How to talk to teenagers and young adults

A lesson or reminder for all who need it (including me).

1. Happy to see her? Say so. Show it with your face. Light up your eyes.
2. Unless it’s to offer an enthusiastic compliment, do not comment on his clothing, shoes, accessories, tattoos, hair, weight, or anything else appearance-related—especially in the first five minutes. If you don’t feel complimentary about any aspect of his appearance, go back to #1.
3. Ask what she’s been up to. Listen to the answer and then DON’T JUDGE. If you don't like the choices she is making regarding college or career or how she spends her free time, do not say so or in any way reveal it. Don’t offer advice. If you can’t think of anything else to say besides judgment and advice, simply ask what she likes or doesn’t like about what’s been going on.
4. Ask him for a movie, book, TV show, or game recommendation. Young people are often voracious consumers of media of all types, and the choices they make about what to consume are hugely varied from week to week. If he knows you at all, he is very likely to immediately think of something he’s seen or read that will be up your alley, or he’ll say, “I don’t think you would like what I’ve been reading,” and that’s a great conversation starter right there.
5. If her skills lean that way and the timing is right, ask her for help with that problem you’ve been having with your electronics, car, cat, leaky faucet, whatever. This shows that you know what her skills are and that you value them.
6. Listen, listen, listen. You are in the presence of a great mind that has matured in a completely different culture from the one you grew up in. Take a peek at his perspective on life and the world.
7. If she doesn’t seem interested in talking to you, don’t take it personally. By the time most kids turn 16, they have given up on adults' ability to really talk to them. It might take a while for her to recognize that you are worth her time. Meanwhile, find a way to set her free. “Would you like to go out to the yard and see the dog?”
8. Make yourself available for a conversation as equals whenever he gives you a chance to show what you’re made of.

Got more? Add them in the comments.

Fitting parenting to the child

MJ is 19. She doesn't live with me anymore. When she's at her home in Salem, I typically have no idea of her daily plans: whether she's going anywhere, where she's going if she is, how late she'll be out, who she'll be with. I don't worry about her as long as I "see" her via text, phonecall, or Facebook occasionally, which here means every 5 to7 days or so, and which "sighting" does not necessarily have to include me. For example, if I see her post something on her wall on FB, my internal mom-timer gets reset, and I don't worry.

I also have no idea what she's eating, how much she's exercising, what she's learning, how she's learning, whether she's tidying up after herself, whether she's minding her manners, how she's spending her money, what music she's listening to, how much TV she's watching, whether she's brushing her teeth and wearing her retainers, and so on and so on. I don't ask, she doesn't offer, I just don't know.

In other words, in the absence of evidence to the contrary or complete radio silence, I trust that she's healthy and happy enough, and I know she's quite competent enough to handle what life throws at her, either on her own or by picking up the phone if she needs help.

And then she comes home for a visit. Something happens inside my brain, and MJ moves from the "MJ's responsibility" compartment to the "My responsibility" compartment.

Last night she went out with her cousin Chelsea. As she was walking out the door, she said she'd either be home "later" or stay the night at the friend's they were headed to. I opened my mouth to request a rather more specific plan, and to go through my usual magical-thinking routine of questions designed to reassure me that she would be safe.

And then the absurdity of that struck, and I said, "Have fun" and closed my mouth again. This child-of-mine, despite her name and similar appearance, is not the same person she used to be. She no longer needs (if she ever did) the type of parenting I had been about to offer.

It's up to me to catch up.

Trust

This is an excerpt from one of my talks at LIFE is Good 2009. It was titled, "Unschooling Teenagers: RATS in the House." RATS stands for Respect, Acceptance, Trust, and Support.

Here’s my little bombshell: I don’t trust my kids.

What I mean is, I don't trust my kids in the way traditional parents mean when they talk about trusting their kids.

Think about it. When a mainstream parent says she trusts her teenager, what does she really mean? I think she means she trusts her teenager to make good choices. And what does that mean? What constitutes a good choice?

Well, that’s subjective, isn’t it? I knew a woman once whose father had encouraged her to be promiscuous when she was a teenager. To him, sleeping around was a good choice. But maybe more conventional philosophies come to mind. Maybe you think about abstinence, or condom use, or saying no to drugs, or putting money in a savings account, or looking both ways before you cross the street. Maybe you think about safety issues.

Fair enough. So, teens who make good choices keep themselves safe.

It sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? But here’s a question: When are our kids safe enough? Where do we draw the line between safety and experience? And more importantly, where do they draw that line?

A couple of years ago, Frank and the girls and I loaded ourselves into a small sailboat and crossed the Gulf of Mexico. During hurricane season. My mother probably thought we had lost our ever-lovin’ minds. And, considering it was the year of Katrina, Rita, and Wilma, she just might have been right.

But my point is, we made our own choices. My parents didn’t choose for us. Now, was our choice a good choice? That’s debatable. Every one of you probably has an opinion on that. I'm sure my mother does.

But here’s the thing: The right and wrong of every single choice each of us makes is debatable. All we can know when we judge another person’s choice is what we would have chosen in the same situation.

So what a traditional parent really means when she says she trusts her kid to make good choices is that she trusts her teen to make the same choices she would choose for him. She expects her kid’s brain to be an extension of her own, to assess and react to a situation just as she would, and to choose the behavior that she would choose.

Well, like I said, I don’t trust my kids that way. The idea that their brains are an extension of mine is silly. Their brains are their own. They will assess and react and choose in their own ways, not mine.

How many of you have seen the movie "Risky Business"? Joel’s parents are out of town, and when they call to check in one evening, they can tell by the noise level that he’s having a party. “Just a few friends,” Joel tells them, and his mother says it’s all right. “You know we trust you.” Of course, at that moment, Joel is running a brothel out of their home and there are prostitutes wearing his mother’s clothes.

Now, my point with this little story is not to say that teenagers are not trustworthy. It is simply to say that even good kids like Joel make their own choices. And then they handle what comes. In the movie, Joel does a lot of scrambling to handle what comes, but he does in fact handle it.

And that is where my authentic trust for my kids comes in. I trust my daughters to make their own choices and to handle what comes. I also trust them to ask for help if they need it.

When unschoolers screw up

or "Why I don't ever need to impose consequences or punish"

When people hear about our say-yes, rule-free lifestyle, one of the things they have trouble wrapping their brains around is how our kids will learn to cope with obstacles, disappointments, consequences.

Yeah. At the moment, I really wish my answer were, "They won't!" But the sad truth is that they have no choice but to learn.

Recently, each of my girls has had to deal with an extreme disappointment. (It would help the narrative here if I could describe these to you, but such painful things are private.) Chloe's happened a while back, but she is still dealing with the emotional fallout. MJ's was more recent, and the scope of the emotional fallout is not yet clear. In both cases, I think it's safe to say that they feel they screwed up. I might not characterize things that way, but I know they do.

So, how do unschoolers deal with disappointments and screwups? With an astonishing degree of dignity. With some tears. With conversation and wishes and resolutions for the future. With help from family and friends. With apologies where appropriate.

Over the last few years, they have had some practice in handling disappointment, of course. They have had many small situations where things didn't go their way. They have had to struggle over, under, past, or around obstacles. They have made mistakes and dealt with consequences. I didn't have to create any of it; life just happens. But I hesitate to credit this practice with the coping ability they exhibit now. I think that might be more a factor of their environment. They have respect. They have the benefit of the doubt. They have rich friendships and healthy family relationships. And they have resources when things go wrong, people they can turn to who will help and nurture and support them, even when (especially when!) they screw up, and who will be more concerned with them than with beating them over the head with a lesson.

iUnschooling tools

Not that kind of tool

Chloe hasn't really cared about having a cell phone. For the last couple of years, this was fine with me. MJ has a cell phone, and Chloe has been reachable because she is so often with MJ. But that has changed: MJ and her cell phone are down in Oregon. So, I laid down the law: Chloe, says I, I am getting you a cell phone. She resisted at first (really), but the idea began to grow on her, and off we went to shop for a phone.

After looking at the available options, the plan requirements, and so forth, she decided to chip in some of her own money and get an iPhone. She has played with friends' iPhones in the past and really enjoys them. So, that's what we've done. She's paying the extra phone cost and the $15/month data plan. I'm paying for the extra line and the family unlimited-texting plan.

So, Chloe has a new iPhone. She's been exploring available apps, building her contact list, playing games, and just generally having a blast with it. And I've been thinking about all this in an unschooling context.

First off, why didn't she want a cell phone sooner? Unschooling was a factor. Chloe and her friends have Internet access all day long. They don't need phones to communicate. And if they do, they have 24-hour access to their parents' phones.

So, why does she need one now? Well, because I said so, but also because of unschooling. She's free, so she travels. She's independent, so she travels alone. And she's building her own life, even at 16, so the time has come for her to have this tool that so many of us who have our own lives consider essential.

In the months ahead, Chloe will use this phone to let us know she has arrived in Oregon for NBTSC, made the train to come home from NBTSC, and, later, arrived in Texas* where she's starting a new job as a nanny. Then she will use it to find her way around Dallas, to discover places to go with her young charges and shop for the things she needs while she's away. She will call us with all the news, text us all the funny little comments she usually gets to share in person, and find and play games a couple of little ones enjoy.

And she will continue her unschooling. Someone asked on Facebook the other day about essential purchases for unschooling. I replied, "A wireless Internet connection." Perhaps I should have said, "A portable wireless Internet connection." It certainly seems to be an essential purchase for us now.

-------------------
* The family Chloe visited in Victoria has their primary residence in Dallas

The best sort of report card

This morning, I received the following note from the mom of the family Chloe is visiting (and possibly becoming au pair for).

Hi, Ronnie;

Before Chloe came, I tried very hard to hold back my desire to communicate directly with you. I thought you were the adult and she was the kid. But she proved me wrong. She handled everything really well, better than most adults, IMO.

We were very impressed by her. She shows maturity unusual for her age, yet her sweetness, happiness and "purity" (if you know what I mean) are so delightful and contagious.

O. [4yo son] loves her and already invites her to [stay]. He couldn't get enough of her. It is so interesting to watch him to wait patiently and impatiently outside Chloe's room while she was resting.

M. [1yo daughter] loves her and sneaked to her bed. It is so cute to watch her to be in the same bed with Chloe!

We love her. She communicates very well. She is very patient and sweet with kids. She pays attention to details and she is very proactive. When we talked "business", she is professional!

I have never met a teenager as mature, original, happy, thoughtful, confident and sweet as her. You have raised a wonderful person. I am sure we can learn a lot from her as well.

We are very happy to have her.

The Doings Report

Ah, Sunday. We are basking (suffering) in a bit of a heat wave. It hit 90 today and is forecast to be "much warmer" tomorrow. How will we ever survive????

Perhaps by imagining what it would be like tomorrow if we were in the south or southwest. :-)

Chloe is visiting friends in Victoria, BC, for a few days. They have two kids, a girl not quite 2 and a boy not quite 5. Her visit is sort of a job interview, or maybe a mutual interview. If all parties are amenable, she will be their au pair for an undetermined while. Chloe wrote her own (very business-like) emails, made her own arrangements, rode the ferry and went through customs alone, et cetera. (Does anybody know where Chloe learned to write with a formal tone? Sometimes—oftentimes—unschooling amazes even me.)

If all parties are amenable, Frank and I will have an empty nest for a while. Jeezum Pete.

My sister is in town. We had a family gathering today, and I got to visit a bit with her and her family. Loved it!

We are also enjoying a visit from MJ, who came up for the aforementioned gathering and for an orthodontic appointment. She likes it here well enough, but she is glowingly happy in her new digs/life and will return there in the next couple of days.

Frank continues prepping two sides of our house for exterior paint. We settled on two sides as an achievable/adequate goal for this summer. We'll do the other two sides next summer. He has scraped and pressure washed and is now sanding. Then primer, then paint. Colors are either decided (if everyone goes along with my green-with-blue-trim preference) or under negotiation. You be the judge.

I continue working. It seems I will finish one contract on Aug. 31 and start the next on Sept. 1. Continuity is a good thing, but I am lately engaged in detailed fantasies of extended roadtrips. Perhaps something can be arranged, since I work from home mostly anyway. It's the "mostly" that's a stumbling block: "mostly" is not the same as "always."

The girls head to camp next week Tuesday with a hundred or so of their closest friends. Camp has been restructured from two one-week sessions to one two-week session, so they won't be home (Chloe to here and MJ to Salem) until after Labor Day. Judging by chatter here and on Facebook, they and the aforementioned friends are all extremely excited. Extremely. Excited. NBTSC is evidently heaven on earth, more fun than anything else (except perhaps a good year at LIFE is Good), but we parents can only imagine since we are not invited. *sigh*

After that, Chloe comes home or heads to Victoria, depending, and MJ heads to Chautauqua.

It's really a shame how isolated and overprotected unschoolers are. Poor, deprived children.

Also next Tuesday (a week from Tuesday) marks the 20th anniversary of my wedding to Frank. Yes, 20 years. Wowza. I have Big Plans for the day, but Frank has not been apprised of these, so I'm not telling. Yet.

Frank and I attended our first Seahawks game yesterday, a preseason battle with the Tennessee Titans. The game was fine, fun, blah blah blah, but the game viewing experience was, in a word, HOT. Our seats are on the sunny side of the stadium, which is a good thing come November but which makes for a bakefest on a summer evening. We sweated it out with about 25,000 fellow fans, watched the Hawks win, and left disgruntled because the Hawks took a knee instead of going for an easy field goal that would have netted each of us a short stack of pancakes at IHOP. Very bad coaching decision that, but I bet IHOP didn't suffer much since by game's end we were all craving pancakes.

Our next game is next Saturday evening. Frank and I are thinking of staying away until about 7:30, when the shade hits our seats.

For the sake of frugality/greed for other things, I'm going to put all of our regular season tickets up for sale. Whichever games don't sell, we'll attend. If any of you have a game you'd particularly like to go to, let me know; friends and family get good prices and first dibs.

I'm off now for a sunset walk. It is *beautiful* out there now, rosy and warm and a reminder of why we put up with the gray skies all winter. Summer in the northwest is how summer was meant to be.

Formative years

There is a lot of chatter in the parenting world about kids' formative years. This term can mean anything from infancy to adolescence, but the implication is always the same: that there is a time period during which kids are formed into the people they will be (presumably forever).

I certainly don't dispute the importance of treating children well and raising them in a loving environment. But I really want to challenge this idea that people are ever finished "forming." Looking back over my life so far, I see a lot of formative years, and there are a few in my adult life that were at least as formative as the highest impact years of my youth. (2009 was a case in point! Whew! What a year!)

The accompanying ideas—that kids are merely "forming into" adults, and that they are especially "formable" during certain years—are equally bad. They are booby traps for the unwary, and they can lead us to some thoughts about our kids that are really pretty nasty.

How about this one: "Oh, he'll grow out of it." This usually refers, interestingly enough, to a child's deepest emotional needs or his strongest signals that something needs to change. It's something we say or think (or maybe just hope) when our child's wants or behaviors are inconvenient to us. When accompanied by loving patience and responsiveness to our child's needs, this thought is not the end of the world. But even at its least dismissive, it still carries with it an expectation of—even an insistence on—change. I think it's really hard to hide our expectations from our kids. They always know.

And what happens if he doesn't grow out of it, whatever it is? What do our thwarted expectations lead to? "He's a hopeless case" perhaps, or similar sentiments? Ouch! These are cultural weapons we use to beat up the square pegs among us, the angry ones, the sad ones, the bloody but unbowed ones. They are not like us, therefore they're a lost cause.

I don't believe in half-formed children, and I don't believe in lost causes. There's no such thing. There are only people—learning, thinking, evolving people—for whom every year is a formative year.


We are game-playing, fun-having creatures, we are the otters of the universe.
~ Richard Bach

Transition times

MJ is moving out at 17.

Moving out at 17. That phrase causes a moment's pause, doesn't it? Usually it signifies strife, and either a desperate escape or a cruel rejection or both. In our case, it is simply a step. Here's how we came to take it.

As I said before, MJ's really been ready to live independently for some time. There's a little garage apartment across the alley from our place that I have long had my eye on for my girls... Ah, well, it was a nice idea.

Instead, MJ and Sean started talking about getting an apartment together. There were various obstacles in the way of this idea—primarily employment in a recession economy—that would have meant many months of delay. So, I got to thinking about it. If the role of an unschooling parent is to facilitate her child's interests, does that role suddenly change when her child's interest is moving out? Despite my reluctance to lose her, I ultimately concluded that it does not.

So, after we all talked it over, MJ let Sean know he would be welcome to move in here. And then Sean's parents, Lynelle and David, said MJ would be welcome to move in there. And then MJ and Sean looked at various practical considerations and decided that she would move to Sean's place in July.

And that's been the plan for a couple of months. MJ has spent that time meeting some prior commitments, enjoying some fun times with family and friends, attending LIFE is Good, and traveling to Oregon for visits. We've researched some of our own practical considerations and readied ourselves for our baby to move out. And I've been calm, as I said.

This morning, I experienced what is probably only my first wave of grief. As we got ready to deliver Chloe to the train for her own visit to Oregon, it hit me that my daughters had just spent what might be their last night living in the same place. Ouch! But it's interesting and—though I didn't anticipate it—unsurprising really that what hits me hard is their separation from each other.

Moving Miss MJ

Evidently the doings of my life are not as obvious to everyone else as they are to me. Evidently I have been a bit obscure. Sorry, everyone! Here's the scoop:

MJ, our oldest, who will be 18 in September, is soon leaving on a big adventure: living elsewhere. She is packing up to move down to Salem, Oregon, where she will be living with her boyfriend, Sean, and his family. In true unschooler fashion, their plans are loose but include, among other things, the possibility of moving back into our house later.

So, Moving Day #1 will take place within a week or two.

Frank and Chloe and I are still figuring out what this means for us for the time she is gone. We will have a dedicated guestroom for a while, that's for sure, so let us know if you want to come visit. :-)

My emotions are mixed, as I'm sure you can imagine. I can tell you that this feels nothing like I imagined it would when she was little. I expected to be terribly sad and lonely, and maybe I'll get there, but mostly I'm really calm about it. I like that she's starting out by living with a family and especially with people I like. I like that she'll be so close to families in Corvallis whom we count among our dearest friends. And I know she's ready. She's been ready for some time; if we'd had the financial resources, she and Chloe would have had their own apartment more than a year ago. So, this feels like a pretty natural transition, and I have the comfort of the possibility that she'll be back.

In the meantime, legally she remains our dependent, of course, and financially, she is. But she's taking the reins. She'll do her own budgeting and make her own plans and let us know what she needs.

And I'll try to keep you (better) posted on what this transition looks like.

The joy of being uncomfortable

It is natural to want to avoid discomfort. We shy away (literally or figuratively), change the subject, change the situation, change the channel, change something and make it quick! Most of us have very little experience with simply experiencing discomfort.

And then we become parents, and we discover that, what do you know, parenting is not terribly comfortable. True to form, we get very busy trying to make it comfortable. Change this, change that, change the child, control, control, control, busy, busy, busy.

And maybe it works for a while. Maybe. But what so many people seem never to notice is that any brief victory that we achieve over parental discomfort is fleeting (and probably artificial). By the next day—hell, by the next minute—a new uncomfortable situation has arisen.

When I look back on my control days, I see a long and painful series of attempts to avoid discomfort:

Kid with messy hair = discomfort. Kid with messy hair who resists having her hair brushed and who is going OUT IN PUBLIC = mega discomfort. Battle ensues, "willful" child is subdued and rats are vanquished, discomfort is avoided (unless you count that whole long ordeal with getting the hair brushed) and Mom is victorious. Yay! Cue the triumphant trumpets.

And then that same child wants juice for lunch. Yes, just juice. Battle ensues, etc.

And then that same child wants to stay up past her bedtime. Way past her bedtime. Battle ensues, etc.

It was neverending. And folks, those were the EASY issues. Fast forward a few years, and now my parental discomfort is about late nights out, and driving solo, and sexuality, and alcohol, and Decisions About the Future, and oh my freaking god, MOVING OUT...

What I wouldn't give for some ratty hair to contend with!

But at some point, fortunately well before we got to the teen years, I learned something really, really important to peaceful parenting:

I can survive being uncomfortable.

My discomfort is not something that I have to do anything about. I do not have to react to it. It can just be there, in the background, held at least somewhat separate from my interactions with my kids. (I provided one example of what this looks like here.)

And do you know what? Being uncomfortable is really not that bad. It is not the Big Scary Monster that it seems, that our instincts and habits and culture make it seem. It's just an emotion, and it can be coped with.

What's more, it can be embraced. When I feel parental discomfort, it is a signal that my child is making her own choices just like I want her to do. My child is experiencing freedom and adventure and independence just like I want her to do.

So, I breathe, and I breathe some more. And then I settle into the joy and privilege of observing the life that my child is creating for herself.

The Doings Report

That LIFE is Good writeup is still coming. Maybe. But right now I just feel like rambling. Aimlessly. Without purpose. Maybe this won't even be a Doings Report but a Lack-of-Doings Report.

I think—and I squirm as I write this out of fear of angering the schedule gods—that we have a completely commitment-free weekend ahead. Holy loose ends, Batman!

I have a cold, one of two variants of the Conference Crud that are going around. Boy, did I get lucky, because the other one involves vomit. I'll take my annoyingly drippy nose any day.

MJ came home for one day and then went back to Oregon. I think her at-home time is less than her away time these days. So far I'm doing okay with this transition. I spoke to Cherie (my friend and former stepmother) on the phone today, and she pointed out that these separations are the natural result of raising independent kids. "We reap what we sow," I said. "Yes." And perhaps that is why I'm doing okay with this transition. For our kids to have the confidence and connections and motivation to build their own lives has been one of our goals all along.

Two of my very favorite authors (Julia Quinn and Lisa Kleypas) had book releases on my birthday. I bought the books and then went to LIFE is Good. Not much reading time there. So, I've spent some of my sickie time this week reading them and am very pleased with both.

New books always run out of pages too fast.

I am still processing my LiG talk. I think it went well, but I am too close to it to know for sure. I wish I could have filmed the audience while I delivered it so that (now that I am out of the semi-fugue state I enter when I'm speaking publicly) I could go back and check out reactions.

I had a big deadline before LiG. Deadline, LiG, Conference Crud. That's my last few weeks in a nutshell.

I am thinking about writing a novel. I am often thinking about writing a novel. In fact, in my years on this planet, I have done WAY more thinking about writing a novel than actual writing of said novel. But there are intriguing chapters tucked here and there. And one of these times when I think about writing a novel I know I will actually do it.

"I know I will actually do it." That is true, but I did not know it until I typed it. Interesting.

I made a bazillion friends at the conference. That is a slight exaggeration. But I did. The tribe just keeps on growing...

Speaking of which, unschooling is back in the news. Nightline (with Juju again, ick) and The View. I haven't been able to bring myself to watch the hatchet jobs clips. I want the media to forget they ever heard of unschooling. They are making the traditionalists nervous. That is never a good thing.

Fear is the mother of morality. ~ Nietzsche

Ja.

Done rambling. Auf Wiedersehen.

A date with reality

Kids in the U.S. are considered old enough to sign over their lives (literally) to the military at age 18. Kids in this same country cannot buy a beer until they are 21.

In Washington state, kids have long been forced to attend school until age 16. A few years ago, the Powers That Be decided 18 was better.

By convention, kids in the U.S. go off to college at 18. In other places, they start a bit earlier than that. Or later. And everywhere, exceptions are routinely made. Many of the most traditionally successful adults I know obtained their degrees sometime in their 30s, if at all.

And yet we, as a society, have firm expectations about what our kids SHOULD be doing at certain times in their lives. At certain ages. We hear about someone who is "still" living at home at ___insert your personal cutoff age here___, and we are disapproving. We judge the parents and their adult child and perhaps even their entire lives together and find them lacking.

And then there's the reverse issue. How often do you hear someone tell you that a kid is "too young" to do whatever it is they are doing? Uh huh. Says who? If the kid feels ready for something, if the obstacles and issues and practicalities have been addressed, what exactly makes a kid too young?

I am writing today to let everyone know—most especially my kids—that I have rejected all of the traditional arbitrary age limits and am adopting new ones. I've provided a few examples that are especially relevant to my family right now. You are welcome to use these if you like the sound of them. If we can't conquer the "shoulds," let's make some of our own!

Age at which kids should choose their own home and lifestyle: 16
Age at which kids should start college: 28 (if at all)
Age at which kids should be financially independent: 32

There. Now we can get on with our glorious, unfettered lives. We'll revisit this discussion on March 11, 2026.

Make a joyful light

I met a little girl in my dreams last night. Looking back on it now, I can theorize labels for this girl and know that she was probably on the Aspergers spectrum. Whatever. In my dream, she was simply my friend. She carried with her at all times one of those little keychain LED flashlights that you squeeze to light up. That flashlight was a cause for concern in her family, and I was caught up in the concern.

So, she and her siblings and I were hanging out together at the mall. We were having a blast and there were many distractions, and I was able to manipulate my little friend into giving me her flashlight for a while. But then we walked into THE toy store, the kind of toy store that kids fantasize about. FAO Schwartz on crack. My friend was suddenly a dancing ball of energy, hopping up and down and tugging manically on the pocket where I'd put her flashlight. I laughed and hugged her and promptly gave her back her light, which she proceeded to flash happily over and over again.

In the way of dreams, her dad appeared beside us and said something to her in that indulgent-scolding voice that all parents probably use from time to time. It's a voice that says, "I'm letting you do this just this once, but I find your need to do it amusing." I turned to him and said, "Steve, that's how she shows you her joy." And the light dawned for him, too, and we were all settling into enjoying the very pretty lights when my alarm went off and I woke up.

I think it is no accident that we use "light" words when we talk about joy, and no coincidence that a light symbolized joy in my dream. Our faces light up. We beam smiles. We glow with happiness. Joy dawns on our faces.

One of my favorite things about the unschooling community is that our friends amplify my kids' joy the way I amplified the little girl's joy in my dream. They do this all the time, not only by recognizing MJ's and Chloe's expressions of joy but by joining into it. At its roots, to enjoy means to put joy into, and our friends do that, too. MJ and Chloe have friends of all ages, all over the place, who are their friends in joy. They play and laugh together and trust each other. It is stunningly beautiful to watch.

And these friends help me see with better eyes. I can look back over our unschooling years and remember so many times when the words or simple presence of unschooling friends—people who habitually, deliberately, look for and find the best in people—showed me the path out of fear-based, critical parenting and into acceptance and fun and doing life together. Unschoolers remind me in a thousand ways to enjoy my kids, and my partnership, and my life. They show me the light.

Do you see it?

Home

I want to go home. That's what I say when times are tough. Away from stress is what I mean, from conflict and strife and imperfection. But it's not a place I've ever found. Instead, my home is joy.

It's a quiet evening after a busy week, spent reading my own blog and laughing with online friends even though a few hours ago I swore I was "socialled out."

It's a brilliant moment of connection over a spreadsheet, of all things, sharing formulas and optimism with Chloe—she of the healthy savings account who could teach her mother a thing or two about impulse control but perhaps has a few things to learn about being the bad guy.

It's a bottle of cheap champagne, opened perfectly by my laughing waitress, MJ, even though it's her first time to play sommelier. She joins me in a glass and then forgets all about the bottle left standing on the counter, our finest Cook's going flat as she simply lives her life, hardly knowing or caring that she is confounding the dire predictions of teen-phobic people everywhere.

It's talking small but vital details of Our Music with Frank, and the thrill of finding a new passion to share. After all these years!

It's two sisters happily tucked into the basement together, using up all their stolen video minutes and then figuring out what to do next, occassionally sending peals of laughter and a few strange noises floating up the stairs to entertain us.

It's even the damned Christmas tree, its lights shining merrily for one last night before I deal with it tomorrow.

And it is tomorrow, and the promise of another day of discovering the sweet small joys of home.

Joyce on chores

Wise words from unschooling advocate Joyce Fetteroll. The full post this comes from is on Sandra's site here.

Think about how you’d want a friend to ask for your help fixing a car or doing something you didn’t really enjoy. You could probably think of dozens of other things you’d rather do with your time. And that’s something your friend should realize and appreciate.

So how could your friend ask for help? And how should she treat you while you helped? And how should she treat you after, to acknowledge that she really appreciated you giving her some of your valuable time to do something she knew you really didn't want to do?

What if she asked you to keep her company and you spent a couple hours of pleasant conversation. What if she asked for you to hand her things and hold things while she worked? What if when you made a mistake or didn’t do something the way she wanted it done, she apologized for asking you to do something that wasn’t as easy or interesting for you as she thought it would be? What if she thanked you sincerely when she was done? And then invited you in for some tea and conversation or let you return to what you wanted to do or whatever she felt she could do as a sign of her appreciation? Would you feel like helping her again if she asked?

Now turn that around. What if you had another friend who demanded that you help her work on her car. You’re her friend and you have certain responsibilities. And what if you couldn’t help to her standards and she got angry with you when you failed? What if you really hated working on cars and wanted it over and done? And you felt like doing as little as possible so you could get out of there sooner? What if when she was done she was angry with you and said “You should be helping more and I shouldn’t even need to ask.

Which friend would you be likely to help next time?

Which friend is building a relationship with you and which is tearing it down?

Off the leash

When MJ was a toddler, Frank and I would take her walking in the mall. She would gleefully run ahead of us two or three store-widths, seem to reach the end of an invisible leash, come scampering back, and then do it again. And again. And again.

It was one of her favorite games.

What she was playing with was separation. She was getting her first small taste of life without parents, and we were getting our first small taste of the joy and discomfort that come with watching a child move into independence. We were also discovering a pattern of separation-and-return that has been repeated time and again over the course of our kids' lives.

That first invisible leash was MJ's own. She set the length, and it was well within my comfort zone. She had more stranger fear than I did, so I enjoyed (if I had but known it) a lovely little stretch of time where she never challenged my own standard of safety. Bliss!

And then she got older.

Yeah. That happens. Suddenly, she was tugging on my invisible leash, wanting to go farther in the mall, wanting to go around the block without me, wanting to walk to Safeway—three whole blocks!—alone, wanting to stay home alone, and on and on. And then I blinked, and she was 13, and her leash-tugging was about parties at boys' houses, and sleepover parties in hotels in downtown Seattle, and unaccompanied bus and train and plane trips to gatherings in other states.

Simultaneously with these more physical moves toward independence, she began asserting her dominion over her own mind. She wanted to think and dream and worry without talking to me about it. She wanted to hear my opinions only when she asked for them, thank you very much, and she didn't care to be burdened with all my endless worries, especially that dorky one about the disintegration of the parent-teen relationship.

The more I clung, the more I tried to shorten that invisible leash, the worse our relationship got. I panicked. I got emotional. We fought. She complained about me to other people. I was in despair, all my worst nightmares about teenagers coming true.

Interestingly, it was some advice I got about demanding respect and setting limits that snapped me out of it. That is what everybody says. That is what everybody does. Does it work? HELL NO.

Instead, I backed off. I said yes even when my discomfort made me want to say no. I started waiting for her to come to me. I started being really aware and somewhat cautious of when I touched or hugged her. I let her do the initiating (or not). When she talked, I tried to listen and enjoy without offering opinions. That last might have been key, actually. She wanted to try things her way for a while, without my two cents' worth. It was a reasonable thing to want!

As soon as I removed my energy (not my love) from the equation, it got a lot less dramatic. Things settled down almost immediately and improved by leaps over the next couple months. Slowly, she began talking to me again. She gave me credit for trying.

Eventually, she even talked to me about that time, about the pressure she had been putting on herself to grow up fast-faster-fastest, and how much she had been figuring out about herself and the world and interpersonal relationships. Turns out it was HUGE period of growth in her life. Oh, how I regret that I wasn't a calm shelter during that time instead of something else she had to wrestle with!

But she made it through even so. She is very strong, resourceful and smart. And nowadays, whether I like it or not, she's off the leash. The separation-and-return cycle has given way to a level of independence that lacks only material practicalities to make it complete. I am still here for her. I still provide whatever support I can (and always will), and when she chooses something that makes me uncomfortable, she sometimes still hears about it (and probably always will). There's no doubt which of those she appreciates more. ;-)

And we're friends-but-not-friends. I don't know that I will ever be one of her friends, one of those people you rely on for playtime and somebody to hang with and somebody to lend an ear when you need to complain about your mother. But I'm her mother with whom she is friendly, and that's a lovely thing indeed.

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For more of my writings about teens and unschooling, see my web site.

Milestone

MJ drove herself to her ortho appointment while Frank slept and I made my Internet rounds. Wow!

Update 11:51 a.m. - And now MJ and Chloe have gone off without us to get their teeth cleaned. MJ is even going to ask about a billing issue!

This is surreal.

Hormones

I was privy to a fairly innocuous but nevertheless unfortunate comment about teens on Facebook today. A friend of mine, evidently after a small detonation in her house, had posted self-encouraging words about honoring her daughter’s will and just continuing to love her. A friend of hers responded with this:

Welcome to the teenage years! I think, regardless of upbringing, something temporarily happens to brain cells during “teenage” years. It’s payback time being on the parents’ side of it now. :-) I’m happy for the personal growth it creates in all of us...young & ‘old’.

Uh huh.

I don’t know what prompted my friend to post as she did. But I do know, with absolute certainty, that she is not dismissing her daughter’s emotions and desires as merely the product of biological development. To do so would be EXACTLY THE SAME as responding to a woman’s anger by saying, “Oh, is it that time of the month?” Anyone who has ever tried this tactic knows just how well it goes over (and by the way, how is your concussion doing?).

It’s disrespectful, and it’s dismissive. And since most kids can’t get away with braining their parents, it creates in them intense feelings of powerlessness.

This friend of a friend is not really wrong. I get it. In general, teens are experiencing surging hormones and undergoing some significant brain development, especially in the area of impulse control. And biological processes can definitely make our responses more intense.

But none of that changes the fact that the person in front of you is feeling frustrated, or sad, or excited, or angry for a reason. A nonbiological reason.

The other day, MJ was irritated with me.

Let’s stop there for a minute because that’s just what this woman did. She heard my friend’s daughter was upset and started talking about biology. Sorry, but upset+biology is not enough information! She forgot to ask "Why?"

The other day, MJ was irritated with me because I was criticizing offering some golden nuggets of wisdom about her driving. I got irritated with her for being irritated. We snarled growled snapped reacted to these irritations and then gave each other the silent treatment took some time to cool off.

Hey, it happens (and yes, it is often my fault).

Later, we were able to talk it over and move on. But just imagine for a moment how much harder that would have been if I had thought or, heaven forbid, said something like, “This is just hormones getting in the way” or “Her brain isn’t developed enough to understand what’s really going on here.”

My skull and I are so glad I don’t think that way!

I can’t say MJ is glad because I don’t know that it has ever occurred to her that someone might try to dismiss her feelings because of her age. Good grief.

Oh, wait, I forgot what culture I live in. Yeah, she's probably glad.

What we've found is that the undeniable hormonal changes and brain development of the teen years don't ever explain away the emotions our teens feel or the desires they have. Knowing this helps us treat their experiences with respect, and treat their concerns as real and valid even when—no, especially when—we don't quite understand why a given issue is so important to them.

Cruisin'

Well she got her daddy's car
And she cruised through the hamburger stand now
Seems she forgot all about the library
Like she told her old man now
And with the radio blastin'
Goes cruisin' just as fast as she can now
And she'll have fun, fun, fun
Til her daddy takes the... minivan?... away.

MJ passed her driving test today (on her first try!) and is now a licensed driver. She and Chloe are out rattin' the streets.

My inner control freak is, well, freaking out. Huh. So that's what this feels like.

And we may never recover from the insurance increase. :-)

But I'm very happy for her. Freedom! What a glorious thing!