You live it every day. The ups, downs, lefts, rights. It’s part of being a parent. You accept that responsibility and everything that comes with it. Sometimes it’s rough. And sometimes it’s the best thing ever.
As a parent, you know your kid better than anyone. You know what makes them tick, what works and what doesn’t. You see when they progress and you hurt when they don’t. A prime example of a dad who gets it happened this week in the Southern California mountains. An 8-year-old autistic boy ran away from his school and into the forest. He hadn’t been found by nightfall.
His dad came up with what seemed to be a simple plan: Play music.
If Josh heard his two favorite songs, he wouldn’t be afraid to be found. His father said Alan Jackson’s “Good Time” and one by Ozzy Osbourne could have done the trick. Deputies played the tunes, along with audio of his father’s voice, over their public address system, hoping to find Josh.
Time was running out. Temperatures were in the low-60s overnight, and rain and cold conditions arrived Tuesday morning. Josh was wearing shorts, a T-shirt and sandals.
“I heard them blaring ‘No More Tears’ and it was a short time after that we heard the rescuers had found him,” said the boy’s father, Ron Robb.
About 60 people on foot and in vehicles participated in the search. Rescuers were able to find Joshua’s shirt, leading them to the boy.
“He walked toward them and said, ‘Thank you. You saved me,’” said Lt. Rick Els of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department.
Awesome thinking by a dad who knows his son. But here’s the part most people won’t see: Josh isn’t living with his folks right now. His folks are homeless after losing their home in a foreclosure. Child Protective Services have custody of Josh. Josh’s dad could see Josh at the hospital while he was being checked out, but CPS retained custody.
While the majority of the article talked about how they found Josh – and the headline read “Ozzy Osbourne Helped Save Missing Boy”, the plight of this family was left to two sentences at the end of the story. This is what they don’t see.
I don’t know all the details of the Robb’s story. But someone should. The one thing I do know is that this dad cared enough about his child, and knew enough about his child to be able to come up with a way to bring his child back. This is what they don’t see.
Who are they? A lot of them are the WMF – Well Meaning Folks that I have previously described. They are the folks who have good intentions, but base their opinions and criticism on snapshots they see of your life and your child’s. They see a specific behavior that annoys them, and because it hasn’t improved, they see your parenting as a failure, your child as a brat.
What they don’t see are the amazing little improvements that your child has made on the way, improvements that have made them – and you – happier and healthier. They only see that snapshot.
They also don’t see their own hand in some of these behaviors. I was recently told that my daughter doesn’t listen to anyone but me. This is another snapshot. They didn’t listen to this individual, so it must be that it is the case for everyone.
What they don’t see is that my daughter listening to me is a vast improvement from 24 months ago when she wasn’t listening to anyone. When she was constantly in trouble at home and at school for behavior. They don’t see how, with the help of her teachers at school, we rebooted the situation, started over. And what they don’t see is how my daughter responds to her teachers, and a child who had a hard time getting through the week without a reprimand now only gets those reprimands very occasionally.
And very often, you learn that your gut instinct about your kid is way better than others give you credit for.
These are wins for me and my daughter. It took a lot of work, a lot of understanding, and a lot of adjustment to get here. And there will be more adjustments to continue the improvement.
You learn, over time, what battles need to be fought, and what battles just don’t matter. You learn how to apply consequences to decisions that are logical and natural, not punitive or imposed. You learn what situations will set your kid off and what will soothe them. You learn to work with teachers and school staff to achieve the goals – even if it sometimes doesn’t make sense.
And very often, you learn that your gut instinct about your kid is way better than others give you credit for.
And then I look back at the complaints from the WMF. My kid listens to me, listens to her teachers. Why not this person? Why does this person not have the attention of this child. Their complaint is actually the answer. They have not taken the steps to communicate with this child. They simply expect the behavior to be different. What they don’t see is the hours of time and thousands of little adjustments made to get to where the child respects you and the teachers. You can explain it all you want. To them, you’re making excuses. You’re trying to give them a blueprint for how to communicate, how to understand the behavior.
Recently, I had just such an experience at a family gathering. My daughter’s usual bedtime is about 830p,, and by 700p, I know behavior will start to slip if we don’t start the process of DBB – Dinner/Bath/Bed. It’s a fact. I call it her “Expiration date”. She’s always up by 600a, so it’s no surprise she’d start to fade.
Sure enough, at about 630p, I saw her behavior starting to slip. Not listening as well, getting a little more irascible. We had given someone a ride, and I told them we needed to be going soon, as my daughter was getting close to her expiration date. I got an odd look and explained what I was seeing. Sure enough, about 15 minutes later, I had to pull my daughter away for some unacceptable behavior, and I told the individual the expiration date had indeed expired and it was time to go. What I got back was a dirty look, as if to say “Well, if you did a better job…” or “Sure make more excuses”.
But when you know your child, you know their limits. It’s not irresponsible to leave a party because your child is getting tired and is losing control of behavior; it’s irresponsible to stay knowing that will happen. What these other folks don’t see is that you know your child, know that this is a battle you don’t need to have, and that trying will simply make everyone miserable. Instead, they see the snapshot of the behavior, and completely ignore the fact that you saw it coming.
We can all be guilty of this – seeing a snapshot in time and assuming that’s the rule. We’ll see parents struggling with their kids and assume the kid is a brat and the parents are irresponsible. And yet, it can just as easily be a child who is going through something difficult, and a parent who is at the end of their rope. Jobs, money, health – they all take a back seat when we think about our kids. But the heart of that backseat analogy is that they’re still there, and can be just as much of a distraction. We do our best to balance it all, but sometimes it jumps the rails for a bit.
And this is what they don’t see. That we’re not perfect, but we’re really trying. That we may actually know our child better than they do. And that sometimes, they are part of the problem, not the solution.
This is what they don’t see.
What don’t others see about you and your kids? Or am I way off base? Let me know in the comments!
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