The pause. It has become one of the best tools in the parenting kit. Like anything else it takes practice. The more you do it, the better you get. Part of using it is having patience. Another lesson to teach through example. Everything takes time.

As written about previously there are a few frustrations that happen with the other parent. While our views and thoughts tend to be in direct conflict of each other, that does not help my daughter. I could let that frustration show (and it probably does from time to time). Could scream “NNNNNNNOOOOOOOOO…” when told something that bursts my hair into flames, while the walls laugh at the absurdity of what was said.

Or pause. And ask, what do you think? Does that make sense to you? Do you have any questions about that? It is not saying one parent is right or the other is wrong. It is asking her to practice critical thinking. It is giving her agency over information, thoughts, and opinions. It creates a pathway to conversation.

That is the practice. There are times something is heard that causes a visceral reaction. If paying attention, it may get caught. My daughter’s reaction shows it. She notices the changes in my voice and face.

Sidebar: There were these cards that came out around the time she was born. They were “face” cards that showed and described different emotions. We would go through the cards and see kids sad, happy, frustrated, angry and talk about the emotions and corresponding faces being made. We would do the same in the mirror, usually while brushing her teeth. She would say what face to make, and I would make it. “Make a sad face. A startled face. A worried face”. The lessons were, to be honest, unintended from cards that seemed like a good idea. She was not only learning words, but tone, and to recognize emotions in faces.  She was also learning the meaning of words, emotions, reactions, and feelings. Flash cards for emotions.  And the benefits have carried forward. Probably not a stretch to say those cards will be more beneficial in her life than any math or English lesson. (Double bonus: screen free bonding, interactions and fun).

I have learned to prepare myself for picking her up. That is why Wednesday went well. (Almost rewrote the frustrations again, but there is no reason to revisit those.) The pause happened before getting her. Patience and kindness were at the ready when she was home.

Thursday had bumps. Though, it was better than Wednesday night. Friday morning, as this is being written, has been normal on every level. She slept longer and better than Wednesday. She is eating more and a better breakfast. She will be better prepared and rested for her first day of in school learning on Tuesday (over a year since being in school).

This is written today as a reminder for work, relationships, children, friends, parents, whatever your unique situation may be. I can only speak for me, but what was taught to me about love, life, liking, relationships, how we work as people was about zero. The most important information, lessons and tools were pretty much missed.

Yet, the gift that was given came in the 6th grade. My mother “tricked” me into reading (a story for another time). That is one thing that led here. A love of books. One of the major focuses raising my daugther was to pass on a love of books. That has been a positive check in this  parenting journey.

To end this, practice taking a pause.  Do it randomly.  Turn off the TV and wait for five minutes.  Turn off your phone, tablet, or device.  Find a friend you are comfortable with and say, “if we ever get in a heat conversation, I’m going to ask us to stop and take a five-minute break”. 

Do not be afraid to teach it to your child.  This could start a rant, but for brevity’s sake, let us just say it seems there is a habit of thinking we must fool, or trick kids into doing what we want.  Just say, “This conversation is escalating.  I am going to take five-minutes to pause.  I’ll be back to talk some more”.  Your kid may keep being crazy, but we all know it gets really boring, real quick, fighting with no one.

Posted. Not Perfect.

A Vegan Father, navigating a non-vegan world.

This is a moment when a pause is required.  This is not about a child’s poor diet, lack of sleep and too much TV (see what I did there).  This is about a father being slightly heartbroken because of the things not just mentioned.

The story goes: It is not her fault.  On the way to pick her up you remind yourself of this.  It happens as expected.  You knew this was coming.  You knew how she would be acting.  You knew it would not be her.  You see it.  It breaks your heart.  Stay calm, for her.  You are kind.  Your voice is even.  You repeat your words. It is not personal.  Do not take it that way.  She is tired, jacked up on sugar and whatever.  She is leaving her friend and her cats.  It takes about two minutes for her to start to regulate.  Her talk is negative.  It will pass.  Do not feed it.  She needs time.  Give it.  She says something unkind. It is not her or her feelings.  Let it pass. She just needs home, sleep and tomorrow.

It was not long ago it was frustrating when she would not fall asleep.  The frustration from the why*cough*her*cough*mom*cough*, to the things that would come when she fell asleep.  Which were just shows and doing random nothing stuff online.  Why be frustrated with something that is out of your hands 50% of the time?  Choice.  Bad choices, poor focuses.

Make a different choice. Modify behaviors to teach and be a better example.  Stressing about wanting to watch shows?  Get rid of the TV.  Worried about email?  Break the addiction.  What else is past this moment? Nothing. Sitting next to the bed there is nothing to get to.  Stay calm. Patient and positive energy. 

She is asleep.  It did not take too long.  She fought it.  Twitching. Rubbing red sunken eyes.  It may seem like this is complaining or venting frustrations about someone… ok, maybe a sprinkle.

Yet, what this is about is what you can do with you.  What I am about to write is horrible, but also true:  This is making me a better person.  A better father. Because it must.  Being sad and miserable bingeing TV was not getting it done.  Sitting down to write, passes time more quickly and productively.  As said before, it takes between 1-3+ hours to write 2-5 minutes of reading.  Worth every second.  Reading becomes lost in pages, fighting to stay away to read just… one… more…. Nope.

To do lists.  Blogging.  Podcasting.  Getting ready to start a YouTube Channel (late to the party anyone?).  Yes, I am frustrated.  Yes, seeing her like that breaks me in ways that may never fully heal.  Yet, what can be done?  Make the most of the time given.  Both with and without her. 

My life is getting simpler. Needing and wanting less.  Sitting beside her, as she was falling asleep, thoughts drifted to the set-up of our living room without a TV.  Some living rooms are constructed around the TV.  Not to be dramatic, but it is literally set up to be worshiped.  Like those movies (ironically, enough) where you see the Virgin Mary in some old lady’s house occupying the place of a TV today.  Or a church where you have Christ hanging above a preacher, with everyone wrapped around watching the show. (That is a lot of weird catholic examples from an atheist). 

It was fun visualizing the living room set up without factoring in the TV alter.  The opposite of feng shui. Choice of freedom.

Does some of this stuff make me angry?  Kind of.  Really more from a place of fear.  Fear of what is being taught to my daughter for her future, and her future health.  That is not today’s topic. Though, it does play into what was written yesterday from Hannah Gadsby.  That is, not having the right to spread anger or fear.  My daughter knows about my choices and why.  It is hard for a child to turn down or question what the other parent is saying or doing or giving to her. 

Be better.  That is the only productive option.  She will ultimately make her own choices.  The other day I asked her if it was confusing having to deal with the different houses, rules, and philosophies around food and health.  She said yes.  I told her if she ever gets confused about something she learns here, or it is counter to what she was told elsewhere to say so.  We can look it up and use it as a teaching moment.  That whatever was told to her here can and will be backed up with facts and science.

Today’s parting thought: Write, read, do not spread anger or fear, make a to-do list, run, take walks.  From Ryan Holiday’s simplification of Stoicism:  We can not control what is done to us (our child).  We can control our reaction.

Posted. Not Perfect .                                                                                                                                                       A Vegan Father, navigating a non-vegan world.

It is reported that in 2017 the Self-help industry was worth 9.9 billion dollars.  Many of us are seeking answers.  We learn, sometimes too late, those we saw in certain light, needed help.  They were searching and their search, or hiding, led to self-destruction. 

In the past few years, time has been spent wanting to better understand hurt and anger.  When you are unable to identify, label, or understand what is being felt, why it is being felt; it leaks out.

Pick your poison.  Alcohol.  Drugs.  Overworking.  Locking the door and hiding inside.  Escaping into a book.  Staying out all night.  Eating poorly.  Smiling so big they cannot see the pain.  We find what works for us.  We find what we feel works for us.  We find what we think works for us.  We distract instead of engage.  We engage to distract.

We duck and weave.  We float and sting.  There is no simple answer.  Life takes work. If it’s not taking work, it’s stealing time. The objective of life is awareness.  Your head can be down, while looking up from time to time.  If you are looking up, sometimes you see something that helps.  That was Nannette for me (a Netflix special by Hanna Gadsby that didn’t cost any more than what was being paid):

I have lived a life.  The damage done to me is real and debilitating. I will never flourish. This is why I must quit comedy. Because the only way I can tell my truth and put tension in the room is with anger. And I am angry and I believe I’ve got every right to be angry. But what I don’t have a right to do is to spread anger. I don’t. Because anger, much like laughter, can connect a room full of strangers like nothing else. But anger, even if it’s connected to laughter, will not relieve tension. Because anger is a tension. It is a toxic infectious tension. And it knows no other purpose than to spread blind hatred. And I want no part of it. Because I take my freedom of speech as a responsibility. And just because I can position myself as a victim does not make my anger constructive. It never is constructive. Laughter is not our medicine. Stories hold our cure. Laughter is just the honey that sweetens the bitter medicine. I don’t want to unite you with laughter or anger. I just needed my story heard. My story felt and understood by individuals with minds of their own. Because like it or not your story is my story. And my story is your story. I just don’t have the strength to take care of my story anymore. I don’t want my story defined by anger. All I can ask is just please help me take care of my story. Do you know why we have the sunflowers? it’s not because Vincent van Gogh suffered. It’s because Vincent van Gogh had a brother who loved him. Through the pain he had a tether. A connection to the world. And that is the focus of the story we need. Connection. Thank you.  -Hanna

For me, through lots of work, it was determined not to be anger.  But fear.  Easily confused those two.  Hanna could have replaced anger with fear, and it would still hold true.  She is right, anger spreads, because it is easy to attach to.  Just has there have been too many laughs from a place of fear, anger, and hatred.  They can bring people together.

During the divorce I sought to understand the hurt and fear/anger.  I did not want it to spread.  Not to my daughter.  My friends.  My podcast.  My co-workers.  I did not want to let the situation cause hurt and fear/anger.  Yet, at times it did. It was a choice to not give it a place to go. To keep it inside.  Knowing it was leaking out, bit by bit.  Lingering on past mistakes. Treating myself like the guy from the Davinci Code with that weird leg thorn thing.  Only… you know, not that.

Last night, my dream came from a place of fear.  Fear, that felt like anger. Awake in the middle of the night, I was able to say, “this is just a moment”.  Negative energy trying to seep in.  Not long ago that would have  worked. Drained and spiraling in fear.  Instead, there was control over thoughts, memories, and a choice to not let the fear in.  Closed my eyes and slept the rest of the night.

There are moments we have a right to be fearful and hurt or angry.  There are times we can justify our anger. Yet, that does not give us the right to put that fear, hurt and anger back into the world. Hanna said it well, “… what I don’t have a right to do is to spread anger.” Simply put, that one.  I did not know what to do with my hurt, fear/anger.  Just that I did not want it to spread.

It has been 8 years since giving up sugar and sweets (mostly).  I can just now drink coffee without soymilk in it.  I have been training myself to journal in the two-minute journal for 2 years.  A daily check list still a reminder to write in it.  Every morning I get to pick up my daughter, the same thing is written in my journal: be patience, understanding and kind.

We will never be all of whatever it is we want to be.  That does not mean we should not work at it.  Reminding ourselves who we want to be. And the answer could (and maybe should) evolve over time.  And it does take time.  Sometimes a long time.  I will not go back to sugar, nor stop writing in the two-minute journal. With or without a reminder. The investment is worth the result.

Take Hanna’s advice.  Find a connection.  A tether.  Someone who cares about you.  Someone you care about.  We are not made, designed, or built to be alone.  Find someone that will not feed your anger, or fear.  Someone that helps you laugh at the absurdity of life. Someone that challenges you to be better daily.

Find someone that will help you paint your version of van Gough’s Sunflowers.

Thank you.

Posted. Not Perfect.

A Vegan Father, navigating a non-vegan world.

Sometimes when writing I’ll catch a phrase coming out like, “everyone knows to eat healthy”, “we all know we should be taking at least a 20 minute walk every day”, or “we all know it’s good to journal, we just don’t do it”. Plenty of others.  Fill in the blank.

I try to catch those moments, because the fact is there is so much, we do not know. Facts and figures everywhere.  Things that are utterly meaningless to us until they are not.  For example, a mother who knows nothing about cancer, then had a child who gets cancer.  Suddenly, she knows all there is to know.  Maybe starts a non-profit.  Maybe does charity events to raise money.  She can talk with the Doctor like a graduate with a degree in medicine with a focus on cancer.

The point is, we often do not know a thing until life makes us know a thing.  Even the example above is not fair.  There are plenty of parents that might be working their butts off to keep up with the medical bills to keep their child alive.  They do not have time to learn the ins and outs of cancer and start a non-profit.

*This is written after being posted. I posted this, then kept thinking about it and wanted to add something. There are more than the two above options or reactions to a situation. Maybe, the parent becomes overwhelmed. Maybe, they curl up into a ball and can’t face what is happening. There is no way to address all the possible reactions or the reasons for a reaction. Which is the point. You will be coming with your issues, backstory and reactions. As will the next person and the next. We can’t know all the things. We can be wise enough to monitor our reaction to all the things. Then catching ourselves when we don’t catch ourselves. It’s all very complex.*

One minute you think you have this parenting thing under control.  Then, a curve ball.  Your child says or does something that throws you off. Now, what?  How do we handle this one?

Today is not about coming to an answer or a conclusion to these issues or questions.  Today is about taking a pause. To catch yourself before moving forward with a judgement.  Think about how you are wording something. Not your words, but how your words may be heard.  This goes for how you talk about or think about others.  It also pertains to how you talk or think about yourself.

It is not an excuse to get away with not doing better.  In fact, it will probably have the opposite effect.  It might help you see an opportunity to help someone in need or ask for help yourself.

So, catch yourself, before you speak or think.  A five second pause could be all you need. 

Posted. Not Perfect.

A Vegan Father, navigating a non-vegan world.

The three most current books: Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant; Work: A Deep History, from the Stone Age to the Age of Robots by James Suzman; Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age by Sanjay Gupta M.D.

Each book mentions the size of the brain, about 5.906 inches.  The weight of the brain, about 3 lbs.  The amount of energy our brains use:The brain consumes energy at 10 times the rate of the rest of the body per gram of tissue. The average power consumption of a typical adult is 100 Watts, and the brain consumes 20% of this making the power of the brain 20 W (https://hypertextbook.com/).

The working philosophies of a body in motion tends to stay in motion, a mind in motion tends to stay in motion; we write our stories.  Added to that is how we fuel and use energy.  It is being noticed more in the books being read. 

How we fuel and spend our energy matters.  We are just starting to understand how the brain works. We are scratching the surface of its purpose.  The “we only use 10% of our brain” myth is one of many “facts” we’ve learned is untrue (Do We Really Use Only 10 Percent of Our Brain? | Britannica).  Popularized and spread because it is fun to think it is true.  Truth is often better.  It is better to know we are using our brains at full capacity. We are using them, just not always well.

This information holds us accountable.  There is no mythological “if only I could tap into the other 90%.  Then… then I could do ‘x’”. You are using it all.  How is that energy being fueled and spent?  Reading.  Walking.  Bingeing TV.  Eating poorly.  How we use our energy is being manipulated by advertising, social media, friends, or family.  It is the opposite.  We are easily manipulated.  That is why it matters the input and output of that energy matters.

My personal example is buying things.  Retail therapy. It served a purpose in moments where there was little else. It is no longer a master to be served.  This happened because of the inputs and outputs of energy.  The energy input was advertising, sadness, what others had.  It worked. 

It is time to be better for me and my daugther.  Things are not a long-term cure for happiness.  Time to create better energy. Energy fueled and spent by listening to and reading books by authors like Cal Newport and Sarah Wilson.  Finding minimalist examples.  Those happier with less.

Daniel Tosh has this great “joke” (observation?) about money.  His set-up is about having money vs not having money.  He says having money is way better than not, because “I’ve never seen anyone depressed on a wave rider”.  Arguably true.  Yet, what does it take for most people to get a wave rider (Daniel is a 1% exception)?  You got it. Now it needs maintenance.  It needs to be stored.  The pressure to use it to justify the maintenance and storage.  On and on. 

Instead of owing, what about renting?  Enjoy it for an hour or two. A fraction of the cost, no storage, no maintenance.  You are doing more for yourself, your bank account and society in general by renting.  Your energy goes towards enjoyment, not maintenance.  Energy wasted dealing with a thing not used 99% of the time.  A win-win.  It is a good reason to  support the trend of borrowing and renting. A positive check for technology.

A favorite observation is by H. Jackson Brown Jr. “Don’t say you don’t have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.”

The choice of how they spend their energy is an inspiration.  They were not “surfing the internet”, “checking Twitter”, or worried about how many likes they were getting.  They created and added.  They were taking walks, writing, journaling, using their energy to add concepts, art, and theories. Some of which changed the world.  Clicking “like” on Twitter does nothing more than expend energy with a momentary dopamine hit.

Unfortunately, we get that hit over and over and over so quickly, so simply.  So, we do.  When we look up, it is time for bed.  Wash.  Rinse. Repeat (as necessary). Lost hours in a day.

I have talked recently about happiness.  Learning “how” to be happy doesn’t have to be difficult: follow your passion.  Journal.  Take walks.  Exercise.  Talk with friends.  Basically, my early to mid-twenties.  Those are happy memories.  Late-night conversations until the sun came up.  We think those must go away.  Yet, it would be done tonight, given the chance.  Waxing poetic through the night about hopes and fears and dreams.

When I look at how to be happy, it is doing all the things being done.  It is writing and reading and making notes and posting here.  It is setting goals, like creating a weekly podcast.  It is focusing on not being perfect, but creating, editing, and setting it free.  It is taking in and exerting energy. Productively and positively.  Energy no longer wasted on sadness and fear.

There is more to be said about energy and how it is spent it and understood.  How we fuel and use the energy we are given matters.  If my heart stops tomorrow would my daugther hear her father died eating on the couch, drinking wine, and watching Netflix?  Or would she read this?  Would my mom hear I was sad and broken and miserable?  Would my dad wonder why my heart stopped at 45?  Or would they read this? Read this and learn I was proud, focused, and creating. 

Maybe not changing the world, but no one ever said you had to.  Be better.

Posted. Not Perfect.

A Vegan Father navigating a non-vegan world.

It’s calm outside.  A chill in the air.  A tree seen through the window hangs, still.

Until the wind decides to let it move.

I have written before about “Yeah… but”.  If you do “x” you’ll get “y”.  “Yeah, but my situation is different.”  Self-pity in two words.  A phrase that excuses negativity and allows it to continue.  Stagnation. It is powerful phrase.  That is why has been (is being) excised.

“Yeah, but” has an insidious friend.  A partner that keeps the past from progressing the present.  Puts the weight of the world on my shoulders. The injustice of it all. This life.  What was done to me.

“What if…”

What if: I had married my high school girlfriend?  What if I had stayed with the girl right after her?  What if I had stayed broken up with my daughter’s mom? What if I had not pushed my best friend away?  What if my parents had done “x” instead of “y”?  “What if” can hold your hand until death.  Always the path not taken.  Always the wrong path chosen.

The past.  “What if” lives there. It keeps me there.  “Yeah, but…” and “What if…” keeps the past in the present.  Those two phrases live in the past.  It is the “before” without improvement. The excuse to be sad, broken, angry, hurt, self-pitying.  “What if…”

A benefit of morning walks with no podcasts or music: a wandering mind.  It was a morning where the “what if…” (all too often played in my head, did not go away) was doing what it always does.  Yet, this time I leaned into it and said, “ok, what if…”  My mind went to all the normal places.  Tears started to form.  I felt alone and cold (it was cold outside).  I felt like stopping, but instead said it again, “ok, what if…”  Repeat.  Again.  Repeat.  Again. 

If that sounds dramatic or made up.  It is neither of those.

Then… What if instead of being in the past, I am in the present?  “What if” does not have to be about what could have been then.  “What if” could be about now.

What if I sat and wrote a book?  What if a 9.99 was bought and used to draw?  What if I went for a run today?  What if no digital device was picked up until 830am (journaling, walking, meditating, making coffee)?  What if instead of missing my daugther, the time passed by writing and reading?  What if nothing was purchased today?

“What if” now offers pause and possibilities.  “What if” is about potential, not regret.  “What if” is an opportunity to double check a thought and make it productive.

What if is not about past regrets, it’s about possibilities for the present.  So, I took it back.

Posted. Not Perfect.

A Vegan Father, navigating a non-vegan world.

Every few pages in Neil Pasricha’s book Two Minute Mornings he will have a page of quoted research on happiness, journaling, etc.  There is also surprise “drop in” quotes/sayings.  After writing in the journal this morning, turning the page to prepare for tomorrow there was a quote on the bottom right:  The goal is not to be perfect.  The goal is to be better than before.

Various versions of that can be found on the internet.  There is a version that ends these (nearly) daily writings.  The thing is not just to read a quote, copy a quote, write a quote, journal a quote, copy and paste a quote.  Instead think about it. Process it.  Stick with it for a bit. There is a reason these writings are all ended with the same three sentences.  A reminder.  A reinforcement of a goal.

Here is the thing, each time I write, it is done with more intention.  More thought.  A desire to double check the work.  To pause.  To write. Yet write with purpose.  That is not how it started.  It started to get the hurt out.  To put thoughts and feelings down.  To get out of my head. To get it out of my head.  Self-doubt, negative talk, self-deprecating “humor”, “it’s not good enough”, “no one will read it”… had any of that been allowed in, this would not exist.

There is no “better than before” if there is no before.  The potential problem with pausing could be procrastination. Far too many years were spent in the wrong kind of pause.  Now, the pause is not debilitating.  The pause is for clarity.  Double checking.  Second checking.  Re-reading.  Improvement.

Picking up the remote and clicking on the TV is easier.  At least, it use to be.  In that before there was no improvement.  There was stagnation.  The before lead to repeating the previous behavior of not doing.  A body in motion tends to stay in motion.  A body at rest tends to stay at rest. 

Energy was not being created or expended.  Like a nuclear reactor, harmless and quiet, until there is a leak.  Then all heck breaks loose. People scramble and run away.  Or you can release the energy created, slowly, purposefully. Create a checklist and perform daily maintenance to keep things running well, properly, better. Fix problems before they occur. 

Do not worry about quality.  Do not think about anything other than creating.  No situation improves or gets better until you start. Then you can look back at the before and better appreciate the now.  Then the now soon becomes the new before.  On and on the cycle repeats.  Yet, you keep getting better.

Now, define your better.

Posted. Not Perfect.

A Vegan Father, navigating a non-vegan world.

What was not written and posted yesterday or earlier today was just as important as what is being written now.  The reason for the lack of post even more important.

One key takeaway from the past decade is to pause.  Hold.  Wait.  Come back.  I do not need to look at or re-read what was written and un-posted Tuesday/Wednesday.  It was venom.  It was hurt.  It was frustration. It was cathartic.  It is unpublished.

Few things in this world are perfect.  That is one of them.  It has been told by others to write down what you are feeling, hurting, angry, whatever about.  Get it on paper, blarg it onto the page.  Then… let go.

What is a “perfect” in this world?  Doing that.  Write it.  Scream it.  Blarg it.  Set it free.  For no one in this world to see.

This past year has been harder than ever imagined.  Like the scene in Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom.  Incantations.  A  hand to the chest.  A beating heart ripped from said chest.  This is a pain like no other.  That is not being dramatic.

So, breath.  Pause.  Wait.  This is the reality.  Now what?

… more to come…

Posted. Not Perfect.

A Vegan Father, navigating and non-vegan world.

The past couple of posts have focused on parenting.  More on modeling behavior, working with where children are, not where we wish they were.  Anger, frustration, overwhelmed.  That is us. Not them.  We fail to understand how the brain works.  We fail to learn about and understand how a child develops.  How they grow. What the stages of getting from point A to point B are.

Our ignorance crates friction.  Not the child developing and growing.  The human brain does not fully develop until age 25.  It starts regression at age 24.  Expressed multiple times, stupid parenting cliches and our elder’s ignorance cannot and should not be what dictates how we parent.

Unfortunately, trying to be a good parent with knowledge and information tends to get shamed or ridiculed.  Words like coddling, overprotective, hovering, helicopter parenting, treating them with “kid gloves” (seriously, it is in the name you @$%).

One of the least favorite cliches is “oh, just wait until they become a teenager”.  One, don’t do that.  Two, how about I enjoy this moment and time with my child.  Too often when talking about my daugther people say, “Just wait until she becomes a teenager”.  Maybe, just maybe, the problem you had with your teenager was… YOU.  It does not fall on them to figure out how to be raised.  Maybe, just maybe, it is on the parent to learn and understand why a “teenager” is acting the way they are. 

Hint, it is not because they are an asshole.  It is because their brain is developing and experiencing things differently.  It seems to have more to do with the “adult” not being able to get a child to act how they want that causes friction. Not, the adult learning how to better deal with and interact with the child. 

It is my belief the teenage years are hard, because the adult is trying to force a square peg into a circle.  It falls on the parent to be patience, kind, and understanding.  That is not weak parenting.  That is knowledge-based parenting.

When arguments would happen in my past with someone about how I would parent I would think (and never said) “my ego is not tied to whether a 3-year-old does what I say”.  So much pressure is put on children to have to navigate and understand and do what their authority figures say.  They get scolded, yelled at, brow-beaten for not knowing, understanding or being able to comprehend.

It may be coming out here, but there were a couple of frustrating moments the past couple of days with my daugther.  Nothing to do with her directly. It comes from lack of sleep, not eating well, and having to code switch between two people that are on literal opposite sides of the spectrum on everything.  I am not as forceful as another person in her life.  So, my lessons do not get forced.  I continue to teach and educate more through doing and example.  The fortunate part of this is being able to identify it, so it does not get taken out on my daugther.  It strengthens my resolve to be calm and patience and look towards the future not today. 

All that to say this: Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Can Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans by Michaeleen Doucleff.  I listened to her interview on Politics and Pose last night (P&P Live! Michaeleen Doucleff—Hunt, Gather, Parent: What Ancient Cultures Teach Us About the Lost Art of Raising Happy, Helpful Little Humans—with Julie Lythcott-Haims | Politics and Prose Bookstore (politics-prose.com).

Hearing Michaeleen talk last night was mind bending in a self-serving way.  She was talking about the very things I wrote about yesterday and the day before.  How to better treat our children by understanding and meeting them where they are.  To teach them through modeling behavior.  Patience and kindness.  If you see that through and old lens, you will see something vastly different than what science sees as happening.  How do you respond to being yelled at?  Scolded?  Punished for a mistake?  Have you, as an adult, had no clue how to do something, or were not given the proper training or information, then been yelled at by someone for not “doing it right”?

Now, imagine being that child.  You need time to breath and process. They need more.

Posted. Not Perfect.

A Vegan Father, navigating a non-vegan world.