Election Special Edition

Disclaimer: I aim to keep this blog totally apolitical so I'm not actually discussing the candidates, the issues or anything related to that.  That being said...  

Everyone loves to hate an election.  

The news is non stop.  There are people who love to follow every detail and others who are totally disinterested and just want it over with. But wherever you fall on the spectrum of election interest, you will probably agree that  this year the election is different.  In the midst of a global pandemic, where the anxiety levels are so incredibly high, the issues at the forefront seem more pressing.  The people who used to discuss apocalyptic scenarios and were seen as conspiracy theorists are now mainstream opinions.  The fantastic which seemed like contrived fiction has become reality.

It is easy to panic.

What we don't realize when we talk about these topics at home is how we come across to our children.  Are the discussions we are having causing them additional anxiety? I think its easy to overlook the impact of our outlook, discussions and worries have on our children.

Lets look at things from their perspective.  We are their world.  We shape their views.  We impart either confidence and stability or a total lack thereof.  When we take a positive attitude towards events and situations, they are likely to follow suit. If we see this world as falling apart, they are inevitably going to feel anxious and troubled about what is happening around them.

Now lets look at how their lives have changed during this pandemic.  

If they go to school, their in-school experience has completely changed.  Where there used to be rules about not running in the hallways, there are now rules about their every move.  They are now kept in separate spaces, masked all day, given directions about when and how and where to be at all times.  And that is for the lucky ones who get to go in person.  Many of them spend their school days on Zoom - rarely leaving their houses and trying their best to learn when the conditions are far less than ideal.  I imagine these things are already making their anxiety levels high.  Carefree just doesn't come to mind when you think of our kids these days.  Playdates are carefully orchestrated.  Shopping is complex. Every outing is a maneuver.

If on top of this they are going to worry that the world is falling apart, we are setting them up for some serious issues as they develop.  

For those of you who are feeling panic about who will lead our country and if we will ever overcome the current issues - you are not alone.  But believe me, history has shown over and over that somehow we will get through.  No matter who wins - we are not on the verge of a civil war, we are not on the verge of collapse, we are not going to implode.  At some point, maybe, but not the day the election is won or the day after (and not likely any time soon after that).  Remember that the world goes in waves.  We have ups and downs.  We usually come out on the other side of the tunnel.  Hopefully there will be lessons learned, outlooks readjusted.  Hopefully one day soon we will see the end of this pandemic, the end of racism and bias and hatred.  But no matter what happens, no matter who wins, these things won't be fixed in a day or a month or even a year.  It takes time to fix what is broken.  

But from the perspective of children - they need to see a stable world, they need to see us confident that things are going to be ok.  I advocate making them part of the political process.  My kids always vote with me, its exciting and instructional.  I definitely think we should be talking about the issues at hand, what the parties stand for, what they are passionate about and who they feel is the best option to pick.  Try to remain objective.  Focus on the issues.  Do your best not to make the election solely about moral character or personalities (as hard as that may be).  Remember, from passionate to panic is not such a large leap.  Stay calm and vote on!  

Pity vs Sympathy

 This morning I was running and there was an intense fog. You could barely see 50 feet in front of you. As I progressed thru my run it seemed to be getting worse - til I took off my glasses and realized that the fog had fogged them up as well. Once I got them cleared, it was still foggy but not nearly as bad as I thought. 

Sometimes we see things in our surroundings and we really think they look one way but once we clear up the fogginess on our own perspective, we realize how much clearer they are. 

If you read my last post, you’ll know I’m on a bit of a kick about mental health. I think sometimes this world reminds us that we have to be a part of it, shape it and change it. I was recently talking to a friend and saying how I want to make an impression on this world. I don’t want my life to somehow just be another blip on the radar. And so much of me wonders how I could make any difference- not in the lives of my own family - but in my community, the greater Jewish community, the world.  And somehow I had a bit of an epiphany- if so many of my life experiences have all been tied up in health related issues- and I’m no doctor so I’m not curing cancer - maybe I can work on changing our attitudes towards illness. Physical and mental. And maybe to start that change I have to address one of the biggest barriers we have to it. 

All too often, we pity people going through things. We don’t mean to. We don’t think we are. We don’t realize it. But we do it. 

Think of the looks we give someone when we’re talking about it. Oh, her kid is suffering from an eating disorder. Oh, that poor family their child has cancer. Believe it or not, they’re not so different. And they’re not reasons to pity people. We can sympathize- their pain is hard to live with. Their experience is difficult. But they don’t need or want pity. You pity someone who is living on the streets and homeless. You don’t pity someone who is dealing with a difficult health situation. You sympathize or empathize (depending where you’re coming from). You want them to know you feel for them. 

When my oldest was sick and in treatment, I hated those pitying stares at the grocery story. Despised when people asked how she was while trying to put on a brave face but did a poor job hiding how bad they felt for me  

This attitude comes thru to our kids. They can feel when we pity someone. They see the hushed discussions. They feel the mood. They can see it written all over our faces  

Change it. Discuss things with them without the pity. Check yourself. We all do it. We all need to change it. It’s hard to rearrange your face but it’s essential.

There will always be fog. These things are going to be part of our world and our experience. We need the discussions to be happening. We have such a long way to go to change the way we deal with health issues in our community. But before we can start any of that we have to change this. But we can lift the fog, little by little, and change our approach to the entire topic. 

Please feel free to share your thoughts - you can comment on the post or comment and follow on Instagram @bigpicparents 

Is sharing tattling?

There are many issues which are sensitive and difficult to discuss. I’ve witnessed many hushed conversations where parents are afraid to even discuss certain topics, fearful someone will think their kid is struggling with something. It may be 2020, but Mental health Issues are still very much behind all the progress we’ve made in our world. 

Today’s topic is painful because the ones who suffer most are the ones who suffer in silence. Parents witnessing their children’s pain.  Children hiding their own pain. And friends who are scared and confused by what they are seeing and don’t know where to turn. 

I’m neither a healthcare professional nor a mental health specialist but I’ve lived through and seen enough of this to be a concerned parent who wants to help. Today I can’t address the why of mental health issues. I can’t tackle how to prevent your child from having issues. Or how to take away the pain from those who do. I want to talk about the friends who witness what is happening. 

Kids know a lot more than they admit to. They see their friends. They hear their pain. And most of the time, they are too scared to talk about it. 

Let’s look at it from their point of view. They are a friend. Friends trust each other. Friends keep each other’s secrets. Friends are a listening ear and maybe a word of advice but friends ARE NOT snitches. 

The problem here is that often, the friends are the first line of defense. They notice so much that we do not. They see what goes on at school (a realm we don’t even get a glimpse of for the most part). They are safe and so often share things we will never hear. 

Obviously to put the burden on them to be mental health advisors is unfair and unwise. But often they think they can’t say anything or they’re betraying their friend. So they listen and they try to help. Or they observe but don’t share. They worry but they don’t know what to do with that. 

I’m here to put it out there - give them permission to share. Preempt the worry, the fear of being a snitch. Have this discussion with your child before they are in the situation. Remind them about it regularly. Be casual about it but very open. Straight forward. You are being a good friend when you raise a safety concern with an adult. 

It is hard for a kid to come forward. It is scary. It is also necessary. It saves lives.

There are so many forms of danger that they face which we might not even consider. There are self harming behaviors, some of which become fads in some groups. I have seen teenagers who knew about their friends eating disorders and hid them because they feared for their friendship. Not to even begin on kids with suicidal thoughts. 

Lives will be saved and changed if we all unite and give our children the same message. You never know when your child will need this most. As a friend or from a friend  

There is no room for ambiguity with this message. 

The Path Less Taken

 Today my kids school reopened. We didn’t send our kids in - much against the general sentiment. Now don’t get me wrong - I very much think my kids would benefit from in person learning. It just happens to be that the school chose to open two days after one of the biggest holidays and people were moving and mingling. A lot of schools voluntarily went virtual for two weeks post holiday in order to avoid an outbreak but ours decided against. They have their reasons and I respect their choice. We just decided we didn’t have to agree or take the risk just because they did. 

Why am I sharing this? Everyone is grappling with school and how to and when to open. And honestly I think there are a lot of factors that go into these decisions. What I’m more focused on is the conversations We had leading up to this decision. I feel like we learned something about ourselves, our parenting and our choices in this process. That’s really what I wanted to discuss today. 

As you might imagine - our kids were extremely upset with this decision. Seeing all their friends reunite and not being there is extremely tough. At the same time - we had to do what we felt was prudent. Safe. Smart. Part of me wanted to tell them that their school was making the wrong choice. But that would undermine their trust in the school. 

So we grappled With how to present what we wanted without that tone of mistrust. 

Framing it: when discussing this with our kids, we stressed that many factors go into the schools decision making process. We are not privy to those factors nor can we use them to make our determination. We have to focus on what makes sense for our family and our situation. It’s not always necessary to agree with everyone, you just have to understand you don’t understand them. It’s all about whose shoes you’re standing in...

See it from our perspective: one of my kids kept using the Well know “it’s not fair.”  Instead of my usual tack of  Life’s not fair - I flipped it. Maybe it isn’t fair we’re being put in this situation - did you think of that angle? If the school would’ve made different choices, we wouldn’t have had to make a choice. It would be made for us.  Changing the perspective of the discussion can make them consider it in a different light. 

Delay is not a never: we really discussed how waiting a short amount of time, enough to ensure all the travelers didn’t bring anything unexpected back to our city, is not the end of the world. They’ve zoomed for months, a week or two isn’t going to make or break their school experience. 

More than anything - we stressed that we think about things. We make choices and decisions based on the facts at hand. Like everyone else during this pandemic, we’re just doing the best with the information we have. Risks have to be taken. Life must go on. But with this, as with so many other choices we have in life, we should choose to take them or make those decisions based on our own thought processes and not based on blind faith in institutions, leaders or anyone else. We make our own choices and take ownership of those choices.