The Rest of the Story
As my wife and I await the chance to be first time parents through the adoption process, I'm watching people parent. Strangers observed in that role for a few minutes by someone not yet on Team Parent usually look like virtuosos. I'll scribble down something they did well, apparently effortlessly, and pledge to do the same.
Real life afforded a different kind of opportunity to this amateur sociologist recently. Longitudinal study proved more instructive than flashes of sentimentalized, and maybe jealous, insight. I got to see the same "subjects" twice in a month's time as they navigated parenting and emerging adolescence. The catalyst in these encounters is 14, and brilliant. She absorbs the patterns of life through voracious reading and, perhaps, measures real experience against a tightly edited narrative. Dissonance ensues. Dissonance produces anxiety. This anxiety could produce a wild variety of responses in those around and responsible for her.
Twice I've seen her dad read and respond rather than retreat, then react. Words so similar seem carefully practiced grace. "If you are worried about being late, we can…" "If you are worried about being late, we are this far from the event, and we have this much time until it actually starts." The best parents, and perhaps the best leaders in all roles, don't wait for the explosion or the breakdown. They sift through the patterns of previous interactions and aggressively seek out signs of present difficulty.
My boss, whose introverted and passive tendencies I noted last week are similar to my own, nevertheless lives this one out daily. Whenever I enter into his line of sight, his habitual response is a genuinely ready to assist, "Did you need something?" Even when he can't help me or a student at the moment, he has trained himself to speak the words that may preempt larger difficulties. "I'll be right with you," or, "I will help you right after I do this." Forthright and timely expression of the limits and anxieties that would otherwise burn within like an emotional fuse can stop the countdown.
Sometimes the calm, considered, proactive questions or suggestions don't work, and I got to see the thoughtful parents', and leaders', incremental fallback response. When their daughter isolated herself to deal with her anxiety, her parents consulted with each other as to how best to respond. Each member of the team supporting her, they knew, had strengths and weaknesses that would impact the situation. They rehearsed possibilities. They considered timing. In the end, they decided they didn't need to intervene to prove their worth or control, and the storm passed.
This father's after action report was even more meaningful, and farther from reaction. I've seen parents who smother their kids' natural, awkward development in their own overweening concern for appearances. Their "apology" to other adults for a child's behavior serves primarily to reinstate the ostentatious crown of parental pride. This tendency is as old as Tocqueville, who wrote in Democracy in America that much of what masquerades thinly as parental concern is in large part a parent's concern for his or her own reputation. Conflating pride and parental love is as current as the 2016 publication of Love That Boy, the reflections of White House reporter Ron Fournier on parenting a son with autism. Pointedly, Fournier exposes fallacy by speaking it out loud. "What kind of father raises his son to worry about embarrassing his dad?"
Many, perhaps most, but not the father I got to watch. This one sought my feedback just as assertively as he had done with his daughter and as my boss does in handling my potential concerns. He asked after the fact what I saw when I saw his daughter manifest anxiety. On the alert for excuses, condemnations, or strutting narratives of, "We had a talk and THAT will never happen again," a 180° difference was refreshing. I wanted you to know, dad said on his daughter's behalf before even my vocal and at times wildly errant inner critic had the chance to suggest otherwise, that she is doing the best she can. If this father takes the initiative to text that to me over hundreds of miles and days after an episode I had nearly forgotten, what has he been saying to his daughter? What is he teaching about our power to help those we care about develop a deeply rooted, healthy sense of identity? How is he coaching her, and me, to see even our weaker moments from a healthy perspective?
Real life afforded a different kind of opportunity to this amateur sociologist recently. Longitudinal study proved more instructive than flashes of sentimentalized, and maybe jealous, insight. I got to see the same "subjects" twice in a month's time as they navigated parenting and emerging adolescence. The catalyst in these encounters is 14, and brilliant. She absorbs the patterns of life through voracious reading and, perhaps, measures real experience against a tightly edited narrative. Dissonance ensues. Dissonance produces anxiety. This anxiety could produce a wild variety of responses in those around and responsible for her.
Twice I've seen her dad read and respond rather than retreat, then react. Words so similar seem carefully practiced grace. "If you are worried about being late, we can…" "If you are worried about being late, we are this far from the event, and we have this much time until it actually starts." The best parents, and perhaps the best leaders in all roles, don't wait for the explosion or the breakdown. They sift through the patterns of previous interactions and aggressively seek out signs of present difficulty.
My boss, whose introverted and passive tendencies I noted last week are similar to my own, nevertheless lives this one out daily. Whenever I enter into his line of sight, his habitual response is a genuinely ready to assist, "Did you need something?" Even when he can't help me or a student at the moment, he has trained himself to speak the words that may preempt larger difficulties. "I'll be right with you," or, "I will help you right after I do this." Forthright and timely expression of the limits and anxieties that would otherwise burn within like an emotional fuse can stop the countdown.
Sometimes the calm, considered, proactive questions or suggestions don't work, and I got to see the thoughtful parents', and leaders', incremental fallback response. When their daughter isolated herself to deal with her anxiety, her parents consulted with each other as to how best to respond. Each member of the team supporting her, they knew, had strengths and weaknesses that would impact the situation. They rehearsed possibilities. They considered timing. In the end, they decided they didn't need to intervene to prove their worth or control, and the storm passed.
This father's after action report was even more meaningful, and farther from reaction. I've seen parents who smother their kids' natural, awkward development in their own overweening concern for appearances. Their "apology" to other adults for a child's behavior serves primarily to reinstate the ostentatious crown of parental pride. This tendency is as old as Tocqueville, who wrote in Democracy in America that much of what masquerades thinly as parental concern is in large part a parent's concern for his or her own reputation. Conflating pride and parental love is as current as the 2016 publication of Love That Boy, the reflections of White House reporter Ron Fournier on parenting a son with autism. Pointedly, Fournier exposes fallacy by speaking it out loud. "What kind of father raises his son to worry about embarrassing his dad?"
Many, perhaps most, but not the father I got to watch. This one sought my feedback just as assertively as he had done with his daughter and as my boss does in handling my potential concerns. He asked after the fact what I saw when I saw his daughter manifest anxiety. On the alert for excuses, condemnations, or strutting narratives of, "We had a talk and THAT will never happen again," a 180° difference was refreshing. I wanted you to know, dad said on his daughter's behalf before even my vocal and at times wildly errant inner critic had the chance to suggest otherwise, that she is doing the best she can. If this father takes the initiative to text that to me over hundreds of miles and days after an episode I had nearly forgotten, what has he been saying to his daughter? What is he teaching about our power to help those we care about develop a deeply rooted, healthy sense of identity? How is he coaching her, and me, to see even our weaker moments from a healthy perspective?
How wonderful to observe and learn from others without harsh criticism! We can be ever evolving and improving if we'd all do this.
ReplyDeleteSounds familiar
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