Читать книгу Where the Heart Listens: A Handbook for Parents and Their Allies In a Global Society - Eve Sullivan - Страница 7

It became clear, about halfway through my son's treatment, that the habits of emotional honesty learned in recovery were helpful to me as a person and as a parent in many ways entirely unrelated to alcohol and other drug abuse. It also became clear to me that these lessons could be useful to people who did not have any experience of addictions in their families. Why not a positive program for parents who simply want to improve their family lives?

As a former teacher of English and French, I realized that much of what I had learned was, in a sense, a new language. If I could learn it, I could teach it. Further, I saw that the lessons of recovery could be incorporated into a program that parents in any community could run for themselves. So I started writing the lessons down. Then I started a column in the neighborhood paper, The North Cambridge News, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where I live.

Enlisting the help of friends and a college volunteer, I began organizing activities. The first event was a poster workshop for children held at a local library. Entitled “What do you like about your family?” the workshop attracted a few individual parents and kids, a group of children from an after-school program with their teachers, and a reporter from a local TV station. The energy we all felt that day -- and the media attention we received -- kept us moving forward. Next, we organized a book and toy exchange, again at the library. Soon after these initial successes, we developed workshops and found a school willing to host them. We did a “trial run” of our format, which was based on eight fundamental questions designed to evaluate our parenting skills and deficits.

Many sympathetic community members and leaders, librarians especially, encouraged and helped us in these efforts. In addition, I attended every parenting workshop and conference I could get to locally as well as several in other cities and a few in other countries. One good friend, another and then another, agreed to help us incorporate and seek non-profit status.

What should we call the program? “Positive-program-for-ordinary-parents-with-garden-variety-kids-and-day-to-day-run-of-the-mill-challenges” was good, but too long for a banner. After a careful search and much deliberation, we chose the name Parents Forum. At the start, we proposed two themes for our activities: parent support and family celebration. In our third year, we clarified our vision, mission, and goals, settling finally on three themes: networking, skill development and support. Some time after that, we chose the tag line “where the heart listens” to emphasize that listening, especially listening to expressions of emotion, is central to our program. That phrase became the title of this handbook and in 2008 we adopted the tagline “come share your strength.”

While Parents Forum takes inspiration from the recovery movement, it also draws on my experiences as a “room parent” for over twelve years at my sons' grammar school, on 25-plus years of hosting international visitors in my home and on my teaching abroad: a year in Tunisia and a year in Portugal. In addition, my youngest son's interest in American Sign Language opened the doors for me to the Deaf community, whose members have a special bond defined by their gestural language. They also face special challenges in family communication, I realized, as nine out of ten Deaf children are born to hearing parents.

In addition, I have been fortunate to have access to a variety of seminars offered at the university where I work. The advice and expertise of trained professionals on topics ranging from forming playgroups to financial planning has influenced me personally and has, in turn, influenced Parents Forum. In fact, perhaps surprisingly, some very useful perspectives on parenting have come from staff development courses I have attended at work.

At an early Parents Forum meeting, a young mother decided the group was not right for her because no one else had a two-year-old. Certainly parents of older children could have given her some new perspectives on the misnamed “terrible twos” which can, in fact, be terrific! If my kids are boys, mostly grown, and yours are infant girls or pre-schoolers, does that mean we have nothing to say to one another on the topic of family life? Of course not! Exploring our differences and finding common ground benefits all of us, whether we are interacting parent-to-parent within a shared culture or across cultures. Besides the individual differences that may get in the way of our supporting each other -- age, gender, personality, education -- there are larger differences, such as race, religion, language, culture, and class. It does little good to ignore the differences. The best we can do is recognize and honor them. And try to look beyond.

While our children are not our employees nor are we, strictly speaking, our children's “bosses,” our kids and our households definitely need managing. Management training can offer valuable insights on the dynamics of supervising and motivating others. What four-year-old doesn't need supervising? What eight-year-old doesn't need motivating? Even customer service manuals offer useful guidance. There will be times when the customer (your twelve-year-old?) cannot get the product or service he wants (movie money? a ride into town or to the mall?) and you, as “parenting service provider” have to say “No” clearly and effectively while retaining the “customer's” goodwill. All right, maybe that's stretching the metaphor, but I hope you see my point.

Still, as informative and helpful as professionally led seminars can be, they cannot replace the warm, personal support shared among parents -- for free! -when we get together to talk. Parents Forum claims a section of middle ground between informal waiting-for-the-school-bell conversations among parents and informative (but sometimes intimidating) presentations by professionals on child development and parenting strategies. We certainly don't want to replace either one, but strive to incorporate good elements from both. In any case, we offer an opportunity for unhurried and non-judgmental parent-to-parent conversations.

When I meet someone new at work or in a social setting and the conversation turns to family life, as it often does, I am struck by two things: the depth of our shared concern for the well-being of our family members -- children, siblings, parents -- and the many differences that stand in the way of our sharing that concern.

Because our concerns, and our conversations, often focus on problems we face, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that kids are fun! Raising children is difficult, but it can also be the most joyful and rewarding part of our lives. It is surely the most important. When we are stuck in a bedtime battle with a four-year-old or tearing our hair out over a fourteen-year-old missing curfew, we may forget the joy of seeing our children take their first steps, of hearing them babble their first words (or seeing Deaf children's early sign-babble). But if we can keep the good times in mind, we have a better chance of overcoming both the difficulties we face and the differences that divide us.

Difficult situations, from simple to nearly insurmountable, arise in every family, as do differences of opinion. This basic, inescapable fact of family life inspired a core element of Parents Forum: helping parents focus on the way they handle conflict. Regardless of our backgrounds, when and how we approach and/or avoid conflict reveals our true values to our children. As they move out into the world -- in playgroups, at neighborhood parks, in school and eventually at work -- they take their cues from us on conflict resolution.

I have often found that a struggle (getting a child to bed on time) or argument (getting help with housework) gives me an admittedly unhealthy satisfaction. Thoughts like “Poor me ...the kids give me no peace. ...I do all the work. ...they are ungrateful wretches” keep me from seeing the good in my kid and myself and -- just as important -- keep me from changing the way I approach a struggle. That unhealthy desire for self-satisfaction comes, I think, when I want to be in control -- to impose my will on my child -- more than I want to have a productive, if heated, conversation with my child. The win-win approach to parenting can work, but only when I give up the “kick” of control, without giving up parental responsibility. Then I am able to set clear standards and have my children follow the rules ....well, most of the time.

As any parent knows, raising kids is much more than a walk in the park or a day at the beach, although these tranquil moments are absolutely essential and keep us going in the less-than-peaceful times. For better or for worse, raising children also involves the “screaming meemies” and the fall-out from declarations such as “I will not wear those shoes!” ... “I told you to be home on time for dinner!” ... “I'm quitting school!” and “I hate you!” These confrontations test our parental mettle. In Parents Forum workshops, we help each other look at the examples we are setting as we navigate and negotiate our way through these day-to-day hassles.

Parenting styles can range from authoritarian to permissive, from dictator to doormat. Of course neither extreme is effective in all situations or over the long term. We incorporated into our program a model (described in Mary Pipher's book Reviving Ophelia and used in other parents programs too) for evaluating our parenting style that helped us find ways to be authoritative without being dictatorial, and ways to be loving without letting our kids walk all over us. At the heart of parenting, of course, in times of conflict or contentment, is communication.

As we developed Parents Forum workshops, we adapted tools from the Straight treatment program that had proven invaluable in helping my family resolve our communication problems. These include an examination of the balance in our lives (the handy guide), an exercise for identifying our feelings (feelings list) and a conversational formula for talking about feelings. With these, Straight had helped me to create a new base of emotional and intellectual honesty, right underneath my feet. On this firmer ground, I found the courage to ask myself questions I had not thought of before. As these evolved and the teacher in me wanted to share what I had learned, I wrote a simple curriculum based on eight questions to teach others what I had learned through such desperation.

One essential theme running through all eight questions, taking a purely personal view, is, “What is the role of this activity, challenge or conflict in my life?” The other essential theme, taking an interpersonal view, is “Do I need help -- or do you need my help -- with this?” As a mother I started out doing, or arranging or managing everything for my kids. I thought that was my job. But as a child grows, the job changes. If I hold on too tight or do too much, my son or daughter has too little opportunity to learn and grow. In fact, many of the struggles that come up in conversations and in our workshops have to do with judging when to hold on and when to let go. Simple role plays accompany several of the questions. These dramatic (and sometimes melodramatic) interludes help us look at our behaviors, especially on occasions of children's misbehavior.

With these role-plays and the discussions that follow them, we are able to uncover the issues motivating and the concerns fueling the conflicts we experience. In the process we often discover strategies for handling the conflicts in a positive way.

We believe that putting the Parents Forum workshop tools and questions to use in everyday interactions with family and friends can help parents discover -- or develop -- and follow the rules they need to be the best they can be, on any given day. Whether in private reflection, conversation with spouse, partner or friend, or in group discussion, the tools and questions enable individuals to clarify the issues that concern them, the challenges they face and the choices they have.

The idea for Parents Forum was clear: a positive program for parents. But how could we get parents who did not have any pressing problems to get together and talk about what was going right in their lives? We knew we needed to offer parents incentives or rewards of some sort, like the lollipops (now story books) that doctors give along with immunizations. So we came up with the idea of having a prize drawing at each of our workshops and other events.

In our early Parents Forum efforts to get donations of prizes (restaurant and book or toy store gift certificates, movie and museum passes) for parents, we found local merchants intrigued by our idea of a positive program and generally supportive. Some board members have joked that “No one has ever said 'no' to us” -- and it's almost true. Most people really want to support children and families in their communities and welcome opportunities to do so. These solicitations accomplish two goals besides meeting program costs: they get parents talking (sometimes even bragging) about how they are helping each other and becoming better parents and, at the same time, they let other people in the community know about and share in those efforts.

We had a small group of people committed to building Parents Forum as an organization and, supporting this core group, a network of friends and community people interested in helping the program succeed. Support from the business community along with recognition and donations from service clubs -- Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis -- and a few small grants have been key to our success.

From simple beginnings, Parents Forum has taken shape, somewhat different from the shape we anticipated. Our original goal of providing parent peer support remains unchanged but our approach to engaging parents has evolved.

Through early disappointments -- parents did not participate in our activities in droves, nor did they purchase our handbook by the dozens -- we realized, first, that agencies who convene parent groups are our primary clients and, second, that licensing our curriculum to these agencies is the most effective way to reach individual parents.

An unexpected partner has been a Massachusetts group, Children of Incarcerated Parents (COIP). An incarcerated father who had co-founded COIP posted a message to the Massachusetts Citizens for Children email list in 2003 asking for parenting education to be provided in prison. We began collaborating with COIP, collecting school supplies for children in their 'backpack project' and, with cooperation from the Massachusetts Department of Corrections program division, began giving our workshops at MCI-Norfolk. The experience of giving our workshops, about two each year from 2004 to 2008, has been, in a word, remarkable.

The first agency formally licensing our program was Parents Management Inc., Roxbury, Mass. (2006-2007) and the next was the Joint Committee for Children's Health Care in Everett (2007-2009). Both these community experiences have been very rewarding.

We continue to explore opportunities to partner with other agencies. We welcome inquiries from agencies interested in licensing our curriculum and, of course, from individuals who want to learn about what our program offers as well as from those who can share their talents with us.