A couple of weeks ago, I shared with you that I was one of the speakers at a workshop “Investment In Self”. The event was hosted by Nadia Marillier of Tranquil and Tenacious Minds.
I prepared this piece titled “I Am Every Woman” in forty-five minutes on the morning of the event. Though I had been mulling over it in my mind for about a month, the inspiration of how to write it, only came to me ten hours before I was scheduled to speak.
I am proud of this piece. It is a condensed version of my life story and the events that shaped me told with honesty. I read somewhere that “When you can tell your story without crying, then you know you have healed”.
Here is a written excerpt: “I am the woman who despite the odds, managed to not just survive my life. I managed to thrive in it. I understand today that the star-dust that my life was sprinkled with when I was born, did not turn into ash after a raging fire. Oh no, no, that would not be right. That star-dust was only the embers of the fire that was being kindled within me.”
As many of you know I work from home while being a caregiver to my adult daughter who is a person with special needs. I am not a professional at using a camera or adjusting sound so I hope you will be forgiving of this when you watch the video. I have a new camera that was gifted to me and I am still learning how to use that so hopefully I will produce better quality videos in the future.
I am however a lover of words and I believe God has gifted me to share the “hard stuff” to touch someone else’s life and in my small way to change the world to be a little kinder and forgiving of each other. So I feel I can’t wait to make perfect videos before I share some of my material with you. As I mentioned I make a living from speaking and writing. By sharing this video you increase my opportunities to work and to take care of my family. For that I will be very appreciative.
If you would like me to hear about specific topics please let me know in the comments. For now, here is “I Am Every Woman”.
I have not written a blog for two weeks. And now here I am. I feel rather delighted with the quiet time I had and with all that I have achieved in these two weeks. One aspect that took up most of my time was my investment in my children’s back-to-school preparations. That required focused time and attention from me. It is such an important part of my year that even my Christmas preparations can’t compare. Why? Well, because I am a big believer in “how you start is how you finish”.
My hope is for my children to aim for the highest version of themselves with self-respect and self-love.
In the days leading up to the first day of the new school year, we (being Michael and I) encourage our children not only to start getting to bed a little earlier; we also coach them into thinking about what personal goals they want to set for themselves for the year ahead. Our back-to-school preparation includes providing our children with: a safe space to face their fears, plant their hopes and to acknowledge what supports they already have for the challenges that the year will bring.
One of those challenges for our family is when Savannah has a medical flare up. This happens at anytime during the year. Sometimes she is admitted to hospital and that means our family routines change drastically. Both Talisa and Eli know what it feels like to face an important exam or event while feeling worried about their sisters’ health. It would be neglectful of us to assume that the concerns we deal with regarding Savannah do not make an impression on Talisa and Eli. Anxiety is a real issue for teenagers and too often they are not taught helpful ways to deal with this. Anxiety in teens:What it looks like and strategies to help from Parent24 offers some insight into this topic.
In our home, Michael and I have a golden rule all year round but most especially during the month of January: we ensure that we are available to Talisa and Eli to listen to anything they have to say. We believe that “how you start is how you finish” and we want them to start strong. What they are saying or not saying as they begin the daily school grind are markers that guide us on how best to support them. We know that as teenagers our children need us to listen more and to lecture less. Sometimes that can be really hard to do as parents. An educational psychologist has been part of our parenting journey at different times and we value the process that we went on with them in helping us to help a specific child at a specific time.
Savannah being autistic meant that our then educational psychologist had her work cut out for her in teaching us neuro-typical parents a totally different way of thinking about parenting. We learnt how our emotions affected Savannah when we did not understand what she needed. We learnt that we caused more anxiety if we indulged ourselves with unbridled expressions of emotions. It only exacerbated the issue at hand as Savannah’s anxiety increased and we became part of the problem when we should have been part of the solution. We learnt how to express ourselves in a way that became supportive to Savannah without any outbursts from her or us. You could say, having learnt to respect our child’s right to a space that is calm and patient, means that Savannah trained us well for her siblings. 🙂
Generally teenagers are usually more emotional yet less able to express that in a way that will be helpful to themselves. We want Talisa and Eli to feel free to express their fears and hopes without the worry about whether or not it will displease us. We want them to feel brave to go to every corner of their souls to seek out what might be possible for them and to be able to explore those ideas with us. Even if we do not understand it, it is more important for them to feel free to express themselves than for us to limit them to only our own understanding of them and to our dreams for them.
This time of planning, discussing and listening to each other before the school year consumes us is empowering for all of us. Our plan includes our goals, how to achieve that and what supports are available to each family member. I wrote about this last year in my post The Safe House. Each person writes down their personal goals, their academic or career goals, their spiritual goals and we agree on a goal or goals for us as a unit. We talk about what we have written and if necessary we discuss how the family routines or resources will be restructured to support relevant goals. We also write down how we plan to achieve each goal and by when we want to accomplish each goal.
Having a child who is autistic and medically complex means that Michael and I cannot completely plan what she will need during the year. But sharing our goals together means that we are all continuously looking out for each other. Not only are Michael and I mindful of being available to the children and being realistic about what they need; the children too become more involved in how we function as a family. We found that as they naturally assume more responsibility for their sister than she will ever be able to do for them, they also naturally become a support system to each other and in some ways to us a well. This is not a bad thing for children.
We discuss different areas of our lives as we plan for back-to-school. Some areas require more detailed discussions and others may require a less detailed discussion. From having daily routines and acknowledging how each of our routines impact each other, to deciding who we will pursue relationships with and who we will cool off from (if anyone) are all part of these plans for the forthcoming year. We pray for the year ahead and for each other.
Talisa and Eli were all smiles on the first day of the new school year.
During the year Michael and I make a habit of checking in with each other and with the children about their plans. We also celebrate when the children achieve a goal (Michael and I are learning to do the same for ourselves too). At the end of each school year, we review this document. It is empowering to see how much each person achieved. If someone did not achieve a goal we discuss this together. We facilitate a discussion to help our children reflect on themselves for answers as to why they did not achieve a goal. This has been of greater significance for them that we do not accuse them. Ultimately, we want our children to take responsibility for the pursuit of their dreams. We want them to be brave enough to be self-aware of their own shortcomings. Mostly we want them to learn how to pick themselves up and to persevere instead of falling into self-criticism.
During all of this, the very personal goal I set for myself is to be a parent who helps her children to aim for the highest version of themselves with self-respect and self-love.
Next week, I will share more about how I helped my teens get into a positive mindset using an idea I learnt at Journey To You.
A few days ago I posted a quote about parents empowering their children.
It’s a tricky business being a parent. The intense roller coaster of emotions that we experience while knowing we are fully responsible for another human is safely the hardest journey to be on. It is also definitely the deepest, most beautiful bond we can ever experience.
And this entanglement of emotions can sometimes cause parents to be down right “crazy”. We have to know how much responsibility to give our children and when they are ready for different levels of responsibility. We have to teach them to be strong, brave, independent and maintain their sense of curiosity, while we are supposed to also protect them. Once you become a parent, the whole independence thing just seems way too overrated. I mean, it’s completely plausible that a child can be dependent on their parents for a while? Maybe until they are twenty-five or maybe even thirty?
There I go doing the crazy parent ramble. The one that makes children want to panic.
But have no fear my friends. I’ve never been the parent who wants to hold my children to me forever. I’ve always maintained that I am raising them to leave because I know that they will be fully capable of eventually building their own lives. Michael and I are fully committed to our vision that our children will be their own heroes. Even for Savannah,who is likely to never leave home, there are still some areas of independence that Michael and I expect from her.
Therefore it was a great delight to me when my mother and Talisa showed me the video (link below) of the speech Deepika Padukone gave when she received the FilmFare award for Best Actress two years ago.
Deepika Padukone is the darling of the Bollywood Film industry and has the world at her fingertips. She read a letter that her father Prakash Padukone, a Badminton legend for India wrote to her sister and her. It’s a wonderful example of how to give our children wings while keeping their hearts humble.
Enjoy watching this touching video of a parent child bond that is filled with love, trust and faith. Then let me know in the comments what your best advice is to your young adult children.
In my previous post I shared that our family sets goals at the beginning of every year.
Life is unpredictable and a little too tough at times, so it helps us to place some anchors into our dynamic especially for the children. One of those anchors is to have a great go-to song to carry us through the year. For those days when life doesn’t make sense: when our children have to cope with twists without mum and dad because Savannah is in hospital, when we have to say no to a necessity that is unaffordable, when we can’t understand Savannah, when people are mean, when we feel exhausted and sleep doesn’t fix it, when we need to escape from reality…we simply turn up the volume of our favourite song.
This year, how could our theme song be anything other than “This is me” from the soundtrack of the Greatest Showman. Wherever you are right now, turn the volume up and play this song.
‘‘Twas the night before school began and all was solemn and all was sad”.
Well that’s how it felt in my house. Talisa and Eli were feeling nervous as they prepared for grade ten and grade five respectively. Eli, a little more so because he was also beginning his school year in a new school.
