The College Search: Whose Journey Is It?

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My kids aren’t at the college search stage yet, but I’m close enough to be frightened by parents who make the process seems all-consuming. For some, it seems to be the high school version of the elementary science fair img_9188project. Sure, your 8-year-old kid’s project looks amazing and might rake in thousands of dollars in a Kickstarter launch, but did he really wire/code/build that thing all by himself? For the record, my kids’ projects did not stand out, but they were 100% kid completed!

I recently attended my college reunion and talked with a friend who is remarkably hands-off with her daughter’s current college search. It was such a refreshing conversation that I expanded on it in an interview that I’m sharing with you here. I recognize that college is years away for many of you, so I’ll be back next week with part 2 of this interview that delves further back and looked at how her kids reached this level of independence. I’m not sure that my kids are ready for everything her daughter has taken on, but I am open to the possibility!

Elephant Mamas: Can you tell us a little about yourself?

Kim: I am a 47 year old married mother of two teenagers. I teach Spanish at a public high school in [Read more…]

Running from the Monkeys

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If you ask my kids, they will tell you that I am a worrier. An over-worrier, in fact. In my defense, I think all parents worry from the moment the baby arrives (is the car seat installed properly? is this ear-piercing shriek a sign he needs a fresh diaper or catastrophic illness?) or even before (will she be healthy? how will I make it through the delivery?) It would be nice to think that we all eventually get the hang of this parenting thing and just chill out, but my experience has been that you just move on to different worry-provoking topics.

Recently, I’ve been reading and listening to a lot of experts talking about fear and its impact on our mind. Brene Brown, PhD and author of Rising Strong, refers to it as “dress rehearsing tragedy” [Read more…]

How to Talk to Kids About Tragedy

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This is a post I wish I didn’t feel compelled to write. But tragedy happens. In our worlds and our communities and our families. Today isn’t one of those days, but it feels better to talk about it when I’m not personally feelinimg_8822g lost in the craziness of the world. The picture I’m including is from this summer in my own community. In the parking lot of our local high school, heartbroken kids lit candles, wrote chalk messages, prayed, and spent time grieving together and alone. The message that most stands out to me in this picture is written in red words on the curb. Choose Love. Yes, please. Choose Love.

Last week, I sat down with Zita Fekete, a psychotherapist that I met years ago through my children’s Montessori school. I’d like to share her thoughts here so that we can be prepared when we’re expected to be far more adult than we ever wanted to be. I will preface this by saying that our conversation focused largely on kids who are exposed to and knowledgeable about a specific tragedy. I know when I had preschoolers, I kept the TV off and the radio tuned to music to avoid filling their brains with words and images they weren’t ready for. But, it gets harder and harder to shield them as they get older.

  1. Talk, talk, talk. Ask your child questions: How do you feel? What do you know? What do you want to know?
  2. Listen and accept their answers. Conversation is only good if there are no taboos, no expectations. You need to accept whatever answer they give you, even if it isn’t what you expect.
  3. Let them lead. The conversations, feelings, and needs all depend on the person.
  4. Surround your kids with positive experiences. If they can engage with positive experiences (e.g. camping, spending time outdoors), it doesn’t leave as much room for the negativity.
  5. Remember: It’s not about you. As much as you may also be impacted by a specific event, you need to separate your own pain from your role as a parent. Seek out help for yourself if you need to.

We had a much longer conversation that also covered depression, anxiety, and other topics, but I’ll save those for another time. For now, choose love and hug your kids every day.

Wisdom is Feminine

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I was listening to a podcast by Rob Bell recently that was discussing the origin of the word wisdom. If you don’t know Rob, he’s a favorite of mine–former megachurch pastor turned author, podcaster and all-round cool guy that I had a chance to hear speak earlier this year.

He pointed out that wisdom is a feminine word going back to the ancient traditions. Wisdom is personified as Athena, the Greek goddess of Wisdom, and Minerva, the Roman goddess of Wisdom. The word itself is feminine in all the languages that differentiate words as masculine or feminine (e.g. la sagesse in French). This totally makes sense to me. Women are wise! And we need to be to raise the next generation.

Although there are modern-day challenges new to our generation (iPad games designed for babies, cell phones, social media), there’s also a whole lot of parenting that remains unchanged. Things like consistency, expectations, and respect. In the arena of discipline, it is always easier to give your whiny kid a piece of candy to get in the car than to wait out their temper tantrum (and don’t get me wrong, there are moments when I think bribery is totally acceptable!), but I try to think for the long term on most days. And look deep within the well to find an extra sip of patience.

Which brings me back to Elephant Mamas. Where do you get your wisdom? How can we help each other in this community? I would love to bring wisdom to you in the form of experts (doctors? teachers? psychologists? spiritual leaders?) who can help all of us along this journey. Who would you like to hear from? What would you like to know? For me, I’ve been blessed to have my own mama nearby while I raised my children. I also benefited from a MOPs (Moms of Preschoolers) group that gave me weekly access to moms who had been-there, done-that already. I distinctly remember asking one of these mentor moms what I should do about my child who desperately wanted a Nintendo at the age of six. I was holding out, but she changed my mind when she explained how her home was the house where her kids’ friends wanted to hang out. They had the game system–and the best snacks–so she could get to know the kids rather than sending her own child off to some house she didn’t know.

But wisdom isn’t just about learning from the experts either. I’d love to interview individual Elephant Mamas too. Is there one area of this journey that you have nailed and want to share with the rest of us? Let me know! I was having issues with getting the Comments to appear on my last few posts, but I’m hoping I’ve fixed that. Post a Comment so I know its working– or email me at erikaparkerprice [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks!

Will Your Child be Disappointed?

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Summer is ending and school is starting or just around the corner. Regardless of age, the early days of school are ripe with the potential for disappointment. They don’t get their favorite teacher. Their best friend moved away over the summer. The preschool changed the brand of crackers offered for snack time. The problem may seem big or small to you, but the question here on Elephant Mamas is what are you going to do about it?

I have a proposal: Do nothing.

Recent events in my community have me thinking a lot about destructive choices kids make later in life and what leads them to this point. There is not a one-size-fits-all answer, but it does make me think about choices I am making as a parent. Even if I’m able to go to the school and demand a new teacher, is that helping my child? If I think they have too much homework, is my opinion the only one that matters?

What if all the helicopter parenting of our generation is leading to kids who grow up not knowing how to deal with big disappointment because they never learned to face the little ones? Someone once told me that I shouldn’t let my kids go to college out of state because it’s too hard to fix class schedule problems with the Registrar over the phone. I don’t know about you, but my parents had absolutely zero input on my school schedule once I reached that age! And I don’t plan to either.

You know your kids best and know when they can advocate for themselves and when they need you to step in. I just know there are times when my kids haven’t made the team they wanted, received the grade they expected, or gone to bed without dinner on a school trip because they didn’t like the food. None of these events made them perish, but I hope it built a slightly thicker outer shell to protect them in the future.

What about you? What disappointments has your child face and how did you each handle it? Is there anything you’re planning to do differently this year than last since they are a year older?