Post #5: Elementary My Dear Student

Post #5:  Elementary My Dear Student

When we venture back to the places that hold poignant memories (good or bad) we are forced to  recall what we gained, lost and what has passed.  Visiting one's elementary school can flood the brain with warm and fuzzy thoughts of favorite teachers, friends we met, and insights we had.  It can also show us the path of where we started and where we are now.  Going back to our elementary school can be comfort food (imagine macaroni and cheese).

I am fortunate in that I had a great elementary experience and so has my son.  While his experience is a bit more recent, but there are parallels and overlapping moments that we share.

Most importantly is the truly exceptional teachers we both had.  Creative, engaged, insightful, demanding, and caring are some words that describe the 6 years of elementary school.  We both had struggles with academic content and social situations, but there wasn't one person at the school who made us feel invisible.  This is not the case in middle school.

While middle school has its own gestalt, you are just a number plain and simple.  You either make it through the six periods without incident or you are a known entity in somebody's office.  While it is a generalization, middle school lacks the intimate-nature of elementary education.  You have been kicked out of the village to fend for yourself and by god--you better get it quickly or it is a very long 180 days.

Elementary school allows you to come out of the cocoon, open your wings, and extend them out so you can show the world the beauty you have become.  You experience the world through newness.  Sounds, colors, words, numbers, history, geography, music, art, and best of all friends.  Sometimes you mirror these new people or they mirror you, but the time for joy and discovery is unencumbered and liberating.

If you play your cards right, the relationships formed in elementary school are unique.  Remember when you saw your teacher outside the school for the first time?  Or overhead their first name?  The intimate knowledge of who they were, what they like and dislike, and how they taught you to find your way was no easy task.  We had exceptional elementary teachers, who mostly loved their work.  They allowed us to slack off, miss homework, go to the nurse on a daily basis, call our parents, get B's when we could get A's, etc.  They knew we needed something besides a homework agenda and organized notebooks.

They looked upon us with oversized "Hobo Kelly" glasses and told us she can see the crowns on top of our heads.  They allowed us to be the office monitor so we can get out of the classroom and chat with the office staff whom we came to adore.  They gave us lower grades at the beginning of the year so we could work harder by the last report card.  And much, much, more.

To go back to our elementary school after just graduating, you think that you own the place.  That the school is "yours", the teachers are "yours", the classroom and desks are "yours" and that nothing can take that feeling away.  The teachers hug you, tell you how you have grown, matured, developed and that they can remember how you were in class. 

All this makes the middle-school kid feel that they matter.  This is especially important during times of feelings of insignificance and insecurity.   This very small, yet incredibly significant relationship is elementary.

Blogger's Journal:  Addictive Mac and Cheese

Now, don't you think that would make anybody feel great and loved?

Post #4: Apology Accepted

Sorry seems to be the hardest word.   After a tremendously trying couple of weeks which include lies like "I didn't lose my wallet, I was pocket picked." Or, "homework club was good, no I didn't go".  We had this interaction:

Tween:   "I didn't go to my 5th period class because my P.E. teacher let me cheer on the other kids in the finals of the cross-country race."

Me:  "So you ditched violin?"

Tween:  "I didn't ditch class, my P.E. teacher said it was ok to miss violin to cheer on the other racers."

Me:  "Did your music teacher know where you were?  Did she say it was ok?"

Tween:  "No"

Me:  "So you ditched 5th period--like I said."

Tween: [now screaming and pushing over furniture] "Ok, I ditched class - but don't say that word out loud again."

Me:  "Well I am going to contact your 5th period music teacher and let her know that you ditched class and you will lose privileges and have to deal with the consequences."

Tween:  [still screaming]  Ok, ok, ok, ok - just don't tell her that I "ditched"

Indulge me a bit, but even Pinocchio--the boy with the growing nose--ditched school.

In the original story, as he tells his lies his nose begins to grow until it is so long he cannot turn around in the room. The Turquoise Fairy explains to Pinocchio that it is his lies that are making his nose grow long, then calls in a flock of woodpeckers to chisel down his nose.  Perhaps a bit over dramatic for today's parenting.

OK - back to reality.  I wrote the email that I said I would.  I also shared with her how challenging things have been.  Not only did I get a reply the next day, but I WAS WRONG!  

He did not ditch class, he did all the things he said and she went on to tell me that he is good student and very responsible and responsive while in her class.  I asked her to please tell him that we communicated and that she cleared it up.  She did this, and offered him some extra info, she said, "your mother cares about you very much." 

So how do you make it up to your child, when they have been less than easy to deal with, when you were wrong?

Of course there was the apology.  It was heartfelt and I was an appropriately guilt-ridden mother who tattled on her son, only to be accusing him of something he didn't do.  How do you believe anything your child says when they have been lying so much that he sounds like a spokesperson from the Bush administration defending the war in Iraq. 

Yes, I looked into his eyes and said I was terribly sorry for not believing him, for not understanding what he was trying to say, and that I was touched by how his teacher describes him.

Here's the not so funny part  . . . I was exactly the same way as him.  I can see myself in this child and I am so embarrassed and frightened at the same time.  I want this go around to be different than my turn in middle school and it looks exactly the same.

This brings me to the age old adolescent question, "Who am I?"  For any teenager, this is a loaded question.  But for an adopted child, it is quite complicated.  If I felt disconnected and different in a biological family--what is my child going through in his trans-racial adoptive family that is changing on a daily basis?

I imagine that he has a huge open space in his chest.  It surrounds his heart and this gap has grown as he has.  It is like a planter with drainage holes.  There is no way to fill it up.  It will never stay full.  That space or hole is what I imagine he feels like.  Between adoption, biology, identity, and now adolescence--he's got to be pretty empty in there.

The Need to Connect With The Past

As adopted teens mature, they think more about how their lives would have been different if they had not been adopted or if they had been adopted by another family. They frequently wonder who they would have become under other circumstances. For them, the need to try on different personalities is particularly meaningful. In addition to all of the possibilities life holds, adoptees realize the possibilities that were lost.

I read this and thought of how my son may be feeling as he tries to navigate the teenage terrain and his adoption:

"For some adopted teenagers, the feelings of loss and abandonment cause them to think and want more information about their original families. Sometimes they are looking for more information about their medical history. Has anyone in their family had allergies? Heart disease? Cancer?"

One 15-year old who was adopted as a child commented, "It's impossible for someone who has not been adopted to understand the vacuum created by not knowing where you came from. No matter how much I read or talk to my parents about it I can't fully explain the emptiness I feel."

Ch-ch-ch Changes

Post #3 - "Ch-ch-ch-ch changes . . .

I ask the question that many mothers do  . . . what happened to my boy.  I called my son today and was not sure I dialed the right number.  A deep, throaty, voice on the other end of the phone said, "hi".  It was flat, monotone, lacking any interest and/or feeling.  I said, "who is this?"  He said his name, but let me tell you that the first time a mother hears her son's voice change it is hard to believe that it is the same little boy we left just hours earlier.

Yes, bodies change.  We have to transition into the underworld of adolescence.  We need to forage our way through friendships, break-ups, right decisions, wrong decisions.  It is kind of a dense forest where there is a dull machete and a water-soaked map.  You just have to start at point A and find your way out.  You know you are not alone, you have tools, but really they are completely useless in the quest to make it out alive.

The question I raise is that if I am having a hard time recognizing my son --what does he see?  Are we both lost, confused, perplexed?  Why can't it be as simple as the Brady Bunch episode (When it's time to Change) when Peter's voice starts cracking just as the kids are going to be recording their hit single?  Did five other siblings really understand and empathize with Peter's changes and make him feel that is was really "natural" so don't worry?



I can remember how much I felt out of my body during adolescence.  I know that giving love to the animal known as a tween/teenager is a precarious situation.  One minute there is absolute anger and disgust with your parent, "don't be upset, but I really want to stab you" to "mommy, please rub my back until I fall asleep".   There is a duality that seems to be so confusing to all involved.

Parenting during this time is no gentle ride.  You dive head first into the monster's mouth like you would have at Disneyland.  There are no gimicky tricks of lighting and paint to scare the riders.  This is real life, with real feelings.  You are dealing with a fragile and vulnerable person who is developing and taking risks so they can keep what is meaningful and discard what is not.  Unfortunately, this process is a prolonged one and frequently there are victims scattered along the way.  You only hope that as a parent, you are not one of them. 

So where does on go for support?  Clearly, educational programs designed for adolescents are not the be-all, end-all that the ad agency has hoped for.  Indeed, well over a billion dollars each year are spent educating adolescents about the dangers of smoking, drinking, drug use, unprotected sex, and reckless driving – all with surprisingly little impact.

There has been over 25 years of study in adolescent risk-taking and the research is starting to show that there is not an age difference between higher risk-taking in adolescence versus adulthood.  Laurence Steinberg, is beginning to create a framework on how the development of risk-taking in adolescence, can be approached from a psychological perspective (focusing on increases in emotional reactivity that may underlie risky decision-making), a contextual perspective (focusing on interpersonal processes that influence risky behavior), or a biological perspective (focusing on the endocrinology, neurobiology, or genetics of sensation-seeking).  "All of these levels of analysis are potentially informative, and most scholars of adolescent psychopathology agree that the study of psychological disorder has profited from cross-fertilization among these various approaches."  Steinberg is looking at two fundamental questions about the development of risk-taking in adolescence. First, why does risk-taking increase between childhood and adolescence? Second, why does risk-taking decline between adolescence and adulthood? He believes that developmental neuroscience provides clues that may lead us toward an answer to both questions.

I am not a scientist, but Steinberg does think that educational programs alone cannot stem the flow risky behavior in a 12 year old.  Interesting enough, he advocates acknowledging the neuroscience of adolescence and then create policy around those biological aspects. 

"The research reviewed here suggests that heightened risk-taking during adolescence is likely to be normative, biologically driven, and, to some extent, inevitable. There is probably very little we can or ought to do to either attenuate or delay the shift in reward sensitivity that takes place at puberty, a developmental shift that likely has evolutionary origins."

So we know that education alone is useless, that family structure is helpful, and that what happens in the brain is really what is missing to giving us insight.  Now--I am back at biology.

Turn and face the strange

Ch-ch-changes

Oh, look out you rock 'n' rollers

Ch-ch-ch-ch changes

Turn and face the strange

Ch-ch-changes

Pretty soon now you're going to get older

Time may change me

But I can't trace time

I said that time may change me

But I can't trace time