Play-Doh—weekday mornings.

Stick to the same general routine all year

This one hurts too. An occasional late night to look at the stars or late morning to sleep off a double-feature family movie night seems O.K., and who doesn’t need a break from wearing regular clothes or leaving the house before 3pm every now and then. Regularly changing up bedtimes and meal schedules on weekends or vacations, however, just makes for really ugly Mondays and a devastating month of September. I know what I have to do, and I’m mostly up to the challenge. Just don’t judge me in June when I send my kids to school with a lunch of leftover popcorn from my previous late night of binge watching “House of Cards” while making nut-free cookies for the school potluck I just remembered.

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Magazines Village

Let it out: Why fighting in the open might be better than hiding it

Illustration: Matt Pamer

I vividly recall a major blowup my parents had when I was about 6 years old. I was in our basement family room, watching Saturday morning cartoons. They were upstairs shouting and throwing dishes. I’d witnessed harsh words and muffled arguments between them before, but this sounded like bedlam.

Once the noise finally subsided, I tiptoed upstairs, full of curiosity and concern, to find broken pieces of china littering the kitchen floor. I stood there horrified until my parents emerged from the bathroom teary-eyed, with their arms draped affectionately around each other.

“What happened?” I asked them.

“Nothing,” said Mom with an obvious sniffle. “I accidentally broke some dishes. Go watch your cartoons, sweetheart.”

Apparently they’d reconciled, but I was still devastated and confused.

We may have the best intentions in shielding our children from marital conflict, and of course it would be better if parents never fought, but child development experts say it’s futile to try hiding everyday disagreements from the kids. In most cases, children are acutely aware of the tension even if they don’t understand the specifics of the arguments. But that’s not necessarily the problem. What’s worse, say the experts, is that by trying to hide the situation from them, we deny our children the ability to witness that we resolved the conflict and how.

If parents begin to bicker at the dinner table, for example, but quickly decide to “discuss it later,” the children never see the resolution and may continue to harbor anxieties about it. Moreover, even if parents think they’re being discrete, it’s likely they’re modeling all kinds of ways to belittle, insult, or accuse, but very few ways to apologize, concede, or make up.

I was confronted with my own failures in this regard one morning with my own 6-year-old. My husband and I had had a disagreement the night before and had assumed the children—who sleep like logs once they finally succumb—had missed the whole business. I went ahead, however, and asked my daughter if she’d overheard us arguing. She nodded and said, “I don’t like it when you and Daddy fight,” as if what she’d heard the previous night was not the anomaly for her that we had believed.

While I wish she’d never observe an unkind word or look from anyone anywhere or experience her own home as anything other than the love nest of safety I yearn for it to be, that likely is impossible with two working parents, two young children competing for attention from those parents, mortgages, college funds, car repairs, school volunteer obligations, a New Year’s resolution to make more green smoothies, and all the other complexities of this modern life. There is bound to be some discord over who forgot to do, pay, or order something and who feels more overworked and underappreciated in any given week. I’m quite sure the dog is feeling the most slighted of all, but fortunately he’s too old to bark much about it these days.

On the whole, I hope that my children experience their home as a place of emotional security and that when conflicts do arise, they see positive examples of compromise and reconciliation and that Mom and Dad do kiss and make up. They could probably do without the kissing part, but I’m an overachiever so they will have to deal with it.

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Living

The art of letting go: Getting kids to the leave the nest

File photo.

We’ve all heard the extreme parenting stereotypes: on the one hand, the “helicopter” parents who hover and smother, and on the other hand, the “free-rangers,” who set their young’uns loose on New York City subways. If you’re like me, you’re in the middle and very confused about how to raise a confident, resilient kid who also doesn’t have a mug shot and hasn’t been abducted by a cult.

My latest lofty goal is to fall somewhere between the kind of parent who turns a blind eye to high school drinking parties in my basement and the kind who enables my grown children to live in my basement far beyond the age at which they can drink legally, a safe middle ground between Tiger Mother-like oppression and never teaching my kids to do their own laundry.

This would seem an easy bar to meet, except that even at their tender ages, moments with my children feel loaded with future consequences that could impact my plans.

Saying goodbye

Tears of abandonment reign during the initial phase of parenting: day care drop-offs; the first time on the school bus; the nightly struggle to make them sleep. In. Their. Own. Beds. Most of these traumas are necessary evils, but then there are the gray areas of parenting self-doubt: Perhaps the new babysitter does look a little sketchy… I’m not sure horse camp was the best way to overcome her fear of horses after all… A week alone with the grandparents? Even I’d be crying!

Throwing them into the deep end

Sure, I think you should try swimming across the pool in one breath… Time to remove the training wheels! Of course you’re good enough to try out for the school play…I don’t care if you don’t like piano anymore—get practicing!

Having them learn to fly means having them feel frustration; the pain of rejection and humiliation; and actual, physical pain sometimes. As a parent, I must decide when it’s appropriate to push and encourage them (lest my children grow up meek, unmotivated and eating out of my refrigerator past 30) and when to let up on the gas (lest they end up in physical or psychological therapy).

Fighting battles

Combat comes early in childhood, because other kids and their parents can be jerks; so can teachers, coaches and other authority figures. Sometimes the world just won’t treat my kids the way they deserve. But when do I come to their rescue and when should I let them handle their own sandbox scuffles? When do I tell them to stand their ground and when to walk away? And how do I teach them to know when fighting for their rights is inappropriate, whether it’s for a test grade or my credit card?

Stranger danger

The days of children running wild for hours, stopping home only for an occasional Kool-Aid break (as I did) seem gone, but when does the cost
of 24-hour kid surveillance outweigh the security benefits? Must I watch my child walk all 50 yards to the neighbor’s house, or is it O.K. to rely on my usual text method: “Hey there. M is walking to your house now to play with A. Text me back if she doesn’t get there…”  Right now the situations are fairly straightforward and the stakes obvious, but what about when it’s sleepovers with the new girl at school? Drop-offs at the movies? Riding in cars with boys?

Whether I’m pushing or they’re pulling, the pitfalls of parenting children to capable adultness seem endless. I’m just hoping that as long as they know their bedrooms are destined to convert to other functions within their lifetimes, everything might just fall into place.

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Living

Space relations: Preventing sibling rivalry

File photo.

The issue of personal space comes up in my household a lot. Both my 5-year-old daughter and husband have a high tolerance for physical proximity—they tend to sit close, speak close, and don’t even seem to notice when they accidentally, but quite frequently, elbow me in the ribs.

Conversely, my 2-and-a-half-year-old and I have what, ahem, others in the house call “huge space bubbles.”

Technically speaking, the concept of personal space is called proxemics. (This is just one of the many helpful factoids I’ve learned since becoming a parent. Among other recently acquired knowledge: the average incubation period of the chicken pox virus (14 days); the maximum speed of a cheetah (70 mph); and the amount of ibuprofen it takes to recover from an up-all-night-with-a-puking-toddler hangover (800mg).)

But we prefer the term “space bubble.” You’ll hear it uttered (shouted) several times a day at my house:

Younger Sister growling because Older Sister has crossed the line onto “her” couch cushion? “Space bubble!” I’ll remind Older Sister.

Younger Sister whining because Older Sister has placed one toe in the playroom where an elaborate baby doll triage station has been established? “Sissy is no where near your space bubble!” I’ll call out.

Older Sister and Husband now sit together on one side of the dinner table where they can elbow each other’s ribs to their hearts’ content while the rest of us can eat in peace and spaciousness on the other side.

My own sanity aside, this recognition of differences among our family’s temperaments ultimately is my way of attempting to prevent one of my worst parenting nightmares: SIBLING RIVALRY.

Oh, I have the common sense bases covered, of course. I’ve never said, “Why can’t you be more like your sister?” to either one (even though I’ve thought it many—many—times), and Husband and I give both kids one-on-one time so they’ll feel loved and appreciated as individuals rather than only as a sisterly unit. But my mission to cultivate sibling bonding has taken on even more strategic proportions, because here’s another important fact I’ve learned since becoming a parent: The best way to ensure a friendship is to create a common enemy. In this case, yours truly.

Playtime hijinks
Occasionally, when I find them rowdily engaged in cooperative play, I’ll swoop in and invent a reason to chide them in the most ridiculous way possible:

“Are you spilling too much water outside the bathtub? What will the poor fish in the ocean have to drink?”

“Can you guys laugh without being so loud?”

“You’re making the My Little Ponies be nice to each other, right?”

And then I’ll smile to myself at my cunning when I hear them giggling at me together behind my back.

Treat trickery
Sometimes I’ll create a rule for the achievement of, say, a special post-school snack, and then purposely forget the terms just so Older Sister can correct me and look like a hero to Younger Sister: “YOU said we could get ice cream if we brushed our teeth without complaining this morning. You didn’t say anything about keeping our coats buttoned!”

Inane narration
“Wow, that was really thoughtful of Older Sister to let you play with her [insert toy Older Sister no longer cares about that’s missing half its pieces]. She must really love you!”

Or, “I noticed Younger Sister didn’t scream, ‘You’re hurting my ears!’ at you in the car when you sang along to the radio this time. She must really love you!”

I know I’m setting myself up for future ridicule when the girls grow up and return to our house for a visit, high on the horse of their independent lives, and crack each other up re-telling tales of my buffoonery.

And that will be one proud parenting moment indeed.

Categories
Living

Achy breaky heart: The emotional torment of motherhood

File photo.

My older brother was bit by Grandma’s dog at the age of 2 and nearly lost his eye, so the story goes. Possibly even more exaggerated in family lore is the fact that the doctor had my mother physically barred from the hospital room while he sewed my brother’s eyelid back together. Dad was allowed in to suppress his son, who was being stitched sans anesthetic—so the story continues. Mom, though, was deemed emotionally unfit to be present. That part, I don’t doubt.

As a kid, this bit of family history (or histrionics) traumatized me—imagining undergoing a medical procedure without my mom’s hand to hold. But as a mother myself, the episode has become almost unbearable to consider.

In addition to my weak bladder, lingering paunch, and inexplicably larger shoe size, I’ve realized yet another chronic condition of childbearing: the emotional fortitude of, well, my mother! I’m like a spigot, gushing at every joy (“wuv you mama”), every sadness (“She doesn’t want to play with me”), and every bittersweet milestone (“No more training wheels!”).

Where once were nerves of typical tenacity, now live the flabby, stretchmarked remnants left by the toll of two kids who stamp on my soft, squishy core in myriad ways every day.

It’s something I’m trying to work on —to steel myself like a magnolia for the emotional mother lodes to come, but it’s a constant battle against the onslaught.

Shots and other doctor-ly business
All kids, even infants, have this look that can slay you. It says, “Mommy, why are you letting them hurt me?” It’s like being stabbed in the gut and then forced to watch a baby seal get clubbed over and over. Or having your toddler’s anguish during the diagnostic procedure for a kidney infection tattooed on your frontal lob for eternity. I will never un-see or un-hear that.

The first day of [school]
Whether it’s a preschooler who cries at drop-off, or, as I can imagine, a young coed who walks confidently into her freshman dorm and doesn’t look back —schoolyard scenes tear a mother up. I watched my own blubber the entire car ride home after depositing my brother at college. The entire—seven-hour!—car ride home. I have those genes. I’m doomed.

Friendship/love woes
I never knew I had it in me to picture ripping the face off somebody else’s 4-year-old, but that’s exactly what I did the first time my daughter complained that this other child told her, “I don’t want to be your friend.” And I’m still years away from middle school. Doomed!

The “I don’t need yous,” “I don’t like yous,” and “Please go aways”
Even the tiniest tykes can gut you with rejection—and I haven’t yet reached the stage of having doors slammed in my face or overhearing one of them call me the B-word to her friends. The worst so far was the “Daddy phase,” but she might as well have yanked out my still-beating heart kung fu-style the first time the younger one picked him over me for night-night reading.

Then there are the daily, happy moments—catching two sisters in an impromptu embrace; finding a crayoned family portrait crumpled at the bottom of the lunchbox; the jump for joy into my arms at pick-up time—that do me in.

One day soon, my lack of composure will be a source of embarrassment to my children—and that will break my heart.