Single Parent Fears... Sickness

So, as I've said before, I'm a single dad.  [Missed that? Learn more about me by clicking the "Who-What" tag at the bottom of this post].  Before my wife died, I had respect for single parents - I knew their road had to be harder - but I didn't really understand.  This post is about a single parent issue, because that's what I am.  Maybe it will help other single parents feel less alone, and maybe it will help parents in traditional couples to have better understanding of their single parent friends.  Or, maybe it will simply be a waste of several thousand 1's and 0's wherever it's stored.  Who knows.  Anyway...

One of the things that I have come to fear is sickness.  When anyone in the house gets sick, it completely disrupts our routine.  And yes, we a very much a house wedded to our routines.  A week or two ago we had the worst - all 3 of us sick together.  Talk about disruption in routine.  "But sickness isn't that bad," you think, "Even parents in couples have to deal with that."  Let me try to explain:

When my wife was alive, when a child was sick, one of us would take a sick day and stay home.  In my current job, I don't really have sick days, so if someone gets sick I either have to cancel work events or take a sick child with me.  In itself, this is difficult.

But this week, sickness would have been even more of an issue.  [Go ahead, ask me why]  I'm glad you asked.  Because I have a daddy-daughter date night scheduled with Rachel this week.  A good friend is coming over to help her get all "dolled up" for the evening.  She's been looking forward to it all year.  And if Zoe gets sick, then I have to find someone who will take care of a sick little girl.  And the date night goes from about 6-11p, so that's a long time.  And on top of that, I would be worried about Zoe all night.  Not exactly what Rachel would want from me.

Blessing from heaven, she has no temp.  I think the cough is a leftover from things last week, and expect it to not be any issue come Friday.  But maybe now you have some new understanding about why single parents fear sickness.  Or not.

Jesus, please help Zoe's cough go away, and keep her healthy.  I ask a special blessing on this Friday night for the time Rachel and I will spend together.  Thank you in advance.  Amen.

Shower (or Not Shower) Success

Wow - two success stories in a row, and this one maybe even better that the last.

So, it was evening, several nights ago.  Don't remember exactly when, because I didn't post right away.  (and I've slept since then)  Anyway, it was a night when I wanted to do something special with the girls.  I've been working on having more family time in the evenings - we had gotten into a bad habit of just watching TV at night.  I needed them to take a shower, so I sent them up to do that.  I told them that because I wanted to have some family time, I would come up in about 20 minutes to tell them to get out of the shower and dry off.  It seemed a good plan at the time.

So, I hear them go upstairs, then heard some giggling and some laughing, which is normal when they are taking a shower together.  I guess I wasn't paying enough attention...  After their 20 minutes was up, up the steps I went to tell them to rinse off and get out, only to find... wait for it... they were still sitting on the floor in the bathroom, dry as a bone.  They never even turned the water on!

So, here came my moment.  How would I respond?  I felt the anger a frustration building on the inside - my plans for the evening, gone.  My girls had disobeyed me.  I should get mad and punish them, right?  [remember, I'm both a dad, which means I tend to be "discipline first," and I am an engineer, which means that I tend to be "rule-oriented," so this is my natural response].  My frustration wanted me to start the discipline right there, and so I started getting my "you're in trouble" voice ready.  But then...

I started thinking about what had really happened.  My girls obviously had tons of fun playing together, which is kind of the goal of family night.  Yes, I had been excluded from the fun, but I had enjoyed hearing them laugh.  Yes, they had not yet taken a shower, but there was still time before bed.  Yes, they spent the last 20 minutes naked on the bathroom floor - certainly not an ideal playspace - but they were about to take a shower, and that floor gets cleaned... um... at least once a month, right?

So I put aside the anger and frustration.  Let me be clear - it did not go away on its own.  I still felt frustrated, but I chose to act like everything was fine.  In fact, I did this by causing myself to laugh.  Again, for clarity - I did not feel like laughing, but I did it anyway.  Instead of my "you're in trouble" voice, I pulled out my "pretending to be mad" voice.  It make them laugh.  Lots.  Their laughter became infectious, and I began to laugh in truth.

We were still laughing about it at bedtime.  Zoe kept repeating my "pretending to be mad" voice all evening.  We made a memory, and I got to write about it as a success.

Jesus, please continue to help me choose how I act, instead of letting my feelings dictate my actions.  Amen.

A Success in the Place of Great Testing

So, today we visited the place of great testing.... WalMart.  Nothing like shopping with your kids to really find out what mood you are in.  And today's visit was extra trying.  For one, we had just finished shopping at Sam's Club, so we already had an hour of constant "can I have... can we get... daddy, I really like..."  Also, one of Rachel's friends was with us, someone who is completely not used to our family dynamic.

So we're about an hour into our WalMart shopping, and the problem occurs.  You know, THE PROBLEM.  I think every family that shops together has it - the moment when your children absolutely dig in and won't budge.  I tried to reason with them, they ignored me.  I suggested acceptable alternatives, they refused them all.  I attempted to explain the cost of what they were suggesting, they didn't care.  They simply dug in.  And I started to get mad.  I could sugar-coat it and say "I was frustrated," but let's call it like it is... I was mad.  And then, something strange happened.  I totally dropped my normal engineering mindset.  It must have been a God thing.

For those who are not engineers (or not married to one), let me explain.  Give an engineer a problem, they begin to develop a solution.  For a strong single-tasker like me, finding the solution becomes all-consuming.  All Consuming.  ALL CONSUMING.  If I go to bed while thinking about a problem, I will not be able to go to sleep until I have come up with a solution.  Even if I appear to be doing something else, I am frequently only going through the motions while my mind works on the problem.  All consuming.  A-L-L spells ALL.  Get the picture?

So, what did I do that was so revolutionary?  I decided to skip the problem-solving process entirely.  In a relatively calm voice, I told the girls that the decision-making had become too difficult, and that we were going to put everything back and make our choice some other time.  I still felt angry, but I did not unleash it.  More importantly, I suspended the problem-solving process entirely.  No long, heated discussions that later make me think I brow-beat my kids into submission; no fussing, crying, whiny kids who blubber all the way to the check-out line in hopes of wearing down my resolve.  Problem... not solved, but eliminated.  

"But all you did was put it off," you say.  Well, yes and no.  Yes, I did put off that particular purchase, and it cannot be put off forever - it is one of those things that I will have to go back to.  A solution must be found.  However, I will be able to go back to it in a more controlled manner.  When we go back, we will not have a guest with us.  I am also planning to set a budget before I go - before today's visit, I really didn't have a good idea of what the relative costs were, but now I do.  I will probably take them to the store one at a time also, just to stack the deck a little more in my favor.

All in all, I feel pretty good about this one.  You see, Monday Morning Parenting moments don't have to mean that you blew it.  It's also possible to look back and decide that you handled things well.  Then you can flag that play in the playbook so that you remember it later in a similar situation.  Game improved! 

Remember: the Goal is the Thing

Here's a really good Monday Morning Parent kind of moment.  It happened on Wednesday night at Chick-Fil-A, and it's a great example of getting a new perspective that allows you to change your game plan for the better.

Been having some study problems with Rachel lately.  She's in 4th grade now, and this is the first year she's really needed to study.  Oh, she's had homework and tests for years, but up to this point she has been able to get good grades without much work at home.  Now, things are changing.  Either the difficulty of the material has increased, or the pace at which they are presenting it has.  Oh, and don't over react - we're not talking F's here, we're talking B's and C's instead of A's and B's.  Rachel's a smart girl, smart enough to get all A's, but I'm happy with A's and B's.

This problem is compounded by the small time frame that I have to help her.  As the child of a single parent, Rachel goes to an after-school program at our church, and I don't pick her up most nights until after 5pm.  By the time we get home, get settled, and have supper it's time to start thinking about showers, Bible reading, and bedtime.  That doesn't leave much of the "good time" for helping her with homework or studying for tests.  After about 8pm, Rachel tires quickly and the return on our investment gets small fast.

Add to that the fact that I'm really not very good at studying.  So, when trying to help Rachel learn good study habits, I tended to fall back on the two things I know: 1) the way my mom would study - meticulously going through every subject every day in detail, writing and re-writing, reading and re-reading, and 2) threats of punishment if she didn't do what she was supposed to.

This combination resulted in... very little that was good.  Bless her, Rachel probably thought I was turning into the Devil.  It became almost impossible for her to keep track of all the things I was asking her to do.  She started dreading pick-up time, because I would ask about everything: have you.... written your spelling words, read your story, looked over your science/social studies... Inevitably, she forgot something - there was just too much to remember and the specifics changed all the time.  Threats of punishment were ineffective - and spiraled to the ridiculous (a spanking for not writing your spelling words three times each?  really?  who does that?).  It got to the point that she would burst into tears the moment I started my questions, terrified that she had missed the mark again.

Praise God for good friends who have been there before.  I was talking with my good friend SS (no, not Hitler's SS, though her kids might think there's a resemblance).  She and her husband are great friends, and they have girls at and older than my girls' ages.  She helped me to see two things I was missing: 1) Rachel is old enough that she should be involved in figuring out what works for her, and most importantly 2) the details of the study habits are not the goal - good grades are. I had been focusing so hard on getting together a plan for studying that I lost sight of the fact that most of her grades were still good.

So, we're on a new path now, and I already feel a weight off my shoulders.  Here's the basics:

1. While we will still look at grades on individual tests/assignments, the goal is to have a 90 or higher in all subjects on report cards and mid-term progress reports.  No knee-jerk reactions unless an individual grade is really, really bad.
2. Rachel gets rewarded with an extra-curricular activity (like gymnastics classes) while she keeps all her grades at 90 or above, but loses it if not.
3. Rachel gets to pick her own study habits (with some suggestions from me) in any subject for which her most recent grade (report card or progress report) was 90 or above. 
4. For subjects where the most recent grade was not 90 or above, she and I will sit down, discuss, and agree upon a more stringent study plan for that subject.  We will also agree upon appropriate discipline if she fails to follow the plan.

Will it be perfect?  probably not.  But just talking about it has already made Rachel feel 100% better - more in control and more willing to work.  We both are less stressed.  And God blessed us with a great starting point: her most recent progress report came home yesterday... with all grades 90 and above.  Starting from the top - what a great way to begin!

Who is The Monday Morning Parent?

That would be me.  Not that you can't contribute - I would love to have your comments and stories to include int he blog - but the buck stops with me.  To understand the background of what you read here, it may help you to know a few things about who I am.  So, here you go:

I'm a Christian.  I am thankful that Jesus came and died so that I could be reborn.  I am a sinner saved by grace - not perfect, but working toward it.  Some days I do better than others.  My two main goals in life are 1) to let my children know that God loves them and 2) to let my children know that I love them.  If I can accomplish those two things, anything else is gravy.

I'm a single dad with two girls.  I love them unconditionally.  I am having to learn how to play like a girl.  I fear the day when they start dating.  I have told them that they cannot date until they are 30.  I came equipped with NO knowledge of how to parent a girl.  For that matter, I came with equipped with no knowledge of how to parent at all.  I want to be a good dad, and I am trying to get better every day.

I'm an engineer.  That means I act, react, and (most importantly) think like an engineer.  God has blessed me with a great ability as a single-tasker.  That's right, single-tasker.  I am at my best when I can concentrate on one thing to the exclusion of all others.  Not the best quality in a parent, but we all have to work with what God's given us.  It makes me lousy at getting everything ready for a meal at the same time, but really good at giving the girls my attention when we are playing a game.

I'm a widower.  My wife passed away in December 2007 from complications with her leukemia.  I miss her both as a wife and as the mother of my children, but God has helped me both to mourn her death and celebrate her life.  As He promised, He has changed my mourning into joy.

I'm a lousy blogger.  I started this blog with the intention of posting at least once per week.  It's not even January, and I'm already behind.  Get used to it.