Raising Spirit

Everybody knows how to raise children, except the people who have them.  --P.J. O'Rourke

I used to be the world's best mother.  I knew how to parent successfully and how to make children behave appropriately.  I had the whole attachment parenting thing pegged for softies with children that breastfed until 6, and I assumed it wasn't really for me or my children.  I knew parenting wouldn't be easy, but I also knew that with effort, I could do it well and have great, beautifully behaved kids to show for it.

And then I had Emery.

Straight out of the gate, I ended up doing loosely defined attachment parenting by instinct.  Go figure.  Also, it was the best parenting approach for Emery, who seemingly needed to be kept out of an overstimulating daycare, and wanted to be held and rocked and carried backpack style her entire infancy and toddler hood.
I digress. 

Her spirit can be overwhelming to me.   I've written about it before, and I write about it now for a cathartic outlet, and with hope that I can connect with someone else in similar shoes. 

The pressures of being a parent are equal to any pressure on earth. To be a conscious parent, and really look to that little being's mental and physical health, is a responsibility which most of us, including me, avoid most of the time because it's too hard.--John Lennon

Her intensity has such potency and often impossible for me to reign in.  It astounds me, sometimes terrifies me, and often annoys me to my core.  I'm slightly ashamed to write that last sentence. I even wrote and erased it twice before I left it for revealing, but it must be written. It's the truth, and it's better out than in.  So much for my pre child parenting philosophies. I can now conclude that effort on my part has little to do with behavior on hers.

But you know I love her anyway.  Immeasurably so.  I swear the adoration and appreciation I have for her could fuel every blessed beat of my heart from here to the age of 100.  You knew that already, I'm sure.  Any mother would.  And even if it takes me the rest of my life to show her, she'll know that, too.

Still, it's kind of embarrassing to admit that my very young child makes me feel so nuts.  It's tough to admit that she is so incredibly perceptive and sensitive and needy and articulate and intense for a 3 year old that I don't know how to guide her behaviorally without feeling that I'm crushing her emotionally. 

I'm vulnerable.  I'm frustrated.  I don't know what the heck I'm doing.  I've never actually raised a child before, let alone a child that's "normal" and healthy, but not necessarily typical in regard to sensory processing. 

Train the parent and spare the child.--Duane Alan Hahn

I have many moments of brimming tears lately.  Tears for watching how out of control her sensations can throw her and how explosive her emotions can be in reaction.  Tears for disappointment in myself for being so floored by the disposition of a child I love so much.  Tears for worry of failing her.  Tears for exhaustion of my patience. 

I'm not even close to the parenting expert I was before she made me a mother. And as the saying goes: the more I learn, the less I know.

But see, she feels everything.  Everything.  From the tiniest bump in fabric to the difference in texture between applesauce brands.   Let's just say that if a pea were wedged beneath 20 layers of mattress and she sat atop, she'd be deemed princess.

For instance, dressing. (insert exhausted sigh here)  Her sleeves have to be rolled smoothly exactly 3 times, sometimes 4, at equal widths, and often it takes several tries to get it just so.  Her sock seams, when she agrees to tolerate socks for short periods of time, have to be positioned approximately 1/4th inch below her toes.  Panty elastic has to lie precisely on some imaginary groin line that seems to change every time.  Sleeves cannot have elastic and pants legs cannot touch the top of her feet  Zippers have to be zipped, then unzipped, then zipped again.   Her shoes have to be adjusted to some kind of unpredictable level of tension.  Winter is the worst.  Long sleeves and pants required!  Fun times. Often, it takes her 30 minutes to adjust to a new outfit. It's a nightmare--a controlled process of a nightmare, but a nightmare all the same.

I try to be thoughtful about buying clothes that are comfortable for her.  I allow her to choose her clothing for the most part (I just hope other people don't judge and shrug off the ones that do). I've forge getting dressed into an obstacle course or a game so she doesn't notice the seams and waistbands and elastic that appear to feel like tourniquets and restrictive bindings on her skin.  I try my best, but so far, my best hasn't quite been good enough to produce consistent agreement with dressing.  Naked is her favorite outfit.

She needs constant hard proprioceptive sensory input: jumping, tight hugs, wiggling, rolling, running, swinging, etc.  We can't go out to eat because she seriously cant. sit. still.  She touches other kids too much for their liking and practically breaks my neck for all her wrestling caliper "snuggling."  And I haven't even touched on eating, sleep, attention, bathing, fine motor coordination,or auditory processing.

Funny thing is, most outsiders might not even notice.  She masks what one would consider stereotypical sensory difficulties with articulate expression, stunning memory and sociable personality.  Observers might just consider her meltdowns to be typical toddler behavior or assume she is an ill behaved kid with a nonchalant parent, neither of which is the case, obviously.

It's difficult to admit, but Emery is challenging to parent.  I mean, I figure all kids are challenging to parent at one point or another, but Emery seems to be consistently challenging.  Even so, she has moments of tenderness and compassion and gentleness that seem beyond most adult capabilities.  Her potential is astounding if only I don't screw her up with all my exhausted, aimless, sometimes drain circling parenting and  patience burned at both ends.

The irony of it all is that I'm an occupational therapist.  I'm the professional that is supposed to be able to help kids with such sensory processing issues.  Me! I'm supposed to be my own help!  No one can help her better than I?  I have all the best answers? Seriously?  Lord, help me. 

Therapeutically speaking, I've helped other parents, I think.  I've helped other kids, I hope.  To give myself credit, I've probably helped Emery over the years with all the things I have done to modify her sensory diet, acknowledging her feelings regardless of how over the top they seem to me, and accepting her intensity with wide arms.  But that doesn't make parenting her easy and it doesn't make me excellent at it.  It doesn't mean I always instinctively or philosophically know what to do.  I feel like my running thought train is currently: "Why didn't that work? What do I do now? And will someone please tell me if I'm doing this right?"

In spite of the six thousand manuals on child raising in the bookstores, child raising is still a dark continent and no one really knows anything. You just need a lot of love and luck -- and, of course, courage. --Bill Cosby

I don't live in a clinic.  I don't have sensory swings hanging from all the ceilings and  blown up bouncy blobs and rope ladders and oodles of time to spend one-on-one with her.  I don't have a squad of peer examples.  I just have a working class life a house, a family and career that keeps me sprinting.  Daily, I have to do housework or meet work requirements or tend to Eve when Emery is having a meltdown.  I know what I would tell myself from a professional standpoint.  I know what to do, and what to look for, but I have 10 billion other things to do everyday and Emery demands too much of my time for me to do them all.  So something gives.  Every single day.  And I don't feel so good about that, but that's how it is.  I can't do it all.  I want to, but clearly can't.  I need to work on accepting that more readily because it guilts me pretty regularly.

Lately, when I have time, which I honestly don't, I do some reading, relearning, questioning and trying and failing and trying again.  Turns out, I'm no parenting expert and my children are not beautifully behaved despite my best efforts.  I don't know as much as I'd like to know about parenting.  I don't even seem to know all that much about what I do know. 

But what I know is that she has incredible spirit: strong, persistent, and yet still remarkably tender and fragile.  I know I have to learn how to raise such spirit well and do right by her, even if I for all my education and professional experience I still feel like a babe in the woods.

I'll let you know how it goes...

In the meantime, I'll just keep my original parenting mantra I picked up from my prenatal yoga teacher 3 years ago:
I am the best match of a parent for my child, and my child is the best match of a child for me.

  And in the grand scheme of things, I know that mantra is pure truth: I will be the best mother she could have because I couldn't stand to offer her any less that that, and she and her sister are surely everything I need to challenge myself to fully develop spiritually, emotionally and wholly on this journey as a mother.

While we try to teach our children all about life, our children teach us what life is all about.--Anonymous

I'll raise her.  She'll lift me.