I suppose my parenting story starts where everyone’s story starts: with my own parents.
I was born in 1975 in an intentional community (hippie commune) in rural Tennessee. My parents met at the University of Illinois and decided to buy some land with some friends and withdraw from a society that they felt was in serious decline. We had no electricity or running water and everyone pitched in to create a little village for the 6 babies that would be born that year. I ran barefoot around the commune all day, ate veggies from the gardens and was cared for by various adults who were never too busy or in a rush. Although I have almost no memory of this time, and while I'm sure it was a lot of hard work for the adults, it seems to me that it was an idyllic setting for early life. We moved to Nashville when I was three and a half so that my mom could pursue her Master’s degree. After adjusting to city life, I began attending my local public elementary school, but my mom took me out after 3 months when she learned I was being hit on the hand with a ruler for talking in class and made to eat lunch standing up if I talked in the lunchroom. She enrolled me in a Montessori school - the same school where I would end up teaching 21 years later. So, even my early story is one of non-traditional parenting and education.
I gave birth to my only son, Taylor, in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in early childhood education, training in the Montessori and RIE methods, Positive Discipline training and many years of teaching under my belt. I would soon learn that absolutely none of this counted toward my being prepared for motherhood. Taylor was intense and spirited from the get-go, and I soon developed postpartum depression and debilitating anxiety when he was unable to sleep for more than an hour at a time. He attended a Montessori preschool with me - in fact, I was his first teacher in the infant room. Looking back, I can clearly see the early signs that he was never going to be the “round peg,” but it wasn't until he started public school kindergarten that his differences began to be truly problematic. My articulate, imaginative, electrified little boy struggled and struggled throughout elementary school. Rather than memories of class parties and field trips and performances, I only have memories of office referrals, conferences with teachers and principals, suspensions and “support team” meetings. He was evaluated in kindergarten, third, fourth and fifth grades until he was finally given a diagnosis of ADHD.
Meanwhile, I searched endlessly for parenting answers. My dear husband tried his best to support his educator wife and follow along with whatever new method she wanted to try, even if he thought it was crazy. Although I was trained to eschew traditional disciplinary methods like sticker charts and time-outs in favor of Positive Redirection, the pressures of public school and my own perfectionism combined to turn me into the kind of parent I am now determined to help. My lowest point involved frequent spankings. Even though it stopped by the time he was six, I still worry that all the connected, compassionate parenting in the world can’t erase the damage that purposefully hurting my son did.
I sent Taylor to a magnet middle school when he turned 10. In some ways it was the worst time of his life, and yet we would not be where we are today if I had not made that decision. The workload was overwhelming and unrelenting, and his usual As and Bs turned to Ds and Fs. His self-esteem plummeted and there were some suicidal thoughts expressed. I had reached a point of desperation that allowed me to become the Mom Who Made Things Happen. I researched the IEP (Individualized Education plan for students with special needs) process and decided that I would get him one even if it killed me. He would no longer fall through the cracks, he would have rights, so help me God. I pushed and pushed. I called supervisors and went over heads. I threatened legal action. Finally, he got a diagnosis. Never in a million years would I have believed that I would ever WANT a special needs diagnosis. But it really did save us in so many ways.
First, it gave us the protection we needed from disciplinary measures such as retention, and it gave Taylor the accommodations he desperately needed, such as extra time, fewer distractions and technology assistance. Secondly, Taylor was able to start medication that helped him be less distracted - and distracting - in class. But most importantly, it led me to discover Dr. Ross Greene’s Collaborative and Proactive Solutions. His famous words: “Kids do well when they can, not when they want to” was a huge paradigm shift for me. To adjust your parenting lens so that you see children as “having a hard time, not giving you a hard time” (another of Dr. Greene’s gems) means that every difficult interaction switches from a behavior that the adult must somehow modify - which is a lot of pressure! - to an indication of an underlying problem that we can find ways to accommodate or work on together. In other words, I was able to see Taylor’s challenges simply in terms of lagging skills rather than deliberate refusals to comply.
CPS, paired with the wisdom I gained from Robin Einzig’s Visible Child approach
allowed me to begin de-prioritizing school work and re-prioritizing my relationship with my son. And ever since then, I can honestly say that parenting has been pretty easy!
Taylor is now 14 and is a very balanced and self-aware human. He is responsible, thoughtful and kind. He no longer needs medication and he gets straight As in his Honors high school classes. I stay completely out of his school affairs unless he needs me to get involved, and I work very hard not to be concerned with grades or any external measure of his success. Because I now know that none of that matters. Parenting a teen (or really any age child) is not about managing behavior, it's about the relationship. If that’s not secure, there is very little hope of affecting change.
In my current work as a nanny and a parenting consultant, my goal is to spread the messages of Respectful Parenting far and wide. I truly believe that if the majority of parents can have the lens shift that I did - before they do irreparable damage - that our society can change in a fundamental way. The idea that children are incapable of behaving well without external “carrots and sticks” is an antiquated one. It’s time to start parenting consciously, collaboratively and compassionately. We’re ready.
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