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A story about a land where grown-ups never grew up, from Feed It to the Worms, a collection of very short illustrated stories for small children and their grown-ups.

The Land of the Grown-Ups that Never Grew Up

I went on a field trip to this land where grown-ups never grow up.

They still look big and hairy and run banks and drive cars and make phone calls but trust me, nothing else about them is normal.

As soon as we got there, 10 or 15 of them surrounded the bus. They were climbing through the windows and shouting, “What did you bring us??!!”

My teacher smiled politely and told our class to get in a single file line and we headed into town.

We visited the gift shop and the owner was having a meltdown at the counter. He was pulling his hair and crying because we were touching his merchandise. “Don’t touch that candy,” he kept yelling.

“But I was going to buy some,” I said.

“It’s mine,” he cried. “NOT YOURS!”

“But… I thought this was a store!”

He stomped his foot and another grown-up ran out full force and I thought she was going to straighten this whole mess out but instead she tried to bite me!

“Stay away from my friend or I’ll cage you!”

“But . . . I was just trying to buy some candy!”

“Stop talking!” she screamed, and then she put her fingers deep in her ears.

That’s when my teacher whispered to me, “Don’t forget, sweetie. We’re in the Land where grown-ups never grow up.”

“Oh yeah!” I said, and I laughed.

When it was time to head back to school, a bunch of the grown-ups wouldn’t get off our bus. A few of them were pretending to steer the wheel and one was smearing the bus driver’s face with what might have been paint.

My teacher didn’t know what to do.

Thankfully, I had some pennies in my pocket so I said, “Hey guys! Who wants a penny?”

They all raised their hands and shouted, “Me me me!”

And so I tossed the pennies out the bus door and as soon as the grown-ups ran for them, our bus driver stepped on it and we zoomed home.

“I don’t think I ever want to go there again,” I said to my friend.

“That makes two of us,” he said.

The End.

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As a kid I was told to close all spaces leading in and out.

Close your legs

Close your mouth

Close your mind

Close your door

Don’t let anything in or out unless appropriate to do so. Failure to adhere will result in us having no choice but to show you the error of your ways using our most sophisticated technology: shame.

This strategy involves holding up what you mistakenly thought was valuable so that you can see it the way we see it, as not valuable at all.

We will not stop until shame has you crawl back inside the turtleneck of yourself so you can do the right thing for the team without being such a nuisance.

Being grounded so deep inside myself felt like a punishment so inhumane, that I began the art of escaping. Out the window, down the street, down the gullet, anyplace to avoid the cell of my insides all alone.

But after enough times running from such a dismal fate, I became too weary. Too dismayed. And so I waved the white flag. “Fine,” I said. “I give up. You win. I’m staying down here.”

But once I gave up escaping, and settled deep down inside myself, I heard a funny voice. “Welcome,” it chuckled. “Have a seat. You’re a busy one. We didn’t expect you’d ever stay long enough for tea.”

“Well, the world grounded me,” I explained. “Sent me here as punishment. And I’ve finally accepted my punishment.”

The voice laughed. “Cretins. They’re like the worst kind of furniture. They know nothing beyond functionality. Let me tell you something: Who you are is impossible to punish. And even more impossible to contain. In their unknowing, they sent you to a world larger than any continent, with depths too deep to fully delve.

There are beings here who have traveled through your blood from the earliest beginnings. And we are your comrades. Your sisters and brothers on the other side.

And be assured, there is nothing here to be ashamed of. Only your thoughts, ideas and dreams, the longing to share them, and the memories of all your attempts to do so.

But you mustn’t give up. It’s your purpose to share these things. In fact, they’re the only ingredients in existence that can create the relationships and the circumstances that match who it is you are for yourself.

When you allow shame to keep yourself to yourself, you do everyone a disservice. You allow yourself to be who others expect you to be, whether it represents your true self or not.

But when you emerge from your depths as who you are down in here, it is an invitation for others to do the same.

And those pieces of furniture who are always trying to contain everything so that it’s easy enough to fit in their pocket—have no idea of any journey other than the one they take to deposit what they’ve pocketed directly into their savings account.

They won’t acknowledge any other journey unless it’s bound or notarized or promises an eternity with all the stuff they worked so hard to secure.

But have no doubt: Your journey is yours. And your task is to learn the ancient art of believing that your magic is real. Not hocus-pocus magic, but the magic of a seed’s journey to blossom.

And once you believe in your magic, and you realize it’s your right to open up and share the fruits of who you’ve become, you will do so—and you will paw the earth with your magic between your teeth and a glint in your eye, and you will drop it at the feet of the furniture on the other side, who will recline in their easy chairs and laugh.

And they’ll reach down to pick it up, and they’ll look at it in their particular way, so that its majesty immediately turns flaccid, and they’ll laugh. ‘Must we remind you what happens when you don’t see things they way we see things?’ And you’ll be tempted to turtleneck back down into your punishment.

But fear not—you will know now that there is no punishment here. They don’t know these lands, my friend. These lands are where the punished go. And those who punish are not welcome. They’ll never realize that through these cracks is where the flowers bloom.

They don’t understand that if you visit here enough times, these blossoms grow wilder and wilder and they begin to find their way through the cracks and out into the world where they spiral over and under and past those who shamed you, and out into the rest of the world, until these pieces of furniture are no longer able to deny the value of your ingredients…

And finally, instead of trying to shame you back home inside yourself, these pieces of furniture will ask for a bouquet… just something modest enough to set upon their mantel. And you will gladly oblige, because really, inadvertently, it was they who led you to this most wonderful place there is.

From our depths we share a common space that’s beyond the politics of shame, where we can blossom together till our gardens are no longer contained, but joined as one, so that we can celebrate the magic of our growth and water our seeds together.

-JLK

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One day, a little boy found out that grown-ups didn’t know how to listen to anything except stop signs, so he decided to paste what he had to say to the one at the end of his street.

And some of the grown-ups actually listened.

At least until it was time for them to vroom again.

The End.

-from Feed It to the Worms, a collection of very short stories for small children.

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I remember one night, I was in such a bad space.

Each negative thought was a ladder deeper down into this pit, where I couldn’t see anything of value about myself to be proud of.

In that space I dwelled on all the painful things that had happened and all the stupid things I said and did, and felt like I should just stay hidden inside myself instead of taking up any more space out there in the world.

And at some point, I heard this kind voice, a voice I often hear deep inside myself, that comforts me when I’ve lost the ability to comfort myself.

And the voice said, "My dear, would you like to know the most warped thing I’ve ever seen?”

And I said, “What.”

And the voice said, "The image you have of your own self. You’re allowed to feel down. But please don't forget to separate your circumstances from the incredible living, breathing being that you are."

And those words elevated me. And I carry them with me now.

So if you’re feeling bad about yourself, please remember, the image of yourself that you’re imagining is you, is not at all a clear picture of what’s real.

What’s real is that who you are, is an incredible living breathing being, full of gifts to share.

-JLK

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Thinking about all the women who have the courage to share their wisdom and their truths and their love, no matter what.

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This illustration is about the unresolved issues that the mothers and daughters in my family uploaded to each other over generations. I hope it’s not too disturbing! Definitely not a piece for kids lol. But I wanted to share this story because it’s meaningful to me, and also in case it makes a difference to anyone else.

The Mother Wound

We all have voices that aren't ours that we've internalized from those who came before us.

I come from a family of women who passed their unresolved upsets to their children.

The upsets took on different forms—mostly shame and criticism—but I think they all stemmed from a similar source—women who were stuck inside themselves, traumatized, overburdened, overwhelmed and unavailable.

I’d say my mother had the hardest life of them all.

Mostly because she, more than any of them, wanted to live differently—to leave behind the rules and regulations of her predecessors and be free to be herself, on her own terms.

Well this did not go well.

Not because she was unqualified to have the right to be herself, but because this society isn’t built for people to be themselves, unless they‘ve had the privilege of being raised by those who told them they could, or unless they didn’t get too damaged from being raised by people who insisted they couldn’t.

My mother tried so hard to live life on her own terms, but there was always a problem in her way.

And there’s only so many problems a person can confront before they start believing they deserve them all.

Yet because my mother still believed she was entitled to live her best life, she coped with the feeling of defeat a bit differently.

She assumed all those toxic voices she’d inherited from her predecessors must have been implanted there in her brain by the government. There was simply no other explanation she could think of—because in her heart, she knew that those inflexible, critical, demeaning voices couldn’t have been her own.

And though she wasn’t able to process it clearly, I believe I understand what was going on—my mother was shedding that collective criticism of all the women who had come before her, those women who had silenced their own voices after being told by other toxic people that their voices weren't viable enough to be heard, and who in turn silenced the voices of their offspring because the sound of their freedom brought too much resentment.

Throughout her life, my mother was deemed not much more than mentally ill by her family, by people unequipped to see life through the lens of one’s mythology—through the lens of one’s spiritual journey.

But even so, my mother never gave up on herself and she fought these voices to her death.

And I am grateful that I was able to understand what she was doing—that she was carving out a new chapter. My mother never got to live in that new chapter she worked so hard to create—but I feel lucky that I have been able to step into it, knowing all that went in to creating it.

I know now in my bones how important it is to stay true to what calls to my heart and soul. And I will never live a life that’s perpetually burdened by all those voices that keep us so small, so punished, and so privately miserable.

And I’m so proud of my warrior mother for finding so much courage in the face of generations of dysfunction, and for being so honest with me about every step of her journey.

I’m not saying it was easy growing up with my mother. It was very difficult.

But I’d rather have had that, than be like the women who came before her, whose fires burned a hole on their insides because they were too afraid to ever let it out.

—JLK

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Peace

Little children are not self-centered at all. They are present-centered.

Whatever’s happening right now is what they’re centered in. If they’re angry right now, they’ll be angry. Hungry right now, they’ll be hungry. Need your attention right now, they will get it.

They’re ok with however they are.

And maybe this is what the old folks meant in the bible – be as little children. They have no self-judging-self yet. They’re able to experience first hand what’s happening without filtering it through judgment, without filtering it through the fear of being such and such or not being such and such, or the fear of someone else being such and such or not being such and such.

Little children are free in this way. They don’t sit around and talk about what moments are like for them, or what moments were like for them, or what moments are hopefully going to be like for them.

They are experiencing what is happening right now. And because of this, most grown ups cannot stand being around little children for too long.

Most grown ups need to call someone on the phone and say, I need a vacation or a drink or a fucking loaf of bread.

The little children never do this. They make things happen. They build something up or knock it down, they kick or they hug. But they don’t talk about what’s not happening right now. Not until a grown up drags them back to a time that already happened or drags them to look forward to some future that hasn’t happened.

But the grown ups can’t help it. The grown ups need to distract the children from the present moment because the grown ups need a way to get the fuck out of the playroom.

The grown ups can’t stand to be with the little children for too long because they can’t bear for their ideas of themselves to get lost in the moment. It makes them feel so uncomfortable, like they’re actually dying a little too fast or living a little too long—whatever it is, it’s excruciating.

And sometimes they look at their little children and look forward to the time when their little children will be able to leave their present moments and join them in reflection. And it will happen.

In time, the little children will leave their present moments. They’ll really have no choice. They’ll get sent off to the larger world and they’ll have to leave their moments just to figure out how to understand themselves around all these other people.

But hopefully they’ll still have a place to go home to that gives them peace. Maybe where their parents are, or to some beautiful new place they’ll create, or maybe back to the moment they’ll somehow remember they’re still part of, the one that’s always been right there, that’s still right there, where there’s nothing to worry about and nowhere to go and no one better to be.

-JLK

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When you gloss things over with yourself... when you don’t spend the proper time to understand what‘s happened to you, the mind can become very slippery.

You may find you can’t have more than a few thoughts in a row without losing your focus. They’ve already slipped by.

You may find you feel like a ball of reactions with no through-line.

I think this is because our relationship to our upsets is the same as our relationship to our thoughts, and ultimately to ourselves.

If there’s no solid connection to our experiences, how can there be a solid connection to ourselves as the experiencer?

For those who gloss over their own upsets, you may feel like you’re not entirely in your life. Just kind of floating out in orbit. Waiting for something to pull you in and ground you.

It took me quite a long time to turn toward my upsets, to take the time to understand why I was upset and to then offer myself the support and understanding I craved.

And each time I did, it felt like weight was added to my being. Not heaviness, but the kind of weight that made me begin to feel more solid and more grounded in my life, with my own perspective as my anchor.

-JLK

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He Carried His Love on the Top of His Head

There was once a man who carried his love on the top his head.

For the most part there were no problems.

But sometimes if he wasn’t paying attention, his love would fall off. And in those moments, when his love was lost, he was not so nice to be around.

He’d get down on his hands and knees and yell at everyone, “Get out of my way! I’m looking for my love! Don’t touch it or I’ll destroy you!”

But as soon as he found it, and placed it back on the top of his head, he was himself again.

The end.

-from my book Feed It to the Worms, a collection of very short stories for small children.

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I think projections are really blind spots. Because what I see when I’m projecting, are all my unresolved issues from past events, literally covering up what’s currently going on.

It’s like I’m having a conflict with my own reactions to people from the past, except I'm in the present moment, with someone who isn’t really the person I’m imagining he is.

He may be similar, because when people need to resolve the same conflict for so long, they often find similarly behaved people so that they might win the battle at last.

But he's not the source of my pain.

He might be adding to my pain. But most likely, he's over there, experiencing the same kind of situation as me—but too busy projecting his own unresolved issues to even notice what's going on.

Both of us, seemingly in the same room, yet arguing with ghosts from our respective pasts.

I think a lot of toxicity in relationships is the result of blind spots.

Two people reacting to their interpretations of what’s happening, breathlessly defending their own perspectives, without recognizing that the experience of being invalidated happened years ago. One person yelling, "Stop Yelling!" The other person interrupting, “You're not listening!”

The only way I know how to get rid of a blind spot, is to discover what I’m not seeing, by looking inside of myself. To shift from needing someone to understand me, to doing the work of understanding myself.

Instead of expecting my partner to validate me, and feeling like my life depends on this to happen, to journey inside of myself to understand where this need came from. And why it’s so concentrated.

Who did I need validation from? And when did I not receive it?

As I go deeper, I can locate the origins of my own feelings of rejection. And I can actually travel back in time to all those incidents when it happened.

It’s amazing to me how these memories are stored in my tissue, like bookmarks. Like chapters that weren’t finished and still need my attention:

Boys who didn’t show up when they said they would.

Stepmothers who said I turn people off.

A girl in fourth grade who made fun of me for asking if I could be her friend.

When no one wanted to be my partner in acting class.

When my mother wouldn’t let me hold her hand.

When my father suddenly wasn’t there.

Each of these memories of rejection fueled the need to be validated over time. And every time I felt rejected again, it felt even more invalidating.

But by going deeper and discovering where the pain originated, I learned I could validate myself by validating those hurt selves I once was.

And when I can soothe my own pain in the places where it exists inside of me, I find I’m not as triggered when interacting with someone who might be activating those old bookmarks.

Because instead of having a blind spot, I can see clearly now where that need for validation came from.

When we take the journey inward to heal our own pain, we won’t be dependent on others to do this work for us.

-JLK

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Sometimes, when I wake up in the middle of the night, I swear I can hear her voice speaking to me.

Whether or not it’s real, it’s part of my healing process—to reframe the past with a new understanding of it through my present self.

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The Greatest Show

(From Feed It to the Worms, a collection of very short stories for small children.)

Have you ever seen a clown riding a unicycle into the woods? I never did. Until today. And I was curious. So I followed him, at a safe distance. And I watched him stop at a clearing and take out all his clown gear: his juggling balls, his rabbit in a hat, his cards.

His audience arrived moments later. About 12 or 13 forest animals who gathered around to watch. And just like that, his act began. Right in the sparkly snow. And this clown gave everything he had. What a show! The animals didn’t clap or laugh, but they didn’t run away either.

And when his show was over, he smiled and bowed and hopped back onto his unicycle and rode it back out to the street.

The End.

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The Contest

(From Feed It to the Worms, a collection of very short stories for small children.)

Once I was eating french fries with my best friend and I was jealous that she had more than me.

So I said, “Hey, let’s have a contest to see who can eat their french fries the fastest!”

And so she started gobbling them all up and guess what I did? I didn’t eat a single one. I just sat there and watched till she had none.

Then she looked at me and said, “I won, I won!”

And I said, “Yes you did. But now you have no french fries.”

I then started eating mine with this horrible smile on my face. And that’s when she started crying.

“You’re so mean!” she said.

And when I realized she was right, the french fries suddenly tasted terrible. And then I started to cry, too.

I knew there were only two things I could do: I could point off in the distance and shout, “Look! An eagle!” and run away when she wasn’t looking, or I could say I’m sorry.

I opted for saying sorry and I also gave her half my french fries.

And not only did they taste yummy again, I realized that life is a lot happier when everyone gets to have what they want together.

-JLK

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Sometimes I think cemeteries are so scary because of all the stories people carry to their graves—the ones they didn’t think mattered and the ones they were too ashamed to share.

Just about the worst thing I can think of is people keeping their stories a secret because they couldn’t see their value, or because they were too afraid of what others might think.

Just about my favorite thing in life is when people share their true stories—the ones that aren’t so neat and tidy, and the ones that make me gasp with disbelief.

To me, our stories are like scripture.

They’re the stuff we had to go through—the mistakes and the risks, the victories and the pain, the magic and the miracles.

They’re the battles we fought—over which voices we listened to, and which sides we took.

Our stories literally contain the ingredients that made us who we are, that helped us to discover all we could be, or that fooled us into thinking we weren’t enough.

Our stories aren’t only important because of their beauty and heartache and perspective. They’re also important because they contain the wisdom that others might need, to save them from having to learn the same lessons we already did.

I get the importance of waiting for the right time to share our truest stories, but I wish more people realized how much their stories are needed.

I wish my grandmother would have shared hers with me before she died.

Now all I can do is wonder—who was she really?

Was she once like me before her circumstances shut her down? And what were those circumstances really? Did she still get to be her most authentic self in some nook or cranny when no one was looking? Or in the privacy of her mind? Did she have any regrets that kept her up at night?

Maybe everyone should be required to write a memoir. And if they’re too uncomfortable to share it while they’re living, at least they could leave it behind. I bet it would be the first thing everyone rushed to see.

-JLK

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I think a good metaphor for understanding trauma might be to imagine you’ve got something stuck in your eye.

An eyelash, whatever.

You can’t do anything without the discomfort of this thing in your eye. It’s there every time you try to see out into the world.

You try so hard to get it out yourself. It really seems impossible. It’s painful. It’s annoying. It’s depressing. You can’t do the simplest things you want to do without it grabbing your attention.

Finally you go get support from a professional.

Thankfully, they are able to get the thing out. And they give you some tools to help heal the damage. And you begin to heal. And you feel so much better.

But... now you’re afraid — what if something else gets in your eye again?

It makes you worried, this possibility.

And you keep checking to see if your eye is still ok.

If you feel the slightest sensation in your eye, you panic—shit—something got in my fucking eye again.

It takes awhile of ‘nothing in your eye’ to feel calm again.

And eventually this happens more and more.

And you stop being as anxious about it.

And whenever someone happens to mention to you that they have something in their eye, you immediately feel so much compassion for them.

(Yes, I had something in my eye last night, lol. It was somewhat hellish.)

-JLK

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Some of the most useful tools I’ve learned, not only to parent my child but to reparent myself, come from Ross Greene’s Collaborative & Proactive Solutions, which in a nutshell, consists of three plans: Plan A, Plan B and Plan C.

In this piece, I’ve written about the three plans based on my own experience and languaging of them, in case it’s helpful for parents who might be feeling frustrated by their kid’s behavior.

Just to be clear, this version of the plans is not what the author intended. But I wanted to pay respect to the source of my inspiration for looking at and addressing conflict through these three lenses: authoritarian, empathetic and with flexibility.

For more precise info on Ross Greene’s Collaborative & Proactive Solutions, see the link at the end of this post. I highly recommend his work.

I like to imagine I have three sets of lenses in my pocket, each with a unique filter to see my child and his behavior.

My Authoritarian Lenses:

When I wear my authoritarian lenses, I’m in charge.

I look at my son’s ‘bad’ behavior and know without doubt that it needs to be fixed. And quick.

I observe my child with judgment and sometimes even contempt, because through my authoritarian lenses, I can’t differentiate my child from his behavior. They’re one and the same.

Sometimes while I’m wearing these lenses, I panic about my son’s behavior and privately catastrophize that there must be something wrong with him, and that if I don’t get whatever it is under control, it’ll probably destroy his future and likely mine as well.

And other times, if I’m in a good mood, I can even add some humor to my authoritarian lenses to make myself sound more loving, like, “Unless you’re planning on being a professional Minecraft player, you may want to do your math.”

Authoritarian lenses are very difficult to remove.

Many of us were raised by adults who wore authoritarian lenses. And life for us kids was all about muscling through expectations and receiving consequences: rewards for compliance and punishment for defiance.

Taking things away was a popular punishment, as was being shamed or called names insinuating something was wrong with us, in voices that spoke louder than our own.

Many of us learned not to tell the truth about our real wants and needs, because we knew in all likelihood that our wants and needs would be criticized.

Or we shared only a modified version of them, after we got caught trying to meet some version of them on the sly.

We knew our ideas and concerns didn’t seem to matter. And because no one ever seemed happy with who we were, we learned to pretend to be whoever we thought the other person needed us to be, to gain their approval which we mistook for love. And, the thought of asking for support never crossed anyone’s mind.

My Empathy Lenses:

When I wear my empathy lenses, as a parent, I am able to see my son through the lens of: ‘What’s going on underneath his behavior?‘

Through these lenses, I understand that it’s necessary to separate my child from his behavior, because I know that all behavior, even the most disruptive or difficult to be with, is actually communication.

With my empathy lenses on, I’m curious instead of critical. I want to understand what my child’s behavior is trying to tell me.

And at the same time, I am able to notice that he doesn’t quite have the skills to communicate-to-be-understood. And because of this, he relies on communicating-to-be-heard, which can be loud, disruptive and often difficult to be with.

But with my empathy lenses on, I can be curious instead of critical. I can begin to wonder why my child might be behaving in this particular way.

Maybe it’s because of some trauma that’s occurred that I’m not aware of.

Maybe he isn’t able to meet expectations because he’s lacking the skills to make meeting these expectations even possible.

Maybe his behavior is a coping mechanism to help him avoid situations or expectations that cause him stress and pain.

Maybe there are kids at school who are mean.

Maybe he’s afraid of being called on in school because he doesn’t know the answers and this embarrasses him.

So, let’s say my son comes home after a bunch of stress at school, and right after he’s settled down, I let him know it’s time to do such-and-such thing, and ‘out of nowhere’ he explodes—opens his mouth and shouts some really hurtful, unkind stuff right at me.

At this moment, I have a choice: If I put my authoritarian lenses on, there’s gonna be an immediate escalation, because with my authoritarian lenses on, I’m not going to be curious about the cause of this ‘awful’ behavior. No way. I’m going to go right into protection mode. Protection over connection mode.

And then I’m probably going to go into audacity mode, because my son is talking to me like that—the son I grew in my own belly?! How dare he! After all I’ve been through!

My other choice, to keep the situation from escalating further, is to put on my empathy lenses, first for myself. So that I can pause before I react and ask myself:

What am I making my son’s words and behavior mean about me?

And then shift to, “What might I make his words and behavior mean about HIS present state of mind?”

In empathy mode, I begin to get curious.

I can look at the stressors around the room, and discover ways to have some empathy.

My son is communicating-to-be-heard about something... But what?

One way to practice empathy is to put myself in his shoes:

Let’s see... if I turn this situation around, how would I feel?

Well, I know that when I’m interrupted by my son’s expectations when I’m in the middle of meeting my own, it STILL takes something for me to stay patient, to not nose-breath all annoyed and stomp up to do it. Especially if I’ve just gotten in an argument with my husband, or just found out something that I wanted to have happen fell through.

But because I’ve been working on understanding my reactions for some time now, I already have some skills to respond to my son in a way that reflects who I’m committed to being in my life, instead of as some scary unregulated grown-up.

But even so, I still have a hard time not reacting. And yet I expect my son, who has done zero work on himself, to have skills that I hardly have? That doesn’t seem like a realistic expectation, nor does it seem fair.

So when I interrupt my son, who’s in the middle of meeting his own expectation, something that soothes him after his own stressful day or moment, and I ask him to meet my expectation that isn’t even of interest to him, and also causes him more stress, how can I expect that he’s going to be compliant?

With my empathy lenses on, I can begin to wonder what my son’s concerns might be underneath his behavior, something like: ‘I’m f-ing frustrated that you’re taking me away from a moment I’m enjoying, to be in a moment I probably won’t enjoy.’

And then I can reflect this to him as a question: “Are you frustrated that I’m asking you to stop doing what you’re enjoying, to do something you’d rather not?” And I can get how that might be really unpleasant.

My Flexibility Lenses:

As I get used to feeling empathy for my child and for myself, I notice I definitely feel a lot better about our relationship.

But there’s still a problem: My kid still doesn’t want to problem solve with me. Even though I get that my expectations for him weren’t very realistic. I’m still not sure how to support him in developing new skills because I’m still not sure what specifically was difficult for him.

And he still isn’t ready to share with me what’s underneath his behavior. In fact, this kid isn’t saying anything.

But before I go and grab my authoritarian lenses and get frustrated, catastrophize, or give up, it’s now time to try on my flexibility lenses. Because through these, I will be able to see clearly that my son is not being defiant, he once again just doesn’t yet have the skills to communicate-to-be-understood.

And saying nothing is actually a good start. After all, he’s not communicating-to-be-heard. He’s not exploding. For all I know, he’s just checking out the new vibe of the space.

Wearing my flexibility lenses is my opportunity to role-model communicating-to-be-understood by saying something like: “I get you don’t have any answers yet. And I know I haven’t been the best listener when you have tried sharing your concerns in the past. I didn’t grow up with listeners, so listening is a skill I’m only now beginning to develop. But I just want you to know that if and when you’re ready to share what’s on your mind, I’ll be here. Because I care.”

If my son’s nervous system is super stressed from repeatedly having his concerns dismissed, I may need to try many times to communicate with my empathy lenses on.

But more importantly, I may also need to help him heal by reducing my expectations. By checking in with myself to see where my expectations even come from.

Do I really care that my son perform so many tasks, and perform them so well? Even at the expense of his mental health?

Didn't I used to complain as a kid that the adults were always waiting for me to do something impressive while I was just trying to be myself?

Don't I want my child to feel like it’s impressive enough to be alive and experience himself being alive without my needing to assess his ingredients to see if they qualify?

In my experience, flexibility is empathy-in-action. It's the opportunity to modify environments to reduce the stressors that may be preventing my child from experiencing the peace and calm that make self-regulating possible. And doing so until the child no longer seems like he’s in a state of acute stress.

And if the thought of that makes you want to reach again for your authoritarian lenses, I hear you. But understand that by being flexible with your child, you are role-modeling compassion.

In my family’s case, it turned out there were a lot of stressors that were traumatizing my son because he simply didn’t have the skills to cope with them, and my lack of flexibility prevented me from seeing it.

So we wound up making the difficult decision to remove many expectations around school, chores and screen so that his nervous system could reset and so he could have a say in what kinds of expectations he wanted to set for himself.

And it’s been really interesting. To give you one example of progress—my son, who refused to write and practice spelling, now types faster than his dad because he learned the way he wanted—through chatting with his friends on Minecraft. And he’s really proud of himself. And because he now gets that his concerns matter, our upsets rarely escalate, because he knows now that we will listen to his concerns and find a solution that works for everyone.

Shifting lenses is such a powerful way to understand and connect with our children, and it’s also a really powerful way for us parents to consider how we were raised, and to check in with ourselves to see if there are any unresolved upsets or blind spots that are getting in the way of the kinds of relationships we want in our lives.

In conclusion:

One day, I was walking around my house, and I heard my own voice speaking to myself:

Are you seriously having another cup of coffee?

Didn’t you say you were going to finish your memoir this month?

Do you have a plan for dinner yet?

How long before you get dressed? Jesus.

Etc. etc.

And that’s when it occurred to me that I had become my own authoritarian parent. The voices of my parents and teachers really had become the voice I was using to speak to myself.

And I realized: How am I supposed to wear the empathy lenses for my son while I’m wearing authoritarian lenses for myself?

I realized to heal my child, I had to heal my relationship with myself.

I needed to practice asking for support. And practice modifying my environment to help myself meet expectations in a way that felt like an opportunity rather than a punishment. To take time to understand what’s been unresolved from my own past and how that’s contributed to my own frustrations. And to have compassion for myself and what my own concerns are moment-to-moment, so that compassion can be my motivation to problem solve.

Seeing my son through the lens of empathy turned out to be an unexpected opportunity to heal myself and also my marriage.

Honestly, it was only after my husband and I began to do the work, that we were even in a position to support our son.

Having compassion for myself role-models compassion for my son. Which will hopefully be the lenses he wears for himself, and in time, for the others in his life.

That’s not to say I don’t make mistakes. I make mistakes every day, multiple times a day. In fact if I had a name for my style of parenting, I’d call it ‘repair parenting.’ But the way I see it, each repair is an opportunity to put on my empathy lenses and practice connecting with myself and with my family through a deeper understanding and a deeper appreciation of all we’ve been through.

-JLK

Link to more info on Ross Greene’s work:

https://www.cpsconnection.com/

Also, here’s a piece I wrote explaining in more detail what I mean by communicating-to-be-heard and communicating-to-be-understood:

https://bit.ly/3HQjRMb