parenting

10…9…8…Launched!

Posted on by revtassiegreen

From age three on, our curly-haired darling would announce, “I’m going far, far away from you, mama!” And so she has. Argentina, to be exact. Launched into the great big world at 17. At age four, we left her at Grandma’s as we led a two-week high school trip to Greece. We could barely get her to stop playing long enough to speak to us on the phone, “I’m never ever gonna see you again but it’s ok, ‘cause Grandpa and I are having so much fun. Bye!”

The sense of independence that began with visits to Gram and Gramp increased in ever-widening circles, aided by “so much fun!” Summer camps.  Mission trips. We could get rarely a peep out of her about her world-expanding experiences, other than a thumbs up as they were special, fantastic events to be savored by her alone.

Then puberty and romance. First dates. Growing six-feet tall. First boyfriend (NOT six-feet tall). Driver’s license.  First fender-bender. Moving states and changing schools. Striving for a 5.0 GPA. Volleyball tournaments. Finding new friends who didn’t speak English. Learning more and better Spanish from them. Falling in love with Latin America. Causing a two-alarm fire truck response to our rental house– never mind, long story.  Solo flights to both coasts for college visit weekends. And now Argentina for five months.

Visa interview in DC at Consulate
Argentine flag girl (art by Carly)
on Argentine soil for the first time… in DC

Carly’s dream of going on international exchange emerged and snowballed into reality with her vision of beginning a center for intercultural understanding someday. She applied for the AFS Latin American program and won one of four scholarships, was accepted into the Argentine program, then assigned a host family. (n.b. After one month in Argentina, she switched families.) After NO goodbye fanfare (Text: “Taking off soon. Bye!”), nine hours by plane to Buenos Aires and fourteen cross-country hours by bus later, she was warmly welcomed by her host family. (Text: “I’m with my family in Tucumán, the travel was luxurious and they are amazingly wonderful people. DON’T WORRY ABOUT ANYTHING.”-Carly) (Subtext: “That’s it, mom. See you in July.”)

Launched. We have just launched one quarter of our family. Crazy to realize it’s happened to us. It’s different to write a blog called FamilyLaunch than to do it, right? I shouldn’t be surprised she’s gone, though I’m still dizzy in the head as I pick up the pieces that are still whirling about in the tornado of her departure.  Maybe Hurricane Carly is more apt? Connecting with her year–long crush and falling madly in love in her final 3 weeks here.  Maneuvering to spend every minute together with him.  Breaking curfew.  Getting a speeding ticket.  Arguing with us, “You’re driving me crazy. I can’t wait to leave! I’m 18; I should be able to____.”  (me: “NOT YET!”)  Letting slip a few confessions, “I didn’t actually take my online government class final yet, but I have till June, right?” “Oops, I lost my retainer in Miami.” “Dang, can’t find my glasses; just mail them, ok?” Last minute packing and unpacking when the suitcase weighed 15 pounds over limit. These actions were all out of character for her, so they made our heads spin.

I’m told this is perfectly normal “leaving home” behavior. Some students even pick a fight, so everyone is mad and it makes the student’s breaking away to independence  and the parents’ letting go a little easier. Soooo much easier !?

Then at last, “She’s gone. Whew!”

 Quiet. Breathe. Peace in the house. Inner turmoil.

Reading her tweets (via Google translate) such as: “New  family!” with a happy picture of her bus station welcome and “I miss Chipotle and Ben & Jerry’s more than I miss my family” reassure me in a back-handed way. When it doesn’t feel as if my daughter broke up with me.

Dropping the habit of “checking in/checking up on her” is harder than I thought. Not entirely because I am a control freak, but because it turns out THIS WORLD IS A DANGEROUS PLACE! AND MY CURLY-HAIRED, THREE-YEAR-OLD—um, I mean eighteen-year-old—IS OUT THERE IN IT!

Our first contact via Skype one week after she arrived involved her rapid-fire-talking for 90 minutes (despite a cold and hoarseness), giving us a horrifying description of her birthday night at the disco when one of the 10 girls had a drug slipped into her drink. Since the other girls’ solutions involved propping the girl up on a bucket outside and dumping glasses of water on her, Carly took charge by ushering everyone into a taxi at 5am to take her home. (“But don’t worry, Mom and Dad. Everyone says that NEVER happens. And my dad here is a policeman! I’m safe!”) As my wise sister reassuringly pointed out, Carly handled a surprisingly scary situation with initiative and decisiveness, while commenting casually “I’m never going back there.”

Other quick texts from Carly do this mom’s freakish heart good, “Found a Sunday night church service,”  “Say Hi to the Youth Group.” “Thanks for pics. Kinda miss you.”

Until last weeks’ text, “Food poisoning. Nearly threw up in class on the 2nd day of school.” 😦  We actually traded texts for a few day while she was sick in bed—mostly about immodium— and it was followed up 6 days later,”Things better.” (Subtext:Don’t need you anymore, mom… for now.”)  I am proud of Carly’s brave handling of new challenges.

Meanwhile, I know all the drama of leaving (and then returning for three weeks this summer) will be followed up in rapid succession by a theatrical encore, her August college departure for Davidson College in North Carolina.

Carly’s leaving is not temporary: “I’m going far, far away from you, mama!” She’s on her way to adulthood. While Carly is in Argentina, the clock ticks on. She is truly launched.

I am getting accustomed to being a family of three.  A male, mom-is-outnumbered, family of three. As soon as I turn my focus to my son, in an instant, the next shocking count-down begins, to send him off to high school, “Ten, nine, eight…”

 

 

Beyond Duct Tape and a Good ER

Posted on by revtassiegreen

a-duct-tape-wallpaperAs I was duct taping the bumper today, I thought as I often do, “Am I on Candid Camera?” The stuff of my life is often too wacky to seem for real. Or maybe a better thought, “What if my life had a laugh track to remind me to take it all lightly?”

Oh, for that I do have two handy teenagers. No roses, no thanks, no sentimental expressions of love for Mother’s Day this year. “ Mom, I can’t believe you had a baby. Babies are parasites living off your own well-being. That’s just gross,” stated my seventeen-year-old daughter ever-so-sweetly. My snappy reply: “Yes you are a parasite. The cutest parasite I’ve ever loved.” As my friend Lance says, “That’s comedy, folks.”

Doesn’t it feel like we parents are, indeed, being sucked dry by parasites? On better days, we simply feel overwhelmed, as if parenting is beyond our coping ability, beyond our wildest imagination. Or we just feel worn out. Did anybody warn us about: the piercing flash of love you feel for a newborn, then days later the midnight desperation of caring for a colicky infant? How about the uncertainty of dealing with demanding toddlers in public, the stress of managing family sports schedules, or the anxiety over idiotic moves teens make? I wasn’t prepared, that’s for sure. My own mother’s favorite lines fail me now, “You just have to stay one-half step ahead of them.” Or those she used when I was a kid, “Nothing good happens after midnight.” Or “it won’t be equal, but it’ll be fair,” or was it “It won’t be fair, but it will be equal.” (I think she resorted to confusing the four of us as a last ditch effort.)

What do I think I need to cope and to thrive as a parent?

A go-to support team. Good friends or kind people who will pat me on the back, laugh with me, cry together, pray with me, and say “it’ll get easier, “ even if that might only be wishful thinking. Maybe your siblings, small group from church, or the hospital birthing class. People who can help you laugh again.

Time apart. I need my husband to tag team during a crisis, fight, or tantrum, to tap my shoulder and say, “Take a break. I’ve got this.” And if you’re a single parent, I hope you find a friend who will swap a few hours after work or weekend overnights or so you can get a break. We all need a chance to breathe and to renew our souls apart from shrieks of “Mommy. Mommy!” We need to be able to develop our own interests, too, in order to learn or relearn how to be our best selves. It’s amazing the improved perspective we can find after a little sleep or a long run.

Caring, safe adults to love our kids. We need people who will show our kids how to grow into responsible citizens, or at least people with a fun sense of humor—especially when we lose ours with the teen years. They need people who will cheer for them on the sidelines or in the auditorium. People whose faces light up when they see our kids, who greet them by name, who genuinely ask how they are and follow up. Our kids need faith mentors—to know others who also know God. Reggie Joiner calls this “widening the circle” and if I could only own two parenting helps, they’d be Parenting Beyond Your Capacity by Reggie Joiner and Carrie Nieuwhof and Parenting with Love and Logic by Jim Fay and Foster Cline.

Faith and Hope. Ultimately, beyond the daily basics, lessons, and comforts we provide for years, we launch and let go of our kids in faith, with hope and a prayer. God is responsible for how our kids learn and grow–and thankfully God loves them far more than even we can. In Sticky Faith, which I also give my highest recommendation–Kara Powell encourages parents to find God’s hope and redemption even in hard circumstances:

The odds are great that your child will ‘cross the line,’ or for some of our kids, catapult over the line. What do we do then?... Don’t panic. There are very few issues you will face as parents that are irredeemable, even the biggies…. Take the long view. The ultimate hope that is part and parcel of trusting God is the hope we have that in the long run, God’s mercy will win. We many not see it or experience it exactly the way we want to for months, or even years but trusting Christ means we believe that He is at work, bringing healing and redemption to the most hopeless of circumstances.[1]

I also need a bottle of ibuprofen, duct tape, a good ER, and a solid 529 plan, but I’ll leave it for you to fill in the blanks. What do you think you need as a parent?

            [1] Kara Powell and Chap Clark, Sticky Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 45-46.

 

Sinkholes and Smartphones

Posted on by revtassiegreen

Sinkholes

I zoomed home to find my street blocked off with police cars and caution tape. All the neighbors were congregating down the block, peering down into a sinkhole gaping open in the sidewalk. One-foot-wide and twenty-five-feet-down. Rare for the Northeast. Easily fixed with stones and concrete slurry.

Nothing compared to the sinkholes in Florida that engulf entire homes or swallow semi-trucks, perched or parked unknowingly on unstable, water-filled ground. One minute i-prac-sinkholethe surface looks good, then cracks appear, warning of immanent trouble. I remember the day my brother’s Sweetwater neighbors were told to evacuate their home immediately; the dining room caved in two hours later.

Sinkholes are commonplace in Florida, but drastic visuals combined with neighbor interviews make for good tv, so they are featured over and over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4zjQyN7ERA

In one dramatic newscast, a Central Florida TV13 anchor intones solemnly over footage of a home split in two, “People are amazed by the sight and struck by the tragedy.”

Neighbor John V. drawls, “This whole area is sinkhole prone. Not something you expect to come home to.”

His ten-year-old son Michael adds, “They’re very nice. It’s sad to see their house fall down.”

Finally, an unidentified neighbor sums it up, “Am I concerned about my house? Absolutely.”[1]

Sinkholes swallow entire families, too. We’ve all helplessly watched it happen to a neighbor or friend. Drugs. Alcohol. Domestic violence. Lives fall apart. Dramatic, sad stories of sinkholes.

Virtual Sinkholes

What about lesser-recognized, virtual sinkholes swallowing up more and more kids and their families with them? It starts simply enough on the smartphones and devices our kids keep glued to their hands and grows into inappropriate media exposure. Because of the starkly-negative effects of gaming violence on boys, I remember saying a few years ago to my sister, “The most dangerous thing in your home is that Game Cube.” Not true anymore.

With bored kids, simple curiosity turns into more than they bargained for in a few clicks. As the neighbor in the sinkhole report said, “It’s not something you expect to come home to.” Screen Shot 2015-04-20 at 11.34.53 AMParents are unaware how bedroom websurfing; unsupervised nighttime visits to sketchy sites; chats with “new friends” a.k.a strangers; even competitive dares, one-up-manship, and locker-room boy-talk of “everyone’s trying it” can lead to impulsive, unsafe behavior all too quickly. Alarming and addictive content and unhealthy, virtual relationships can sink kids into pits of blackness. One first-grade boy I know did a web search on “boobs’ and, hilariously, came up with every gross picture of breast cancer, infection, and tumor imaginable. Thanks be to God! Aversion therapy! But was that his last search? Nope.

The dangers await behind the surface of our kids’ screens to suck them in. As parents or family and youth ministers, like those Florida neighbors, we rarely spot the cracks to realize the extent of the upcoming trouble.

I can easily think of at least six, Christian kids from six, strong. Christian families who dabbled with porn, sexting, high-risk chat sites, and the occult from the apparent safety of their bedrooms. Those are just the few who couldn’t hide their habits or mistakes any longer. Am I being overly dramatic like that Florida newscaster? No. The stats are earth-shaking and speak for themselves.[2]

If your teen is unhappy, pulling away, becoming secretive, spending more and more time in front of a screen, defensive about computer use, or quickly changing screens when you approach, these are potential danger signs of internet addiction and unhealthy or unsafe computer use. http://www.helpguide.org/articles/addiction/internet-and-computer-addiction.html

Do parents stand a chance? What can we do to prevent sinkholes?

First, pray. Walk through your home and pray in and for all the spaces where your kids play, work, and sleep. Pray for your kids throughout the day and with them at bedtime. I am inspired by the faith of my great-grandparents who prayed daily for all the generations of our family, including those yet unborn, and their spouses. In our family, we count this as part of God’s faithful plan to draw my husband to Christ. Though he was raised in a vehemently atheistic family, now he’s a pastor. Parents do not need to throw up their hands in despair, for God cares about our children more than we do. Learning can happen even in and through these difficult circumstances.

Second, forgive. Both your child for crossing boundaries and yourself for missing the signs or trusting them. Find a counselor to help you work it through as a family. God can and does redeem all of us in and through brokenness. There’s comfort in Lamentations 3:51-58, from The Message,

When I see what’s happened to the young women in the city, the pain breaks my heart. Enemies with no reason to be enemies hunted me down like a bird. They threw me into a pit, then pelted me with stones. Then the rains came and filled the pit. The water rose over my head. I said, ‘It’s all over.’ I called out your name, O God, called from the bottom of the pit. You listened when I called out, ‘Don’t shut your ears! Get me out of here! Save me!’ You came close when I called out. You said, ‘It’s going to be all right.’ You took my side, Master; you brought me back alive!

In Sticky Faith, which I give my highest recommendation as a parenting book, Kara Powell encourages parents to find God’s hope and redemption even in hard circumstances:

Because our kids grow up in an increasingly complex and precarious world, filled with expectations and agendas that at times feel impossible to navigate, the odds are great that your child will ‘cross the line,’ or for some of our kids, catapult over the line. What do we do then? Default with compassion…. We are dispensers of God’s grace. Don’t panic. There are very few issues you will face as parents that are irredeemable, even the biggies…. Take the long view. The ultimate hope that is part and parcel of trusting God is the hope we have that in the long run, God’s mercy will win. We many not see it or experience it exactly the way we want to for months, or even years but trusting Christ means we believe that He is at work, bringing healing and redemption to the most hopeless of circumstances.[3]

Third, turn it off. Have device-free meals and family outings. This may be harder for us adults, actually. We’re no less addicted. Focus on your kids and savor real-time interactions. Build memories and eat meals together. Should I be “concerned about my house? Absolutely.” Be present. Be proactive. Begin this week.

Monitor and limit device usage, especially at night. Most computers and tvs have parent controls, but how many of us technologically-challenged parents take time to learn and use them? Until today. Make new rules and new beginnings. No devices or phones in the bedrooms after a certain time. Though I was irritated beyond measure when my mom used to say, “Nothing good happens after midnight,” she was right. Screens before bed negatively impact sleep and health, too.[4] George Frazier, the computer/internet guru at our school district, teaches parents how to restrict internet wifi access to kids’ devices during certain hours.

Change router settings and talk with your cell phone provider to turn off overnight access (note: calls to parents and 911 can always be allowed.) Parents can also block particular websites. Kids will have to plan ahead to make contact with friends or get homework done before the deadline or the parent can decide to override the schedule in necessary instances. Resist warnings or lectures. Say, “I put some safety measures in place in our home because I love you and want you to be free to be a kid and have fun online, not be tempted by unsafe or adult content.”

Frazier recommends iboss monitoring devices, which I found complicated. He has added a personal message that pops up for his kids whenever the iboss blocks a website or unsafe activity, “Do your homework.” My family uses the TeenSafe subscription service, which allows a parent to track texts, web history, cell location, and especially deleted messages. I keep different levels of monitoring for my thirteen-year-old boy than for my seventeen year-old girl. Not because I naively think girls are less susceptible to temptation, but at her life-stage, she is increasing her independence while I am actively coaching her to make her own good decisions before she leaves home next year. It takes vigilance and work to keep the devices neutralized in our homes.

Fourth, talk it over. Awkward, yes. Necessary? Yes. We cannot protect our kids from everything, especially when their innocent surfing for silly, fluffy cat videos on youtube can so easily turn into something eye-popping. Every parent, pre-teen, and teen need to have real conversations together about the temptations of and struggles with porn. Maybe have your kids role-play how to choose well and to say, “No, thanks. Let me show you my favorite music video–or parkour stunt video.” It’s the internet equivalent of “stranger danger” or DARE drug abuse education, which many of us parents were taught. Protect and prevent. Reassure our kids that we will love them no matter how easy or difficult they make their own lives, but some choices can lead to life-long struggles with sin and temptation. Or immediate danger from strangers posing as “friends.”

So what do sinkholes and smartphones share in common? An unsuspecting bystander, five minutes, and a deep pit.

Of course, you and your family can climb back out of the pit with God’s help, but why wait for disaster to take action? Be proactive to protect your kids. Don’t give into the draw of devices. Pray, forgive, turn it off, and talk it over. Today.

            [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4zjQyN7ERA (accessed April 20, 2015.)

[2] http://www.covenanteyes.com/2010/08/19/teens-and-porn-10-stats-your-need-to-know/(accessed April 20, 2015.)

            [3] Kara Powell and Chap Clark, Sticky Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), 45-46.

            [4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/23/reading-before-bed_n_6372828.html (accessed April 19, 2015.)