in search of realistic parenting advice

I finally got around to reading "No Drama Discipline" based on a recommendation of a friend. I am reading the book and nodding my head: yes, connection, yes, a behavior is a cry for help, yes, regain composure. Slowly but surely a seed of doubt crawls in: this is all nice and well, but the parent has to always control herself, not to react, act loving, be comforting, suppress the impulse to yell, to release tension, Moreover, all the examples conveniently have only one child that the parent has to connect to at any given time, and somehow that connection happens fast enough not to interfere with the rest of life.


Overall, I have nor found any super new, earth-shattering material (I am about a hundred pages in). I have been applying a lot of the advice in this book in my parenting already: talk to the child, spend a lot of time in his or her world, connect, calm them down, redirect, be present, look at the big picture instead of immediate behavior change. But what the authors of this book (and other similar books) do not mention is how exhausting all of this is, how mentally draining. Now throw in more than one child and you got a situation ripe for a disaster.

My husband is on call the entire weekend. Somehow that very important piece of information slipped my mind, so I invited a friend over for Shabbos. Then I tried inviting other families who have kids in the similar age range to her kids, so all of a sudden, the Shabbos table had to be set for 20. Naturally, that is the very Shabbos that my husband got called up to deliver a baby before lunch even started. So I am madly prepping food, my kids are in shul unsupervised, my baby is running around in pajamas, and I should go over to shul to get those kids and guests. My friend helped and helped. My guests all pitched in. But naturally, this is the Shabbos that my 2 yo will not go down for a nap, I have people gathering downstairs that do not know each other, my daughter is trying to find girl-centric space in a house heavy on the boy side... My sobbing 2 yo just needs her mommy to hold her and rub her back to fall asleep.

But I end up trying to host this lunch, and with everyone helping and being easy-going, it ends up working out.The 2 yo does not end up napping. I am stressed already. I mentally make a note of making a better job scheduling large company when my husband can get called up. But now I host, serve, talk, take a drink of wine.

The guests leave, sweetly taking 7 yo and 4 yo with them. The older boys leave for shul with their friends. It grows quiet. And 2 yo decides it is time for connection. I talk to her, I read to her, I make myself a cup of tea, but I spend more time finding animals in her book than reading my book or drinking. I feed her some sort of dinner.

Everyone comes back for havdalah. My husband rushes out to round in the hospitals. And I am left trying to get everyone to collect laundry and into pajamas and into bed. I need to recharge and I know it, but instead I get a sulky teen and cranky daughter who does not want to go to bed and 4 yo who needs to go and get an ice cube to suck before falling asleep. And can they have computer time? And don't they see the state of the house?!

I wake up in a sour mood, but I try to cheer myself up with a quiet cup of coffee before everyone resurfaces for the day. 4 yo is peeking out from his room and HE wants to cuddle on the couch. so I do (connection, right?) but I miss my chance at a quiet cup because more and more kids wake up and they all want something. And I want boys to go to minyan that is at 8 so I am rushing them to be ready. And I'm trying to make pancakes because I'm hungry and who does not like pancakes? But my kids do not touch them, as my husband comes downstairs, at five to 8, phone pressed to his ear, scheduling a procedure at 9. So I shove the boys out the door to superfast shul while 2 yo makes maple syrup handprints.

And then they are back and everyone ignores my third polite request to please start sorting and folding the clean laundry. I become more direct with 13 yo: either you fold the laundry and I get 2 yo dressed, or vice versa. He picks his sister (aw, sweet!) and I go to the basement to make the guest bed witrh clean linens.

When I come back up, I am greeted by wails from upstairs. 11 yo comes down and pointedly asks me don't I hear what is going on and why am I ignoring her? I go upstairs where I find 2 yo manically trying to remove her diaper while 13 yo is tugging in vain to keep it on. They are both screaming in frustration. I take the baby who sits on me, butt-naked, sobbing and direct the rest of the kids back downstairs to sort and fold laundry. They go. I am connecting with her, but not with them. I see that she has a diaper rash and offer her a quick bath. She is delighted. She takes her time. I holler downstairs for someone to please bring me a towel and a bath mat because they are in that laundry. No response. I do not want to leave the girly alone in the tub, so I holler again.I am informed that those items are still wet in the dryer. I quickly run to get a spare.

By the time the leisurely bath with a calm 2 yo is coming to an end, I am hearing wails of 4 yo from downstairs. He comes up crying that he has way too much to fold and sort and he cannot do it. The truth is that I have been usually doing his laundry for him, so I am sure his siblings just made a large pile and that is overwhelming. Hearing her brother cry, 2 yo starts whining again. I rush to get her dressed before she loses it and come downstairs.

7 yo is exasperated because she has been trying to train her younger brother in the art of clothes folding, but he was having none of that. I pick up crying 4 yo and let him melt into me. Connection, right? Now 2 yo runs over and tries pushing him off, making space for herself. Neither of them is happy. I end up folding clothes for 4 yo that he puts away through tears. 13 yo is sulking, again. 11 yo pipes up how what I am doing is unfair, again. I see a large pile of leftover unsorted socks, again. And I have a few more loads to run.

So when 7 yo decides to open the blinds a few minutes later, she yanks on the cord a little bit harder than usual and the whole molding falls down, with the blind still attached. And it is Sunday right before New Year's day. And there is a large nail protruding. and a nice gash in the wall, And I lose it and yell all the frustration and all the connection that I have been giving away without getting anything for myself, without getting a break, without time to recharge, to even read about what is supposed to happen after all the connection. And I yell a little bit harder than the situation calls for. And I break all the connections that I have been building. 7 yo runs away from me, screaming. Two younger ones disappear.A few minutes later I get a hand-delivered note saying that she is sorry and I can do with her whatever I want. Poor child, one minute your mother is a saint and the next she is a raving lunatic. I sit next to her, I pick her up and hold her and tell her that I am sorry for yelling at her. I just did not want a broken wall.

And I do not get to finish because her friends come and pick her up and she leaves through tears.

I am looking for a parenting book where a parent is not a pushover, an only adult for most of the situations, and there are multiple children to deal with at all times. Because I have all the tools, but I do not have the circumstances that allow me to apply them successfully and healthfully.

Disclaimer: as I was typing this late at night, 13 repeatedly interrupted me to read yet another panel of the comics that he founde funny (his bid for connection) and I repeatedly asked him to stop so I could focus.

hectic day

Today was very hectic. My husband had a delivery to attend in the middle of the night, and the baby was up quite a bit. There was a laundry backlog, so in the morning one boy had no tzitzit. 9 yo asked to watch Pokemon for his davening treat which made sense at the time, since I wanted to make piles of laundry for the boys to fold and put away. What ended up happening was that I stopped them in the middle, and which 7 yo folded his laundry and taught his sister how to to fold shorts and pants, 9 yo sulked about chumash. He does not want to do it. There is more speeches about how its unfair that he is doing chmaush while his brother is doing laundry and then he will be stuck doing laundry while he will get to watch. I pointed out that he could be working on chumash instead of wasting time complaining about it, but he did not feel any better. He does not want to review. He does not want to do Rashi. He did not want to fold laundry either. I felt that I spent the whole morning coaxing him to do what he should be doing anyway.

spontaneous group davening

Then we drove out to a filed trip in Tellus museum. When I committed to it, I did not realize that it will involve an hour of driving. Thankfully, the baby slept the whole way. When we got there, my kids knew other homeschooled kids, so they hung out a bit watching a pendulum. There was a workshop on bubble-making for the boys. I let my daughter lead the way through the rest of the exhibits. One of the moms told me about a room where one can pan for gems, and about a dinosaur dig. I made sure that we attended those. 

experimenting with inclined planes

When I give a chance for my daughter to spend as long as she wants on the activities in the absence of boys, she picks a few things and does them for a long time instead of covering a lot of ground. She spent the bulk of the time panning and fossil digging. She got to keep all the gems and a shark tooth. Little did I know that 9 yo will covet those more than the bubble fluid they made in the workshop! He was upset that they did not get to pan. We had to rush out since we would not get back in time for taekwondo and the boys were supposed to get their fighting gear. 

On the way back we hit some traffic, so the boys were late. The baby woke up once we got off the highway, and nobody could reach his pacifier. I hate it when we are rushing. Once we got to taekwondo the boys still had to change into their uniforms, and I had to nurse a screaming baby. 3 yo fell asleep and woke up screaming that the baby is screaming and that is bothering her. Oy!

digging for fossils

On the way back I had to stop by the library to return a book and couple of DVDs. I dropped them off, only to come home and find a message that one of the cases was missing its DVD. Sure enough, it was still in my computer. 

We got home after 6, and I still had dinner to make and laundry to tackle. 9 yo kept asking which other chores he needs to do, as he wanted to watch TV before 7. At some point, I just had to tell him that it will not be happening and that led to more disappointment.

Finally everyone was fed, and changed into pajamas. I read to 3 yo, while the boys read on their own. Our library has a summer reading program, where for every 15 minutes of reading we are supposed to attach a sticker and then turn in a log for prizes. What it leads to are never-ending questions of "How long have I been reading?" Well, I did not see when you started, and I have no doubt that you read enough in a week to finish the log, but, for propriety's sake, you need to keep track of it. I just saw a statistic that kids need to read 4-5 books over the summer to keep up their reading level. I think they read that many in the course of the day. Even 3 yo is "trying" to read, i.e. memorize a book and recite it back.

Oh what a day! Somehow our unschooling is not producing as low-key experience as I would like it to be.

on having fun

It is Sunday, which means laundry day. Nowadays, that means that the boys have to fold their laundry and put it away. They like this experience about as much as pulling teeth. They think it is tedious and annoying. I find it annoying when I end up washing clothes which were barely worn or never worn. Either way, I do laundry once a week, make a pile for each boy of his clothes, and it is his job to fold them and put them away.


To be honest, every Sunday morning there is also a dishwasher to unload, so there are more chores. Some days I do wonder whether this is making for a pretty intense Sunday, but I think it is important to get help from the boys in these chores, especially since it affects them directly.

We were also trying to make it out to the zoo and arrive there by 11 am, when they have a bird show. It is only on weekends, and I normally take kids to the zoo at some point during the week. Additionally, my husband was coming along and even coming in the same car with us, a rare occurrence when he's on call.

So the dishwasher was unloaded before we left, but then we got back and there were two piles of laundry waiting for the boys. 6 yo proceeded to work on his as long as I was warming up his favorite curry cauliflower soup for lunch. 8 yo was not so calm. This pile of laundry was taking away from his fun day and he really did not want to fold it. He sulked, kicked the pillows off the couch and got tattled on by 3 yo. When I asked him to put the pillows back, he said that he's mad and I said to punch something when he's mad. I sent him downstairs to punch a punching bag. He stalked off.

A few minutes later he came up, in better spirits, and proclaimed that since the day started well, he wants it to continue well, so he decided that after he folds his laundry he will take apart the broken DVD player. Then he moved right onto his pile, and finished it quite quickly. After lunch, the boys took out screwdrivers and went to tear that player apart.

I stepped back and watched all of this. The DVD player was designated to be taken apart probably a month ago, and I was wondering to myself whether I should quietly dispose of it or remind the boys of its existence. The laundry situation is the same every week. I did not promise any more "fun" for today (pizza for dinner since it is rosh chodesh). However, 8 yo decided that today started out as a fun day and he made a conscious effort to continue it as a fun day.

The other night, when I was tucking the boys in, 6 yo asked me about making wishes on a wishbone. Before I even replied (Do you think they come true? Isn't G-d in charge? etc.) he told me that he would wish for everything to be fun-fun-fun. 8 yo chimed in that he would wish to find fun in everything he does. I thought that it was cute at the time, but now I see that he took it quite seriously.

How many of us go through life waiting for someone else to make things fun and to make us happy? How many of us do not realize that we are in control of our own happiness?

Sunday

I informed my kids that we will have school this morning, That was not accepted lovingly, just to put it mildly. 2 yo woke up at 5:30, just as my husband was coming home from a delivery (I did not know that he left to deliver). So we camped out on the couch. She wanted to look at her pictures, she wanted to snuggle up, I was taking too much space. The boys came out, 6 yo first: "Mommy, today is my promotion!" He is getting tested for the next tae kwon do belt.

I figured that no sleep is coming my way, and the kids started bickering. I send them to get dressed, with the promise of french toast for breakfast. It's the best way to use leftover challah, and everyone seems to like it.

During breakfast, I announced that we will have some school in the morning, while daddy attends his continual medical education classes. It was supposed to be for an hour or two. I also explained that tomorrow we're going to Spivey Hall, so we will miss the morning's schoolwork anyway. I wrote out four things each: math, Lashon HaTorah, handwriting and script, and Lama and Chumash, with leaf raking and scarecrow making as bonus activities.

8yo started with math. He had review, but he was drawing it out, singing, making careless mistakes. 6 yo started with Lama, and then "suffered" through it: threw himself on the floor, threw his pencil, cried how he can't do it, etc. Voluntarily he went to his room a few times, to complete work without interruptions. The funny thing is: he knew all the answers, he was able to write them all down, but the perception of the task's difficulty was clouding his ability to sit down and get it done.

Then 8 yo moved on to script, while 6 yo started math. Same story with math: he can do all the problems, but the text insists on drawing illustrations, and he gets completely stumped, even though I DO NOT require him to draw anything, only to solve the problems.

Next was Lashon HaTorah. 8 yo finished his in a flash and we started 24th perek in Chayei Sarah. He wanted to do four pesukim; no objections from me. We got to "moshel". I explained the word's meaning and wrote down "rosh hamemshala", with translation. He immediately quoted back from Yishtabach: oz u'memshala. We high-fived.

Then he asked about that strange swearing under the thigh. I brought in Rashi. He lit up when he realized that it had to do with the brit mila. Those are the nicest moments; I feel grateful to be his teacher and experience with him the discovery of wisdom. It is amazing to see that there is a difficulty in the text, wait for him to ask a question, and then point to a right Rashi, watch him start reading it, propose his own explanation, then see what Rashi has to say and then glow with enlightenment.

For myself, I have seen these parshiyot for so many years by now. I learned them in depth in high school, but the level of new clarity and new questions is still astounding. I see these pesukim in a new light, and new ideas, or long-forgotten commentaries now make more sense.

6 yo finished math, then did handwriting and Lashon HaTorah in a jiffy. He remembered about plural suffixes, what they are and  what they do.

Then the extracurricular leaf raking commenced. The rakes were located, and the leaf pile grew and grew. I know that this is the first raking of the season and the enthusiasm is bound to wane, but for now, it is nice to see the boys working together and enjoying it.
............................

Well, I messed up and the promotion test is on Monday. That gave us a whole unscheduled afternoon that was filled with some TV watching.

My husband found a pair of dirty socks belonging to 8 yo in the basement. He fumed (not the first time it happened). I fumed too, but then I proposed turning this into a consequence: let him go and pick them up and, since I already finished all the laundry, hand wash them. I called 8 yo off in the middle of his movie. It took him a few minutes to find the socks and then I took him to the bathroom and showed him how to wet them, rub with soap, scrub, rinse and wring them out. The funny part was: he found the whole activity enjoyable, probably because he never had to do it before. Both my husband and I reminisced how we had to wash our own socks as kids, regularly, as a necessity, and there was nothing fun about that. Now my son has a life-long skill of being able to wash his clothes in case he runs out and (gasp) there is no washing machine nearby.
..............................

To top the day off, I got to overhear this conversation between the boys:

6 yo: Did you like it when you were going to school?
8 yo: Yes!
-So why did you want to be homeschooled? Did you want to be like me?
-No, I wanted to have fun and get a good education. And have more field trips. Hey, Mom, when are we going on a field trip?
Me: Tomorrow, to a concert in Spivey Hall, then, next week to a governor's mansion and the Capitol. What about NY trip? We could have not done it if you weren't homeschooled!

I guess he's warming up to the idea of school at home, after all.

laundry and control

Today was laundry day. A lot of laundry day. Mounds and mounds of laundry day. I started last night, but when you have 5-6-7 loads, it is a slow affair.

Last night, 7 yo had a sleepover at a friend's house. 5 yo was not pleased, to put it mildly. So this morning, I only had two kids at home. And mounds of laundry. I decided to ask 5 yo to help me fold towels. I showed him how to fold them in thirds one way and then in thirds the other way. He did a few. I showed him how to fold pants; he said he already knows how to fold them. He put away the clothes that he folded. And I was still left with slightly smaller mounds of laundry.

Laundry is my last area of control. Before kids, I loved doing laundry. I liked clean feel of warm clothes, straight from the dryer. I liked perfectly aligned corners of towels, shirts folded like in a store, perfectly matched socks, each pair neatly tucked. Now I dread laundry. The reasons: there is a whole lot more of it. The hampers are never empty. Kids's shirts do not stay folded neatly. Boys occasionally stick in clean clothes into laundry (it falls on the floor and then it ends up in the hamper).

Why am I not delegating laundry?

Why do I still care about perfectly aligned corners?

Why am I not letting go?

My 5 yo is perfectly capable of folding towels. They will be clean; they will be in the right spot, they just won't look like we live in a hotel. The rest of my house does not look like a hotel; moreover, I do not want it looking like a hotel; why don't I relinquish control here?

Moving onto the bigger picture: 7 yo finished reading Story of the World on his own. I was planning to read it with him together, stop after every chapter, discuss, supplement, etc. Now that he read it, and keeps on rereading it on his own, there is a controlling part of me which feels that I have not done a good job here. It wants me to believe that the only way to provide a child with knowledge is to process it first, with adult's presence and assistance. Deep down, I am worried that now he has more history at his fingertips than I. Deep down, I am worried that he has been presented with history from a different perspective than I would agree with. Deep down, I want to be viewed as a source of his knowledge, not just as a passive facilitator. Deep down, I have a controlling issue.

I am taken back to my childhood. As quite a few Russian families, we had 10 volume set of Children's Encyclopedia, in an unforgettable burnt orange binding. This encyclopedia was published in the 50s, with a strong communist perspective. I was reading it in the 80s. It was outdated. It was biased. But it allowed me to choose which areas of knowledge I was interested in. Over the years, I could read up more about those areas. I was able to correct original misconceptions. But I was able to get knowledge on my own. I cannot imagine how it would have gone, were someone to sit me down and say: " Let's read this chapter, then discuss the misconceptions and then  my opinion on the subject". I would have lost desire to read!

So I have to let go. My kid might get a biased view of history. My laundry's imperfect condition might make me cringe. But my kids' desire to do more because they do it on their own will soar.

observing kids observe nature

I am typing this to decompress and to avoid folding mounds of laundry...

Yesterday, 7 yo asked to make Mishenichnas "Our Door" sign. At 7:30 am. I printed out multiple page poster, that kept everyone busy and the floor occupied for a bit.

After breakfast, I insisted on some Chumash and I got what I asked for: he told me he does not want to do Vayeira any more. I suggested doing megilah instead, and he read first pasuk. The language is easier in megilah at this point.

Then we went to the nature center, finished off winter hikes on a gorgeous warm day. We saw geese, turtles, ducks. 7 yo wrote in his hike booklet: mallards. I asked 5 yo to write ducks. He got d down and then sat there, not sure what comes next. Not a, not e... t? ( What? Why can this kid sight-read, but he cannot do this?) I told 7 yo to keep his mouth shut and let his brother figure it out. Y? C? After 10 minutes of sitting there and complaining that he has no idea and I should do it, he finally squeezed out u. Then he followed it by c and k, fluently and on his own. Weird.

Then we had lunch at picnic tables. 5 yo laid down on the bench and stayed on his side, not moving, for good five minutes. Just as I began to wonder what is he doing, he informed me that there is a spider under the table and he was watching it. This is the kid who cannot sit still, yet a spider is worthy of his undivided attention. When he was 3, we used to go to arboretum and he just ran and ran ahead, so happy that he does not have to hold anyone's hand or constantly listen. I see him and I know that in traditional school, he would be like a square peg in a round hole.

When we got home, everyone did Moon Dough. Thank you to the genius who invented non-chametz, non-staining, always pliable and sweepable substance. You are highly esteemed in my eyes.

That night was local dayschool's dinner/Chinese auction. My husband got back from work just in time to go, yet he had a patient in labor, so we had a romantic drive there.. in two cars. Past all local adult entertainment. Beyond the train tracks. The event itself was fun, there was boys' choir, and we won one of the prizes: tickets to puppet shows, INK family visits, local art studio time, tickets to the Children's Museum.

Gotta tackle that laundry now... I tried getting boys to help, but somehow " matching socks up" turned into "slapping socks".