Let's Active Listening

I had never really been a fan of active listening. My old boss was always a fan of "seek first to understand, and then to be understood." Whatever. To me, the whole reflecting what someone is saying to try to make it seem like you are guiding them seemed so patronizing. "It sounds like you are really upset." Well no doy!

But with young kids, especially Owen, who is almost 7, this works really well, much to my surprise. Mostly, this is because he doesn't really know what he is feeling, since he is still pretty new to feelings in general. It is a big deal of parenting, as it turns out, to be your kids' guide to what they are really going through.

So Owen has been having fits of late, and the gists of those fits are that he doesn't get enough attention, especially with respect to Nathan, who is 3 1/2. He is also pissed that Nathan gets away with more, which doesn't seem too unusual for an older child. This has been coming to a head.

One other thing about Owen is that he wets the bed at night. I am not particularly concerned about this, even at almost 7. I was the same way, and now they have these pullups (essentially a big boy diaper) that saves this from being a big deal. He is a really hard sleeper.

This was all ok until we realized that Nathan, much younger, wakes up dry each morning, and we started letting him sleep without a pullup. Owen completely lost it, literally, he was hard to understand through crying for 10-15 minutes. When I finally calmed him down (kind of), I started the active listening, pinpointing what he thought he was mad about:
Me: "It seems like you are mad about having to wear a pullup
Him: "Yes. You guys told me we'd work on it and we didn't and now Nathan gets to do it."
Me: "It sounds like you think it isn't fair that Nathan gets to wear underwear to bed."
Him: "Yes, he always gets whatever he wants"
Me: "It sounds like you think Mommy and Daddy treat you unfairly"
Him: "Yes, and he always takes away my priviliges"
Me: "He takes away your priviliges? Like with the pullup?"
Him: "Yes, and with you and mommy spending so much time with him."

I mean, it really can't be that simple, could it? Solution (for now), we worked out a plan to try to get him out of the pullup. More than anything, the kid was just desparate to be heard. You want to say to him "Why not just ask to work on this?" and then you realize that such a concept just wouldn't occur to a 1st grader.

Been almost 4 months since I last posted. Many of you might know that my mom rather suddenly passed away in December. I say suddenly though she had cancer for 4 years, but it really happened pretty quickly, from relative health to coma in under 48 hours, and then passing less than 2 weeks later. So there is that.

Having kids when your parent dies is really, really difficult. It is essentially impossible to be strong for your kids, and while I just want to be there for them, I just haven't been able to. This has gotten better over the past few months. Still, the honesty that they come up with sometimes just slays me. We went to San Diego last week, and the first thing that Nathan says is "Where's Grandma?" This, with my Dad right there. All I could say is, "Grandma's gone."

I try to be strong, but my guilt lately is that I find myself not feeling sad all the time about my Mom's dying. My concern is more for the living, which is positive, but I feel like I should feel more misery about my Mom in particular. I know I did when she was dying, and over the last few years, maybe I have just done a lot of my grief. Then again, maybe this is just going to hit me like a ton of bricks one day.

Yay for my sister and Russ who are finding newfound fame for their urban beekeeping in Los Angeles. Next stop Oprah.