“I need to treat my children more like my dogs.”

This was the subject line of an email I got last week from Nick, a father in a group for parents of young children. I confess to some anxiety before I read further.

On the other hand, Nick has two impeccably behaved Wheaten terriers, Luigi and Vlad. We have Sophie, our impossible bulldog (Note to Self: next time, if there ever is one, consider all the implications of the word BULLdog), an unrepentant criminal. If I treated my children more like I treat my dogs, there’d be a whole lotta shouting going on.  But maybe Nick is on to something. It is worth listening further, if only for some advice about dogs.

“Today after group I had a realization.  I am able to understand the feelings of my dogs.  Without judging their feelings.  Without trying to replace their feelings with my own.  I don’t counsel the dogs with how I feel or how I think they might more profitably approach a situation.  Admittedly, they may be simpler creatures than my kids, but it does seem like a fair lesson to remind myself:  I should actually start treating my kids slightly more like I treat my dogs.”

Ahhh.. Nick, how I underestimated you! This is so brilliant I wish I’d said it myself. If we could think of our children more like we think of our dogs, we could stop expecting so much of them. We would still have some expectations, to be sure.  We’d like  them to develop a deep and loving relationship with us.  We would expect that they play well with other dogs. We would hope that they grow out of puppy behavior like.. err.. biting, and learn more mature and appropriate ways of expressing their feelings (maybe Nick can offer some pointers here?).

But we wouldn’t expect that they feel differently than they do.  We wouldn’t expect that they could change their feelings to feel more like a cat.  We wouldn’t expect them to change their feelings to feel more like us. And as Nick says, we certainly wouldn’t expect them to change their thinking to accommodate our beliefs about the best way to approach a situation.

We could let dogs be dogs.

Of course to do this, we would not only have to give up our expectations of what our children should think and feel, but also our expectations of what we should think and feel.  This may actually be the tougher task. We all have fantasies about what it means to be a parent. These are usually formed, at least in part, by our experience of being parented. Often we haven’t thought much about them- they are more likely to be half conscious beliefs developed from childhood experience, and as a result, not entirely reliable. Yet they form our default response to parenting situations, especially the highly charged ones.

They are worth thinking about, these “shoulds” that fuel our parenting. You may discover that some of your expectations of yourself as a parent have little to do with your relationship with your child, and a lot more to do with your relationship with your parents. I am thinking of a story that Nick told in group a few weeks ago. He brought his six-year old son, Oliver, out to dinner with this parents, sisters, nephews and nieces for a big family dinner.  Oliver is the youngest grandchild, he was tired, and was the fourth such dinner in a row. In fact, unbeknownst to Nick, he begged not to go.

Nick believes that parenting is a teaching opportunity.  This view was formed by his experience as the youngest in an intellectual family of three highly intelligent and articulate children. Nick spent a lot of time sitting quietly at family dinners and listening to conversation that was never adjusted to allow for his participation. As a result, he invites, encourages, and on some level, expects his own children to participate in conversation, which he consciously tries to direct to areas they are interested in.

You can imagine what happened at the family dinner.  Oliver was furious that for the fourth night in a row, conversation was not adjusted to allow for his participation.  Nick was furious that Oliver couldn’t at least sit quietly, even if he couldn’t speak, as Nick had done for all those years growing up in own family.

However, that’s not what Oliver had been  “trained” to do (forgive me for this word Oliver, but I am sticking to the dog metaphor).  He expected to participate, not behave.  And as Nick reflected on the differences between his son’s experience and his own, he now wonders if his own expectations about parenting, however well intentioned, have put a lot of pressure on Oliver, even at home.  After all, as the youngest at the table, there is a big difference between listening to a conversation and being expected to be fully engaged in one.

Believe me, I am still guilty of excessive expectation.  From my children, myself, and the limits of job description as a parent. Other than on the athletic field, my husband is far more likely than I to let dogs be dogs; that is, be open to what everybody will be happy actually doing, as opposed to what I imagine we should be doing. And as far as Nick goes, as you can tell, he’s evolving into a highly reflective parent. In fact, I am thinking that next fall, Nick and I could work out an arrangement.  He could come to the next group for free, and in return he could take.. oops.. I mean train, Sophie.

This is a story about my oldest daughter Lily in New Orleans. She went there for the Super Bowl (Note to self: Next time check location of Superbowl. Also remember that Super Bowl tickets are hundreds of dollars, so she is unlikely to really go, even if in the same city as Super Bowl).  I wasn’t crazy about this idea even when I thought she was actually attending the game.  You can imagine how I felt when I (belatedly) discovered that the real purpose of the weekend was one long party in New Orleans.  But she is 21, her boyfriend was playing in an exhibition baseball game, and the sponsors paid for their tickets and hotel rooms.  There wasn’t much I could do to stop her. Sigh.

This story requires a bit of background, so bear with me.  When I entered my doctoral program, I had two young daughters 4 and 6.   I was fortunte enough to be at Harvard at the same time that Carol Gilligan, Lyn Brown and Annie Rogers were directing the Harvard Project on Women’s Psychology and Girls’ Development.  It grew out of Carol’s work on moral development, In a Different Voice, which has been described as “the little book that started a revolution.” (Note to Self: Would a 216 page book  have been described as “little” if written by a man?)

I digress. In this book, Carol argued that girls develop differently than boys psychologically. I know.  As my daughters would say, duh. This is perfectly obvious to anyone who has ever been or had a girl. But Carol proved it, and at the time (1982), it was truly revolutionary in the field of psychology. By the time I got to Harvard in the early 1990’s, the “psychology of women and girls” was an emerging and (for me anyway), inspiring field of study at the Graduate School of Education.

It’s hard to describe how much impact this research had on me. I was transfixed by the developmental trajectory that girl after girl described in Carol’s interviews. Were my daughters also destined to lose their “voice” and self confidence and take their true feelings “underground” during early adolescence? Unfortunately I could recall this experience only too well in my own life. One day in seventh grade (if anyone can hear the words “seventh grade” without shivering, please write in), certain things and people were cool, and other things and people were not cool. I was most definitely in the latter group.  The judgement of my peers was swift, powerful and devastatingly effective.  I shut up, kept my head down, and tried to fit in.  It took me years to unlearn those lessons.

I imagine that boys undergo a similar transition. As the mother of three girls and the sibling of three sisters, I’ve never experienced it first hand. But there is a critical difference between girls and boys during this period in their social and emotional development. When the defining line between acceptable and unacceptable begins to emerge in early adolescence, girls, unlike most boys, can become mean to their friends.  The myriad of reasons why this occurs is a subject worthy of another blog (or two), but it produces “relational aggression,” a phenomenon described by both Catherine Steiner-Adair and Rachel Simmons.  And anyone in the process of raising a girl recognizes it instantly, whether your girl is a victim or an aggressor. “Frenemies” anyone?  ”Mean girls”? “Queen bees”?

One of the effects of relational aggression is to make girls afraid to speak their minds. Who wants to risk telling your true feelings when it could result in being ostracized by your friends? Who wants to risk anything?

I was determined that my daughters avoid both the practice and the experience of relational aggression. The good news is that there are ways to do this. Our daughters have been fortunate enough to attend schools that are equally committed to raising strong, confident, assertive girls, and have designed curriculum to do so. A major goal for educational interventions designed for girls is to teach them how to challenge their friends directly, rather than indirectly. Many girls are afraid that disagreements and disputes mean the end of a relationship.  And most girls will go to almost any length to preserve their relationships. Girls can learn that disagreements and disputes strengthen relationships, if  done constructively and directly; ” Sarah I don’t like it when you do that?” rather than ” Amy, did you hear what Sarah said to Charlotte about you.” They certainly need to learn how to do this to assume leadership roles in their communities, jobs and relationships.

The bad news is that raising a powerful girl means living with one.  There is nothing my daughters will not discuss, debate, challenge and dissect with us. We talk about everything, all (and I do mean ALL) the time.  This is frequently exhausting. My husband and I now recognize that we employ a team of world -class litigators, who are kept busy full-time, negotiating with us. Our oldest daughter Lily treats every request from us as an opening offer.  Middle daughter Annie would (as I recently exclaimed during an exasperated phone call) argue with Satan if given the chance. Our youngest daughter, trained by masters, shows early promise.

This is the reality of raising powerful girls. As my brilliant friend Catherine says, girls need to identify themselves as leaders in the context of their relationships.  Our daughters need to feel effective in their relationships, especially when they become adolescents. Including their relationships with us.

So if you want your daughter to be able to challenge the boy who wants to drive her home drunk, she needs to be able to challenge you.  If you want your daughter to be able to assume personal authority in her workplace, she has to be able to do so with you. She needs to practice the skills of challenging, confronting, discussing and disagreeing with you. And sometimes, increasingly as she matures, she has to “win.”

This is incredibly hard to do. But the bottom line is that your daughter needs to become the boss of herself, even in her relationship with you.

So to Lily in New Orleans… While out on Bourbon St., Lily noticed that a table of of men behind her where taking picture of her butt with their iphones. She was wearing “jeggings,” jeans that fit and feel like leggings. There were about five men at the table, aged 45 to 55.  (I asked if they had been drinking which shows the level of my ignorance about Superbowl Weekend in New Orleans. Lily said, “What a mother question!”). Lily walked up to them and said, ” Excuse me, I saw you talking pictures of my butt. If you are going to do that, at least you should give me your Mardi Gras beads.” Needless to say, they were stunned.

And embarrassed. Immediately handing over their beads, they began explaining. They were a group of old friends from Texas, having a reunion weekend in New Orleans. One of them, Eric, a lawyer, apologized profusely, saying, ” I promise that I am not a sketchy guy. I don’t normally do this. I have a family and two kids. We are just on a boys weekend, having fun.” I am not exactly sure how everything followed, but Lily joined them, saw pictures of Eric’s children, they bought her a drink and she explained her boyfriend was in a tournament. As she got up to leave, Eric wrote the number of his law firm on a beer coaster, in case “she ever got into trouble and needed a lawyer.”

Lily ran into “the guys” several times over the weekend. They greeted her enthusiastically, asked if Brad had won his game, and chatted some more about New Orleans. Needless to say, they never attempted to take another picture of her butt.  Lily said they parted as friends, and weren’t “bad guys.”Nonetheless, she couldn’t wait to tell me the story. I think she was proud of herself, and happy that she had confronted them.

Me too. You go girl.

I can hear you laughing out there in cyberland.

I assured Annie, as well as her friends (who had all tuned in, possibly drawn by the fervor in my voice), that parents were indeed affected by their children’s moods. “Haven’t you ever heard the expression, “You are only as happy as your most miserable child?” I asked. Needless to say, no one was familiar with it. Including my husband. ( He says he is far too preoccupied by my moods. “When Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”) Interesting.

I know, I know,  I know.. Annie is a teenager. She is not supposed to wonder how her moods and actions might affect me. She is completely absorbed by the day to day excitement of her first year in college. There’s not a lot of room in her imagination to focus on what I might be thinking. And that’s how it should be. Honestly.

In fact, as Annie herself recently mentioned (Note to self: intro psychology class worth every penny), adolescents brains’ go through extraordinary changes during this time. I just received an email on this subject from Wil Blechman, a rheumatologist who became  so fascinated by the human brain that he retired early to study brain development in the first five years of life.  I asked him for information about adolescent brain development for Annie, because he has a wonderfully clear and concise way of translating the findings from neuropsychology, which generally speaking, are neither.  He sent me an article by Jay Giedd, as well as an Allstate ad, asking; “Why do most 16-year-olds drive like they’re missing a part of their brain?’  The answer, of course? Because they are.

In adolescence, the balance between the limbic system, which is the seat of emotion, and the frontal lobe networks, which regulate emotion and higher level brain integration, shifts. The frontal lobe areas mature later than the limbic system; indeed, MRI’s show that the dorsal lateral prefrontal cortex area, which regulates “executive function”, (all the decision making, problem solving and “understanding the consequences of one’s actions area”), doesn’t mature until the mid-twenties.  As Giedd points out, this harried and late chief executive must struggle to manage both a highly activated emotional system and a body at it’s physical peak. He calls it the “healthy-body, risk-taking brain paradox”. I imagine that scene in every action movie when the terrified-but- heroic passenger is suddenly called upon to fly the plummeting 747.

Now imagine that you are the air traffic controller.  This is parenting during adolescence.  You are responsible for a giant jet that is just barely aloft, powered by an inexperienced and immature pilot. And he periodically screams at you because he’s frightened. You aren’t in the plane, you can’t see him, you don’t know what he’s doing, and neither does he.

Trying times for reflective parenting! But these are the moments when you really need the skill to see into your child’s mind. Even if only to discern not to take it personally. Most of the time, adolescent behavior is neither directed at, nor the result, of you. Most of the time, your teenager is just as mystified by her behavior as you are. And most of the time, it’s not her fault. In the immortal world of Allstate, she’s missing part of her brain.

Allstate prempted my conclusion. I was planning to end this entry with; “If you think your teenager has suddenly become a completely different person, she has”. So as usual,  Annie has the last word. After Bode won his medal and the uproar over her comment died down, we discussed how differently teenagers think in, well, adolescence.  Annie said, ” You know, I realize now that a lot of things I thought were real when I was a teenager were just because I was a teenager.” So I forgive her for not being able to read my mind. For now, it’s enough that she can read her own.

Happy birthday Dacey!

This behavior is in direct and vivid contrast to my husband who actually believes that he is on the field with them.  Needless to say, they vastly prefer his enthusiasm (except when screaming “Dig, Dig, Dig!!” from the sidelines so loudly that he embarrasses them), to my indifference.  He goes to every game he can and will go through torturous logistical scheduling in order to do so. I tag along because if I don’t, he makes me look bad.

For a while, my daughters were young enough that I could fool them. When children start playing soccer at four, all you really have to do to be a good sports mom is bring the Crispy Creams.  But now they have caught on to me.  Where sports are concerned, I am the family joke. So when Annie texted from college last month; “When you go to your children’s games they learn that you think they are important.”  I was in no mood to be teased. Indignantly, I texted back,  ”I think I know that??  Who went to every single game you played in high school?

And let me tell you, there were a lot of them. I want credit for every single one.

Later, Annie explained that she had heard this comment in a psychology lecture and it had made her think of me. Her reluctant fan, ever present on the sidelines. I promise you that I am not going to tell you to go to all your children’s sports games. But when you go, however unenthusiastically, they will remember it.  Just as Annie, months after her last lacrosse game, recalls the presence of  her reluctant fan, and recognizes what it meant to her. In the words of her psychology professor, my attendance showed her that her life was worth my time.

I was thinking about Annie’s text (note to self: and my belated appreciation), when Kate, a client with two young sons called.  Kate was distraught because she had just been invited to spend half a day per month “participating” in her son’s kindergarten class. As Kate said, her son only goes to school from 9-12 By the time she drops him off,  she has very little time left before she is scheduled to pick him up. The last thing Kate wants to do is spend one of those mornings in his kindergarten class. She feels like a bad mother, she thinks she “should” want to do it, and she can’t figure out why she doesn’t enjoy all the things that she does with her kids. Mostly, she wonders if she will ever get her life back.

Kate’s boys are five and eight. Chances are, they aren’t telling Kate how much they appreciate everything she does for them. Chances are, they can’t recognize it. Chances are, her husband doesn’t completely understand the rhythm of her day, and how much of it is dedicated to Sam and Will.  I am pretty sure that no one is saying “Great job, Kate!” regularly.

And Kate does do a great job. But at the moment, it’s not recognized. Which can leave you feeling a bit resentful.

How well I remember those years. A mother with young children lives in the moment, a blur of school schedules, dinnertime and soccer games.  So from the benefit of the other side of those years (note to self: whew!), I want to tell Kate what her children can not yet articulate.  I want to remind her of how Sam will feel when she goes and sits in a tiny uncomfortable chair in his classroom. Not to make her feel guilty, but to tell her how much she matters. I want to say; ” Stop. Breathe. Imagine how Sam’s face will light up when he shows you his world. He will be so happy and proud.”

But I will let Annie do it instead. So from Annie, to Kate. No one can be present all the time, or do everything your children expect of you. But when you can, your presence will matter. They will remember it.  It will make them feel valued. Eventually, they may even sit in a psychology class, send you an email, and make your day.