Find Your Own Way
When our daughter was young it was agony getting ready for school in the morning. Dawdle and distraction were constant playmates. I wish I could say I was the picture of the cool, calm and collected parent but many days the sight of my hair standing on end would indicate otherwise.
One such morning after the endless refrains of: “Grace, are you dressed yet?”, I went to see for myself. Charging down the hallway, I nearly toppled over her as she sat on the floor just outside of her bedroom. Surrounded by gel pens with a notebook in her lap, she was completely absorbed in her activity.
“What are you doing?” I’m sure I shrieked. She looked up at me with bright eyes and calmly replied: “I’m writing a story.” As if it were the most natural thing in the world to be writing a story sitting in the middle of the hallway at 7:20 on a Wednesday morning.
That stopped me in my tracks. Simultaneously, my heart swelled with “that’s so cool” – I teach about creativity after all – and freak out over being late. How could I possibly think brushing her teeth was more important than the plot line she was constructing? Clearly, her priorities were not my priorities.
Grace was later diagnosed with ADHD. This is scary to hear. Especially when the only solution presented is medication. Tons of experts and books can explain about ADHD in behavioral and medical terms. One of the ways I’ve come to understand it is that what motivates her is not what motivates others.
Parenting a child with ADHD is hard. With so much information, advice, and research available, it’s difficult to choose what will work best for your little wonder. You get to keep choosing as they grow and develop, and the old strategies don’t work any more.
The two resources I’ve learned to rely on are trust and imagination.
Trust that you know your child and what works for your family better than the experts. This is particularly challenging when you choose alternative methods or go against traditional recommendations. Trust that your mistakes will not cause the earth to tip off its axis. You can always course correct. Trust that your teenager will grow up and have a happy, productive and meaningful life even if she refuses to take the SAT. Trust that she’ll come up with her own creative solutions to get what she wants.
Imagination is key when you are required to innovate new solutions to daily challenges. Back around the time Grace was writing stories in the hallway, a wise counselor suggested we put her to bed dressed in the clothes she would wear the next day. That simple idea transformed our mornings into a pleasant experience. If we had held onto the belief that you should only sleep in pajamas, we would have endured several more years of anguish.
Take what you need and leave the rest. – Anonymous
Obviously, this is about more than raising children. There is loads of advice at our fingertips for anything we need or want to change. Be discerning. Experiment. Do your own research. Find what works for you and do that. A lot. When and if it doesn’t work anymore, do something else.
Listen. The answers are within. Trust yourself and use your imagination.
What ideas or practices have you created, changed, imagined or redesigned to work for you?
5 Responses to “Find Your Own Way”
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I am a speaker, teacher, writer, and artist working at the convergence of self-care, spirituality, and self-expression.
A Creative Conspirator - an inciter of whatever makes you come alive, an excavator of buried gifts and talents, a fresh breeze that fans the smoldering embers of abandoned creativity. Read More>
Well, as a matter of fact…. I went on a personal retreat this week and had great intentions of creating an agenda: do this at 9am, that at 11am, the other at 3pm, and so on. But no matter how I tried, I just couldn’t make myself complete the agenda. In fact, I kept falling asleep each time I sat down to write it.
So I tried another tack. I set myself 2 tasks I would commit to each morning and each afternoon, and drew a palette (one for the morning and one for the afternoon) on which each colour represented a different optional activity that I would choose from. Voila! I whipped out my agenda in half an hour, and have been pretty good (if not 100%) about keeping to it! Here’s to flexible rethinking of situations!
Nice! I really appreciate the section of the palette dedicated to rest. It doesn’t get enough attention. Love the optional activity idea – including the option to do nothing.
Not only do I trust my “gut” but I trust my son’s as well. He is 16 and “done” with school…so we are striking out on the road less traveled (although there are lots of other backpackers on this road) of alternative schooling. He is so much calmer than he was in the traditional school setting. And while it goes against all I was brought up to believe was the “right” thing to do, I feel I have done what is right for him. Sometimes the worst part are all the comments you need to endure from well meaning family, friends and “others”. As a mom I am just trying to lead Cole into a future he can flourish in….this is the hardest job I have ever had, and the best!
This is by far one of the hardest. The voices of the well meaning are tough to filter out, ignore, disregard. Ultimately they are the voices of conformity which so many of us and our kids can’t tolerate. People are complaining about the rising drop out rates and pointing fingers at the kids rather than the terribly broken system that doesn’t serve their needs. It’s warrior work to strike out on this road. Cole will be all the better for it and is learning what’s important for him to learn. I applaud you! Thanks for your contribution here.
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