Switch the ratio

Widely noted for his studies on marital success, Dr. John Gottman has identified what he calls the 'golden ratio' that can help predict the long term stability of relationships. To sum up, he notes that relationships that are stable and have high satisfaction are characterized by a 5:1 ratio. That is, during conflict, for every 1 negative interaction (criticism, invalidation, hostility), there need to be 5 positive interactions (asking questions, showing kindness, affection), just to achieve balance.

I have a hunch that although Gottman's research is directed at marital relationships, there is a lesson to be learned about our relationships in general.  I frequently have the opportunity to visit with parents about parenting issues.  I sometimes ask parents to evaluate the ratio of their interactions with their children, especially during conflict.  When we honestly look at how we react to our children, we frequently find that as parents, we allow our frustration, anger, and annoyance to mar our interactions.  We criticize, put down, subtly invalidate, and otherwise behave in ways that our children interpret negatively.  Consider this scenario:

Kid: Dad, can (best friend) spend the night on Friday?
Dad: I don't think so, sweetie.  We've got a lot going on Saturday and it would mean we had to do a lot of rescheduling.
Kid: (pouting) You *never* let my friends spend the night.
Dad: (feeling disrespected, speaking sarcastically) Oh, right.  You *NEVER* get *ANYTHING* you want to do. 
Kid: (changing tactics) Please, Dad?  I promise we won't stay up too late and I'll be good for the rest of the weekend...
Dad: (not willing to negotiate) What? You think I'm going to change my mind?  How about you be good all weekend and THEN I'll decide whether (best friend) can stay next weekend?
Kid: (resorting to pouting) Ohhhh... that's not fair!  (Sibling) gets to have friends over all the time!
Dad: Quit being such a whiner!  I'm tired of having to tell you over and over that whining doesn't work.

On the surface, it sounds like a pretty typical exchange between a parent and child, right? Dad is sticking to his guns and kid shouldn't be so disrespectful.  Tally up the negative interactions, though.  Sarcasm, rhetorical questions to make his point, invalidation, hyperbole... If we apply the golden ratio, Dad would need to offer about 20 positive bids just to balance out his words.  Now, you may note that the kid in that scenario was inviting Dad to behave that way.  There was probably some past history that led Dad to reach his conclusions.  However, Dad had a choice in his responses and chose to respond the way he did, so even though the kid's behavior wasn't ideal, we need to keep ourselves accountable for our example as parents.  How will we ever expect our kids to learn about healthy relationships unless we are willing to be responsible for our own feelings and behaviors toward our children?

What if we were willing to try an experiment in our homes.  Just for a day or two, whether we have conflictual situations or normal interactions... what if we strove to overload our relationships with positive interactions.  What if we looked for what our kids were doing that was right and good and commented on those things?  What if we overlooked every minor infraction (there are a bunch of those, right?  From being messy to fidgeting when they are supposed to be still) and just let them go without undue attention?  What if we went out of our way to set up situations where we know our kids will do well and then praise the heck out of them?  Here are some things I brainstormed in just a few minutes that my kids did today (and I didn't even get to see them very much today) that I can praise them for:

Mary Hannah: woke up and got dressed with no fussing, packed her own backpack and lunch, encouraged her siblings in the car on the way to school, entertained herself on the computer at poptropica.com (an appropriate and fun website), used earbuds to listen to her music when she was in a room full of other people so she wouldn't bother them with her music.
Ethan: Woke up with little prompting this morning, remembered that it was waffle day and reminded me, didn't argue with Ele when she claimed it was her turn to ride shotgun (it wasn't), played with Timothy without incident, accepted redirection when he got up and didn't want to go back to bed.
Ele: cuddled with me for a few minutes in the morning after she got dressed, greeted me at the door tonight and showed me that she'd cleaned up her room and made her bed without being told, shared space with her brother when they both wanted to sit in the same chair at the same time, cleaned off her plate this morning without being asked.

Now, I could let those incidents go by without comment.  Honestly, most of those things are normal expectations.  I could just wait for them to stop doing something or to mess up and do something wrong and then fuss at them for messing up.  But that happens all too often.  I'd like to spend less time trying to fix what I think is going wrong and more time helping things go right.

I also want to point out that most of those things I listed were accomplishments, something they'd done.  I want to try and praise them for those things, but also (and more importantly), I want to praise my children for who they are, for their character traits which prompt that behavior: initiative, kindness, generosity, helpfulness, affirmation, encouragement, patience, consideration.

I wonder what my household would look like if I changed the ratio?  I wonder if I'd notice that before asking my children to change, I needed to change how I looked at things and handled things.  I wonder if anyone is willing to assess their family functioning and see if their ratio could stand to be adjusted a little more to the positive side.  I'll admit it is challenging.  In fact, outside (and internal) stressors constantly pick away at my ability to accomplish this feat.  Than again, most things that are worthwhile aren't very easy, but they are usually very rewarding. 

Thanks, Dr. Gottman, for doing the research that gives us a goal.  Thanks, parents who challenge me to do better by my own kids. 

Training exercise

This week should be pretty exciting for me and for my co-workers and for some kids who come from some hurtful backgrounds. I recently accepted a job working for New Horizons, a company which works with families and children who are either at risk for all sorts of legal, physical, and emotional problems or have already experienced them. Specifically, I'll be working as part of the direct care staff at the Audrey Grace House, a residential treatment center for troubled adolescents.

As part of our training, the staff of AGH spent some time at the Ranch, in Goldthwaite, TX, another of New Horizon's facilities. Early in our training, the instructor, Randy Fry, led us in an exercise that was designed to give us some perspective into the lives of the kids we'd be serving. He asked us each to take a sheet of paper and tear it into three smaller pieces. On each slip of paper, we were instructed to jot down a person, place or thing that was important to us, personally. Nobody shared what they wrote down, but we were further instructed to stack them in order of importance. Silently, we each weighed our connection to the person/place/thing on each slip of paper and sorted them accordingly. Then Randy said, "Now that you have listed and sorted the three things that are most important to you, take the third most important thing, crumple it up and throw it away. Imagine that it was ripped from you." We each did as we were instructed, crushing the slip of paper into a wad and tossing it into the middle of the circle of chairs. "Now, you've lost that important thing, but what if your next most valuable thing was also taken away from you? Throw away your next paper." Slowly, we processed the implication of what Randy was saying. Several of us hung on to our papers, the weight of what they represented in our lives holding us back. "Go on, throw them away, " said Randy quietly. When we'd all tossed our crumpled treasures in the middle, he instructed us to do it one final time. "Now, take that thing that is most important to you and throw away too." As each of us considered the person/place/thing we'd written on the slip of paper, the paper became more than a paper, it was a real thing. It represented, for most of us, a spouse, a parent, a child, or a relative. We sat in silence for a few moments. Then Randy said, "This little exercise that we've just done is what happens in reality for most of the kids that come to us. They have had their homes, their families, their treasures all ripped away from them. It is understandable that they are scared, angry, fearful, resentful. Most people have a hard time seeing the kid underneath their acting out behavior."

We spent a while processing what we were feeling during the exercise. For me, I'd had a bit of a dilemma trying to select what three things were most important. I have three children and a wife... those are four things and I only got three slips of paper. On one of the slips of paper, I'd written the name of my son, Ethan. I had decided to let him represent all three of my kids because he has been the child who has, until recently, demanded so much of my attention because of his diabetes. When it came time to crumple up and throw away that slip of paper, I couldn't do it. Intellectually, I knew that it was just a piece of paper and this was just a training exercise. Emotionally, I was experiencing a shadow of the pain and hurt that losing him, losing any of my children, would bring. The thought occurred to me then, in the middle of the exercise, that because of his medical condition, the possibility of losing him was more of a reality than I'd like to admit. All it would take is a lapse in our vigilance with his diabetes and he could be in a coma within a day.

The point of the exercise was to help this group of staff, who will be working directly with hurting kids, develop empathy, an ability to see past their anger and acting out and to love them. It was a good exercise.

Keep the Audrey Grace House in your prayers as we begin a journey with this new facility.

God, be with the staff as you bring these kids into our circle of influence. Give us eyes to see them as you see them. Use us as your arms to comfort them, your hands to guide them and your voice to encourage them to grow and prosper despite their trauma. Be with the kids and help them to be responsive to the love that we have to offer them. So many of them have developed a hardness, a shell meant to protect them from being hurt or disappointed yet again. Bless the work of the treatment center as we help the kids to learn about themselves and learn to function at home, at school. Heal the hurts and let your grace and mercy abound, in their lives and in ours. Shape us into the instruments of your love and mercy, as we have received them from your Son.

Highs and Lows

I've posted a lot on diabetes recently and with good reason: having Mary Hannah's condition in the mix is a big change. Overall, her blood sugar readings have been more consistent and predictably reactive to insulin. For instance, if we give her 1 unit of insulin, her blood sugar levels respond pretty consistently by lowering her BG by about 100 points, or covering 25 carbs eaten. Ethan, on the other hand, continues to be an unpredictable roller coaster ride. 1 unit of insulin may have no immediate discernible affect on his BG or it could, who knows. We're looking forward to seeing how he responds to a new pump in a few weeks.

On the behavioral side of things, MH is still adjusting to being diabetic. Not long ago, when her after-school BG reading was really high, she admitted to having a snack at school, but instead of choosing candy, she made a healthy choice: an orange. (For those of you who are confused at this point, oranges and grapes are the two fruits with the highest natural sugar content. A 6 oz orange has about 2o carbs worth of sugar in it, versus a candy like a Jolly Rancher, which has 5 carbs).

Anyhow, I was a little concerned after learning that a few days ago. MH had a cookie at school. She'd figured out how many carbs it had and gave herself a shot to cover it. While I am glad that she is taking the initiative to learn how to do all of this for herself, I'm still not comfortable that she is attentive enough to all the complexities (how much active insulin she has in her system, whether she's been exercising, if she is ill, etc) to be able to do it all without a knowledgeable adult to oversee the procedure. So, I told her that I was proud of her for taking care of herself and that her mommy and I want her to do that, but we still want to be 100% sure that everything is exact, so in the future, if she has the opportunity to have an extra snack at school, to call one of us and verify things before she goes through with it. She agreed to do that.

Fast forward a few days: MH calls me and says, "Daddy, they had some candy at school and I wanted to have some, too. It is a Jolly Rancher and I looked it up, it has 70 carbs. Can I have it?" Now, I remember these types:
but the ones I see most often are a little smaller:

So I said, "Mary Hannah, 70 carbs is a lot of candy, are you sure?"
MH: "Yes, I looked it up."
Me: "Baby, I believe you looked it up, but 70 carbs is a lot for a snack, how about if you save it for lunch time and I'll double check it when I come to give you insulin for your lunch?"
MH: "Dadddddyyyy... please? Everyone else got one. Please? I want it."
Me: "Baby, I know you do, and I'm very glad that you called me to check, but now I need you to trust me and obey, even when you really, really want it. I think that is too much and I am not saying you can't have it, just that you can't have it right now. You need to obey me and wait for just a while."
MH: "I have to get off the phone now, daddy. Please can I have it?"
Me: "No, I'm sorry, but you really need to wait for me. I promise we'll look it up and it can be part of your dessert for lunch."
MH: (sighing) "Okay. Bye."

As it turns out, when I got to lunch, I looked it up in her Calorieking guidebook, she'd been looking at the calories, not the carbs. It was 70 calories and about 5 carbs (the small, assorted kind). If she had given herself 3 units of insulin to cover 70 carbs, her BG would have dropped 300 points. That would probably have put her into seizures or worse. >shudder< I praised her for calling me to check in, as instructed. I told her how I was proud of her for obeying me even when she REALLY wanted the candy and for trusting that I just wanted her to stay healthy. She had a good lunch and got her Jolly Rancher for dessert.

Now, for MY feelings. First, I was was a little bit afraid when she called because I was 99% certain that she'd misread the information. I was glad that we'd had the talk a few days ago about calling to verify things. My heart is both joyful and pained about the situation, though. I am so proud that she was able to obey instead of giving in to the temptation to indulge. It may not sound like a big thing to those of us who can process sugar with no side-effects (spare tires and assorted flab notwithstanding). But I am reminded of a friend who told me about a time when her adolescent son was at a camp one time and all the boys were segregated for talk about "girls and temptation". They passed out slips of paper and asked the boys to write down the thing that tempts them most. Other boys mentioned different female body parts, or flirtations. Her son wrote: "Sugar". So I'm proud that she resisted the temptation to have unauthorized sugar, the temptation to disobey her daddy. However, my heart breaks again when this stuff happens and I am reminded that my baby has to worry about something like this. I hate diabetes.

Thank you, Lord, for the abundant blessings. You surround me all day long with your love and keep my cup full to overflowing. I am assaulted by bitterness when I think about the ways that you want to bless me with diabetes. You give me an everpresent sense of reliance on you for strength. You give me empathy to reach out to other families who are stricken with chronic illness and to comfort them and strengthen them. You help me to overlook obstacles that would weigh down other families because they have not walked where you have caused us to walk. But Lord, oh, Lord... when will you take this disease away from my babies? When will you heal them of their infirmaties? I am aware of both blessing and curses, suffering and healing, but I admit, I don't always understand what I am supposed to feel about these things. Be with my children, your children, and help them grow strong in you, oh God.

4 year old soccer

Where else can you hear phrases such as, "Stewart! Get your head out of the net!" and "It is not time to sit down and pick yellow flowers! Get up and go kick the soccer ball!" ? That's right, it is time for 4 year old soccer!

It is important to stay hydrated. In fact, it is possible to consume your body weight in water and still be thirsty. Soccer is thirsty business. Oh, word to the wise... bring a cooler.

In practice, you get to kick the ball toward the goal without a crowd of other 4 year olds running along side. During the actual game, it is much the same, except you also have 20 sets of parents yelling at you while you do it.

The rules of the game are simple, kick the ball down the field and try to kick it into the net. The actual mechanics are somewhat more difficult to master when your shin guards are 5 sizes bigger than your shins. Another complicating factor that Ethan discovered: when you aren't in practice, if you kick the ball to someone else, they don't kick it back, they go off down the field to score a goal. Live and learn.
Team Name: Cobras
Team Spirit: Monkeys
The photographer actually managed to get them all looking the same direction and smiling. I was impressed.


Lining them up to shoot them


Haley only had a handful of smiles to hand out.


I took a few pics of Ethan at home before the game. This is a little game called: Why are we paying $20 bucks for a picture of our 4 year old in his soccer uniform when Daddy can take professional quality photos in the front yard for $0.12?

I call this one... "The look"

And we're all having a great time. At least those who know what to do.. namely dribble the ball down the field and score.

In Soccer, pile ups like this rarely happen, so I'm told. On the other hand, they've got a pretty good start of a rugby game. In Australia, in the middle of barfights, rugby games break out.



Um, this is to prove that I did operate with dual media that day, I just haven't gotten around to posting the 10 useable minutes of video footage. One of these days, I'll figure out iMovie. I miss Premiere Pro.


GOAL! (Did anyone keep track of the score?)
Good game, good game, good game... Now lets have snacks!

Back to School and Picture Day

Well, it finally happened... Summer ended and it is time to go back to school. My summer has lasted almost 10 years, but I am back in school, working on my Masters in Marriage and Family Therapy at ACU. For the next two years, I'll spend a large portion of my week in class or in the clinic.

But this post is actually to talk more about the experience of sending the kids back to school. For most of the summer, we had planned on MH attending public school this year (pre-k and kindergarten were at a local private school). As it turned out, a friend encouraged us to apply for a scholarship and before we knew it, we'd enrolled not only MH but E in school as well! So, they were very excited to be going to school. Ele was a little disappointed (read: threw a fit) when she learned that she only got to go to her 'school' one day a week, but I think she quickly realized that she could monopolize Nana while the others were gone. Anyhow, instead of embedding all the pictures individually, I've put in a gallery. Click on any of the pictures to view it individually or to go to the album and read the captions to see what is going on with them.

Also, I managed to survive my first week at school. I had a great week and I'm looking forward to the rest of the semester. It will be an exciting journey and I thank everyone who made it possible for me to be where I'm at. Here's a picture of me (and my classmates) from our first week of school.


Ok, before you click on any of the pictures in the slideshow gallery below, I need to explain what all is going on... the first few pictures are of the first day of school. The rest are of "picture day" which came just over a week into the new semester. I groused at Amelia about how we were going to be suckered into buying pictures (bad ones... or at least mediocre) just because the were "school" pictures. So I resolved to pull out the ol' camera and take a few shots before they left for school that morning. Well, it turns out that I managed to get a few good pictures in spite of my children. I don't know why they have suddenly turned into the biggest hams when I pull out the camera. All E wants to do is make 'dinosaur' or 'scary' faces. MH does these shy, coquettish poses that look ... well, weird... Ele will barely stand still for me to take her picture. It is enough to drive a shutterbug dad crazy.



So, anyhow, it has been a busy first week of school. Hope yours has been fun, too!

-jeff