Things that make me a better parent: Part the Second

Pile of bouncing children.

We've had a few days quiet at home lately, and had lots of lovely friends to visit us.  We bounce on the jumpoline, and play in the shell pool.  By we, I mean the kids (mostly).  It's lovely, relaxed, and Lolly goes to bed tired and happy.  Friends are good to have.  They make so much of my parenting seem normal.

It's good to debrief, and confess, between ourselves, to our parenting fails (and parenting wins, which can feel like a confession, too).  And to get advice (or maybe just normalisation) on things that, perhaps, some parents would be shocked and alarmed at.  Like breastfeeding (not just for babies!), co-sleeping arrangements, how to get your kid to do stuff without threatening them, alternatives to traditional schooling, and all the rest of that hippy-arse stuff.

Oh and we always spend a goodly amount of time being angry (and hilarious in our venomous critiques) about the patriarchy.

Good times.

I come away being relived that, just maybe, I'm doing a decent job at this, and that at least I'm not alone.  Oh, and that losing my temper is not the end of the world.  And that my social critique does not go in vain.  I always feel better after getting my rant on.

It's like group parenting therapy, but free.  It's ace.

The Doldrums

Other people get these, right?  Those days (and strings of days) where snack-making, activity-doing, going-out-organising is just too much and you end up parking the kid in front of the television and hoping they just keep quiet for a week or so.  Where one more demand for any kind of attention (from anyone) feels like it's going to blow one of your gaskets.  Where you just can't bring yourself to care (again) that the cat or dog "did stuff", or to explain *why* endlessly, or admire the all round awesome of your own flesh and blood (and all of their bodily products!), who at that moment you'd quite happily neglect shamelessly for an episode of your favourite TV show (uninterupted) and a good lie down (also uninterupted, and possibly in a different time zone). 

I'm not a bad parent, in fact I'm pretty damn good at my job.  But I'm in the doldrums.  My sails are flat.  My brain is fuzz.  I am a limp biscuit.

The Doldrums: apparently "warm air rises and loses its moisture" is code for "parent loses motivation to walk upright and talk in complete sentences."

I had revived a tad, in the past few weeks, but this damn cold has plonked me back in the "warm air rises and loses its moisture" zone again. 

Accessibility Fail

Welcome, BADD bloggers!

As someone who has one kid in a wheelchair, and, on occasion, one in a stroller too (I used to have one in the wheelchair and one in a sling!), I have a pretty good eye for accessibility.  Or should I say, the lack thereof.

Local footpath "options"... FAIL

Society's public spaces are just not accessible.  This is not just about the chair, or even just about disability.  It's about people with a disability, carers, children, young people, women, different cultures, different races.  It's about power.  All of our spaces are designed or function to satisfy the powerful, the status quo.  So, in Australia, that's about white, middle class men people who are invested in capitalism.  Our spaces are about celebrating that [or selling it to us].  Other people don't have things designed for them, we have things to "cater to" us, or to "accomodate" us.  We're a second thought.

In Sydney city: "ramp" to cross road - FAIL

I'm sick of it.  So I'm doing my bit, in a bloggy way, to point out Accessibility FAIL from my three main persepectives as a "second thought" in society:

1. As a carer for a child in a wheelchair.  This child is a tall, lanky 12 year old, with athetoid CP, very limited motor control, no independent walking, and who is incontinent.  Oh, and who has epilepsy.  Oh, so much potential here!  [I'm planning a whole post on the awesome that isn't 'the "disabled toilets" of the world, with their built-in assumptions that 1. you're in there alone, and 2. you're using the toilet, and 3. you're without any friggin bags, need for a rubbish bin, or have any kids/trolleys/cane's/dogs/etc with you.  That is, they're usually just a "normal" toilet with a friggin rail and more room.  FAIL.  More on this in future posts.../rant]  Here's the girl:

2. As a mother of a small child.  Who is 3, curious, enjoys running and exploring, and who is sometimes in a stroller (and who was in a sling).  So much of our public world excludes children, and (not by accident) their mothers carers.  Sometimes we are just ignored, rendered invisible, unwanted, excluded, and sometimes we are taken advantage of for the sake of the almighty dollar (lets just take the basics of paying for playgrounds, the display of sweets at checkouts, the goddam kiddie rides at the goddam shops.  Oh and none of those things are accessible for the chair anyway, so there's that). Here's the small girl:

3. As a woman.  Who finds it is just so awesome that she can't go any-friggin-where without being hit over the head with what she isn't, and what she should be, and that the world is set up and catered to the male gaze (trails off into feminist rant inducing much soap boxing and probably spittle...).  Here's me:

Welcome to Accessibility Fail.  I'm blogging the Accessiblity FAIL I see in my life, either in person or online.  Please join me!  Post a comment below, or add your own experiences on your blog and I'll link 'em (See Simply Link doohickey below!).  If I ever see Accessibility Wins, I'll post them too, but we all know those are few and far between!

The upshot of all this is:  Here is my basic bit of advice for all town planners, policy officers, architects, engineers, public officials, politicians, bureaucrats, and anyone having anything to do with public (and private) building, public (and private) space design, and public life in general NEED to do this BEFORE building or 'adapting' a space:

1.  Go there and push someone in a wheelchair.

2.  Go there and push themselves in a wheelchair.

3.  Go there and try any number of mobility "aids," vision "aids," and the innumerable ways and means with which some people with disability might access the world.

4.  Don't assume if you've done 1-4 that you've a) covered everything and everybody, and b) have any idea what it's really like. 

5.  Go there and push a kid in a stroller.

6.  Go there with with a small child who might behave unpredictably, or use the environment in ways adults won't.

7.  Which should really be numbers one to six: ASK.  Consult, converse, listen.  Don't add us on at the end like a PC nod to the outsiders.  We're not outsiders.  We're YOU.

Only then can you go design, fund, build and so on.

Grab a button and post a comment if you'd like to Play Along at Home [Fun for All the Family TM].  If we can't laugh we'll drown in a lake of unicorn tears.  Or something. 




<center><a href="http://memotoselfblogger.blogspot.com/p/accessibility-fail.html"><img border="0" src="http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5224/5671385157_9ef2c3ca91_m.jpg" width="125" height="94" alt="Accessibility FAIL button"/></a></center>

This post is for Blogging Against Disablism Day 2011, from the fabulous Diary of a Goldfish.  My 2009 BADD post is here.  I blog about being a stepmum to a child with a disability (and a teenager!), my 3 year old, Montessori doings, and general parenthood, feminist awesome.  You might also want to check out my living with a wheelchair post here, and my post on being a stepmother here!  A final link, to my post On Epilepsy, here. 


Thanks for stopping by!  Leave me some comment luv!  If you feel like sharing your own experience of Accessibility FAIL, link yourself below, I'm making it a regular feature here.

On Parenting, and Holy Crap: Three!

Note the Unicorn...

My daughter is three (and one month), and (again with the trite to say so on the Interwebz) she is changing a little (or a lot) every. single. day.  These changes are mostly amazing.  Okay, there's some florid upset and hiding under the table moments (her, not me - though it's a close thing, some days), but mostly I am finding it easier, not harder, to deal with being a parent.  The more she's like a talking, feeling, active, amazing person, the easier it is to remember that when parenting her.

Most parenting fail I see comes from a place of not treating kids like they are human beings.  Or so runs my theory.  Bizarre expectations (like staying quiet and happy while trapped in a trolley at the shops; staying quiet and happy while doing anything that adults like and that the kid finds excrutiatingly dull and uninteresting; staying goddam quiet and happy all the time) and some parental reactions to these bizarre expectations (yelling, belittling, yelling, hitting, shaming, yelling) seem to come from a place where the adult has simply forgotten (or doesn't care) that this is a human being, with their own unique needs, feelings, preferences, and abilities.

It's weird, what some of us (and society) expect of children, and how little we (and society) generally respect them.  We expect them to acheive things that we can't do ourselves: goddam quiet and happy being an example.  I'm not quiet and happy all the friggin time.  Far from it, if I'm honest.  There are things I hate doing, things that shit me to tears, things that scare me.  But if children act this way, we act as if they are broken somehow for not being goddam happy.  And quiet, don't forget quiet.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a perfect person, or a perfect parent. I'm impatient, demanding, emotional, and suffer from a lack of logic just as much as the next awesome blogger.  And, funnily enough, so is my child.  Which is kinda my point.  When I am not treated like a full human being is when I struggle the most with feelings of rage and hurt and frustration. I figure it's the same for kids. 

So, the older Lolly gets, the more I can see her, her as a small person, with her own stuff, her own feelings and likes and dislikes, her own needs.  Babies are a bundle of immediate needs, and as we tether ourselves to them to care for them, it can be easy to forget that they are small people, and not somehow extensions of the parts of ourselves that are caring for all those needs.  Toddlers are similar, more unformed, more immediate, more on the borderline of danger and safety.  Wrangling them can become more about some future end result than about them as a person.  Children are transitioning, seeing them a whole people gets easier and easier.  The younger they are the more reminding we need.

This stuff is hard.  Humans are selfish (though not completely, we also rock sometimes) and living in subservience to the personhood of another human being is just plain difficult.   This is why parenting disabled kids is so grinding on the soul: at least with regular kids there is an end of immediate responsibility in sight.  Your charge will grow up and out into themselves and into the world.  For a disabled child, that pathway is crooked and sometimes not there at all.

It's always "all about me," inside our heads, if we're honest.  Raising children becomes an exercise in balancing my Self with the needs of another whole person/s.  Balancing act extraordinairre.  When I'm out of balance, I'm worse at my job. 

So, do I come to a point?  Perhaps it's being three.  Three is an age where Lolly-as-person is more visible and vocal.  She can [occasionally] be reasoned with.  We can negotiate.  She understands time and "later" is becoming more real to her.  She is increasingly happy with her own or others' company, lessening the demands on just me.  I'm finding it easier to deal with the everyday difficulties of parenting, I can talk to her, reason with her, offer substitutes, explain, talk about emotions (hers and mine) and meanings.

So sure, it's demanding, her intellect needs it's own chaperone, and the goddam
horse stories are never ending, but it's also easier for my brain to send that reminder to my mouth: here's a person.  Respect that.

Watch out, your personhood is showing!

Reading Blogs makes me a better parent, Part the First

You know, when I'm thinking and feeling this parenting gig more, I'm in the zone, it goes great, I'm totally there.  Lolly and I are in sync and get along famously.  If I lose focus, revert to some crap behaviours or strange expectations, things go downhill and we both lose out.  One of the things that has kept me in the zone is the words of other parents.  About what to stay focussed on.  About what to expect from a three year old.  About being a parent and that sometimes that is hard work.  About stuff to do with her.  And how to think about how she plays and engages with that stuff.  About fun things.

For parenting awesome: blue milk; The Crazy Baby Mama.  Stuff to do, and thinking hard about how and why kids do it that way (or not): The Artful Parent; Teacher Tom; The Montessori Goldmine.  Check out more Montessori gems and ideas at What Did We Do All Day; A Bit of This and A Bit of That; and One Hook Wonder. 

Same with parenting a disabled child.  There are days it seems a never ending tragedy of epic proportions, and I swan about all "woe is me," beating my brow and lamenting and covering myself and my family with ashes* [*ashes are metaphorical].  Other days I'm more "oh yeah, whatevers" and "this is easy-pants!"  Sometimes those hair-tearing ashes days happen anyway, no matter how much zen crap I try about being in the friggin moment, but other times, reading something or thinking about something I've read can turn my switch from crap to slightly less crap.

NOT like this...

Now, I don't mean in a flowery unicorn shit way, about it all being some magical mythical journey and messages from angels and blah blah blah [that stuff generally makes me wanna get my poking stick out], but just a more settled feeling of "life, this is it."  In a positive way.  Some days you see the soul in the child more than the layers of shit to clean (and I mean actual shit), the trouble, the back pain, the near constant welling of tears (mine, not hers), the girl-sized hole in your loved-one's heart, the wheelchair, the sadness, the "look at my pretend seizure, Mummy" from the 3 year old, the actual seizures, the...whole fantabulous everything of what's wrong with this picture.

Official Poking Stick

Some days it just IS, it's not something sad or wrong, it's just a person with their own stuff, same as anyone, but more so.  My job is to help her out, give her some joy in her life, some respect, some love and some care, some family.  And it's easier, trite as it might be to say so publicly here on the Interwebz, to know that other people are out there, with their own people, and their own shit, dealing in their own ways.

Seriously, check out: A Blog About a Bloke; a moon, worn as if it were a shell; Blogzilly; Life with a Severely Disabled Child; the Flight of Our Hummingbird; and My Three Ring Circus.

So, upshot is, reading shit on the internet is good.  Not least of which that when googling images for "poking stick," I found the following:

More Like THIS.

Internet, I love you.


[Image source: poking stick]
[Image source - unicorn poker]

Television - the Dreaded Box!

Television viewing is the secret shame of most parents I know.  No matter how well adjusted we appear with our self-regulatory arguments, even self regulator parents have a secret spot of shame about how much their kids view sometimes.  Other than super parents who don't have a television, all of us struggle with how much kids watch, and what they are watching.  So I thought I'd work through some of my thoughts on this here, though I freely admit it is an issue I feel a lot of conflict about.  It's not a referenced post, though I think I'll expand on some areas in later posts with references :D.



To view or not to view? 

We are obviously television viewers.  I harbour a secret dream of having some perfect TV-free life where we all play games, read, and discuss politics or something, but we live in a real, digital world, and I actually think it's part of what I have to guide Lolly through as she grows - viewing and managing various forms of media. 

My other main, and considerably less noble, reason, is that I get time.  I get to sit and have a coffee.  I get to pay bills.  I get to surf online.  I get to catch up on chores.  I get to cook dinner.  I get to write on this blog.  And so on.  I don't have to be "on".  And that's important to me.  In the absence of a tribe with which Lolly can play and interact, a LOT of the time it's just her and me.  So, in order to maintain some space, I view television as both a necessary and valuable thing, and a sometimes welcome distraction/"evil".

Those who have seen my house will be laughing at the idea that I need to "out" myself online as a TV viewer.  We have, I kid you not, a 60 inch plasma screen television that is the biggest thing you've ever seen.  Please ignore our lackluster curtains and drab stained carpet in this shot.  You can tell what our priorities were, giant TV or makeover for the lounge.  The TV won.  :D 

Watching Backyardigans.

I love this shot of Lolly at 15 months watching In the Night Garden.

OMG!!!!111!!  Pinky Ponk!!!  In other words, this is one serious television. 


How much to view? 

We are predominantly self-regulators, with a dash of "just No" thrown in - lol.  I think learning to regulate her own viewing is important, and to do that, Lolly needs the freedom to over-indulge and feel the effects of that (I think her ability to do this increases as she gets older).  But I also, at a practical level, reserve the right to say No on occasion, or to put the television on when it hasn't been requested.  My general policy is only to put it on when it is asked for.  Sometimes I might refuse if I think it's motivated by frustration, or comes at a bad time, like when we're getting ready to go out or have dinner.  Likewise sometimes I put it on when I need it on, like if I'm tired, sick, or frustrated.  This latter type of viewing is what I am trying to cut out entirely.

Self regulation with digital media has worked well with Smash, who is nearly 15.  He goes through periods of lots of screen time (he doesn't get much of a look in with the TV, but plays WoW) and periods of almost none.  I notice that on holidays there are days of almost solid TV/WoW, which dies down after he reaches saturation point.  I work in a similar way, so find it easier to understand.

My fundamental view is, that I watch television and use lots of digital media, and I'm fundamentally okay.  So why will my children be any different?  Some days I want to watch heaps (obviously I'm thinking pre-kids here) and others, none.  Some days I can sit and read all day (pre-kids - lol), some days I don't read at all (rare!).  Television is not evil. It's just a thing.  Another thing all of us need to deal with at some stage in our lives.  I'd rather not make it more attractive by being forbidden, and use it for what it does offer, a glimpse into other worlds, fantastic opportunities for education, and for entertainment.

If I did regulate, and I know some do this as their kids get older, I would probably go with a 'number of shows" approach, not time limitations.  Like, you can watch 2 movies, or 3 episodes of whatever, a day.  I think saying "only between 4 and 5 o'clock" or similar makes that time about television, not choice.  At Lolly's age, I'm not considering regulation, and in keeping with what I believe about self-regulation, I don't think it will be necessary.  It does involve a lot of trust that the child knows what they are doing, though!  It can be hard as a parent!


What to watch? 

Here, I am NOT a self-regulator, not with Lolly anyway.   I think regulating content is too much for small children, with no context in which to do it, and loads of natural curiosity.  Smash, well, we now let him choose what he likes, and have done since our last bastion of censorship fell by the wayside - South Park when he was round 12 :D.  Lolly and Snail, I control content.  Mostly for gender and praise, violence, and other negative social messages I want to avoid for as long as I can.

So what I do is allow free choice within a limited palette.  At 2 and a half, this is easy.  To be honest, I think kids generally choose shows that suit them anyway, so don't think this will be too much of an issue, but I may be eating my words in a few years, who knows!  Being fundamentally a self-regulator, I'd have to have a compelling reason to say no, too.

I try for shows with little or no obvious gendered behaviour and characters, and as little praise for nothing as I can.  Shows with music and dancing, and shows with real people, as well as animated stuff, are good too.  A minimum of violence, and appropriate treatment of children as little humans is a must.  We probably allow more violence than I'd like in an ideal world, as we have older siblings.

As she grows I anticipate increasingly allowing her a choice and voice, until I don't provide any "no"s at all.  This is what we did with Smash very successfully.  We had a couple of programs, Family Guy and South Park, that we didn't "allow" him to watch until he was 12 or so because of their style of content.  I think you need a well developed sense of irony to appreciate them.  We talked to him about it, and he always seemed fine.  I think by 11 or 12 he was so proficient at computing that continuing to "forbid" a program was a waste of time anyway, as he could easily access all that content online by then.  I'd rather watch a show with a child and talk about it that make it Golden and Forbidden.  It's about providing the child with a structure for approaching and understanding content, and making up their own mind within a supportive environment. 

So, what does Lolly watch?  Things I liked for Lolly very early years - In the Night Garden, Play School, Wonder Pets, The Upside Down Show (this one was her first obsession and she requested it All. The. Time for about 3 weeks, and they only made one series!!!  She was round 20 months then from memory), Peppa Pig, Timmy, Shaun the Sheep.

As she headed into the twos, we introduced movies:  Ice Age 1, 2 and 3 were her favourites (she still likes these), Madagascar, Wall-E, and unfortunately, Astro Boy (or Robot Guy as she calls it) which we watched with the family and she became obsessed with a few months ago.  Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Bee Movie are also popular.

Stuff she loves now - she's 2 and a half:

- The Backyardigans - this is a fantastic, creative show, that she has liked, on and off, for many months.

It's colourful and filled with music for younger ones, and she follows the stories and plot now she is older.  It's CGI animation, and the dancing is modeled on real dancers.  There are five animal characters who share a backyard who go on imaginary adventures each episode, with a different musical theme.  There are heaps of episodes, and I recently read they are making a new season this year!  The gender stuff is good, with three male and two female characters, and each character having turns in all the types of roles, king, queen, captain, knight, scientist, explorer, detective, pirate, journalist, superheroes, and so on.  There's a minimum of praise as it's all child characters talking to each other.  With simple stories and catchy tunes, I highly recommend it if you haven't seen it!

- Charlie and Lola - adorable, especially as Lolly has an older brother, too.

- Wallace and Gromit - she LOVES this, though it is a little scary on occasion, and can be violent (cartoonish of course).  Not many episodes, but they did do two films, thank goodness.

- Timmy Time , by the same animators who did Wallace and Shaun the Sheep.

Lolly recently went through an obsession with "Timmy on teevee!", I think because she moved beyond the cool colours and cute animals she liked as a younger tot, to the plots of each show - which are simple toddler problems like sharing and dealing with frustrations, and so on.  Timmy does have some episodes I culled, which included a "naughty step" - the opposite of what we practice here!  In general it is a little too "good" and "bad" for my taste, but manages to pass more generally because of it's simple young child issues, and managing emotions positively.  I would warn homeschoolers that it's about 'nursery' school.  Lolly doesn't go to school, though, and doesn't mind this at all.

- she likes some things as entertainment, I think, like Pingu, which she laughs at and says is "so funny."

- she watched Poko almost exclusively a month or so ago, but is off high rotation now.

It's a lovely gentle show that focusses on emotional intelligence and development in children.  Poko deals with upset and frustration gently and successfully.  It's lovely and bright, and Mr Murphy the monkey is a favourite round here.

- Shaun the Sheep is still a fave, and we all enjoy the show.

Intentional viewing.

This is the biggest change in television viewing for our whole family, and is a product of pay television and digital storage of films and shows.  Since we got our digital recorder, and Foxtel, we watch almost NO live television.  We record everything and watch when it suits us.  This has been the case since before we had Lolly.

The two main side effects of this are the almost complete lack of commercials, and that our viewing is more intentional.  We don't turn on the television and watch hours randomly, we are watching things we want to watch.  Now, if I'm honest, of course we still can be found with our bums on the couch for hours at a time, but at least we're watching things we are interested in rather than whatever we can get from four or five channels, at a particular viewing time, which is very much how it used to be sometimes long ago in pre-digital eras :D.

For kids, the lack of commercials is truly fantastic.  I can't really overstate just how awesome it is.  And intentional viewing, while it may not be truly ideal in terms of Lolly's brain, is still involving choice, preference, lets her explore a show over and over again while she learns what she likes to from it, and memory and communication as she finds ways to ask for what she wants.

Negotiation is a big thing, too, when all of us are watching, or even just Lolly and Snail.  For example, Snail LOVES Blue's Clues, and would watch it every time the box is on if allowed to.  In my pre-Lolly days, I watched a complete shed-load of Blue's.  Lolly likes Blue's, but she just doesn't have the single-minded focus of the Snail.  So Snail's request is always "Blue" and Lolly's is most often "not Blue."  I've started negotiation with Lolly (Snail finds this hard, it is a little beyond her other than "not now, soon" or "first this, then Blue"), first Blue's for Snail, then your show (or the other way round).  It works about half the time - lol.  On less than ideal parenting days, I go with whoever will whinge the least (usually Snail). 

So, that's our television truths.  Lolly watches from 3 or 4 hours to no hours a day, but normal for us is a couple of hours spaced over the day being normal, especially when we have Snail as well.  After school I do tend to put on the television for them, and they wander and play around it.  I try as much as possible to have television free time, and this is increasing as Lolly gets older.  I don't make a big deal out of it, I just leave it off!  My main "rule" now is that Lolly or Snail have to request the show.  So the television is off unless something particular is requested.  This is working well, and I'm hoping will limit "default" viewing.  I also quite often turn it off altogether if neither girl is still watching. 

How much television do your kids watch?  How and why do you control it?  We're all curious, let's be upfront!  :D