Spring is here. It’s evident around 4pm every day when the kids get nutty and start mauling each other.

It wouldn’t be so bad except @dewdette keeps trying to come between me and my beloved technology. “Let’s go to the park!” she exclaims. “Humbug!” is my reply. At least, until I realize that I can have my cake and eat it too. “The park you say? A lovely idea. Load up the kids in the family truckster, I shall be along shortly.”

I grabbed the iPad and shot the footage on Friday, then spent the holiday weekend fiddling around with the iPad edition of iMovie. Off and on throughout the days. I might have logged 2 hours in editing. Maybe.

iMovie has some neat features, and it’s fun, but still just a novelty at this point. Especially since the iPad’s video camera is so terrible.

Ever get the feeling you’re chasing something you shouldn’t be chasing? I get that whisper sometimes. “Chris, what are you chasing?” Which is a silly question, because I know what I’m chasing. The whisper, on most days, can be deciphered like this, “Chris, you’re chasing the wrong thing.”

The whisper. What a pain.

But I listen because I don’t want to spend my days chasing the wrong thing. Things like dollar signs. Like approval from faceless strangers. Like video game scores. That stuff doesn’t satisfy my soul.

I want to chase my children. I want to chase my wife. I want to pursue them and enjoy them and build them up. I want to stop being consumed with myself for just 5 [expletive deleted] minutes. I want to lead them with the heart of a servant.

But “the chase,” by itself, isn’t enough.

I want to win the chase, and actually capture them, I want to capture them so they know what it is like to risk their hearts to another person and have that trust honored. They need to know it’s possible. They need this, they deserve this, and it’s my responsibility to deliver for them to be whole.

So today, I commit myself to the chase.

I give up and say, “Alright. We’re done. Put down the toys and let’s go to bed right now.” I’m not yelling with my volume, this time, but I certainly am yelling with my tone. They relent with very little push-back and march up the stairs to get ready.

“Will you read us a story?” Savannah asks on the way up the stairs. “No I will not,” I snap. “But why?” comes her plea. “Because stories are a privilege for little girls who play nice with each other and listen to their mommies and daddies,” I exhume tersely.

Both girls finish brushing thier teeth and climb into bed. I’ve had time to calm down in the interim. As soon as I turn out the light, to seal the deal on this bedtime routine, Savannah asks to break protocol and go potty. Of course. “Yes, but hurry. It’s sleeping time.”

Now, Savannah is 3 years old and history suggests that I shouldn’t trust her to finish quickly, turn off the light, and get back in bed of her own accord. All that to say, I have 3 – 5 minutes to spare while I wait.

I approach Sydney’s bed and kneel down beside it. Our faces are close and I can see her giant brown eyes despite the darkness. “Can I ask you some questions?”  I say in a somber voice.

“Yes,” she squeaks.

“How does your heart feel?” I whisper.

She takes her eyes off me and answers, “It feels sad.”

“Why?” I venture, as if I don’t already know the answer.

She can’t help but make eye contact with me again before she delivers, “Because you yelled at me.”

“I don’t like yelling at you,” I respond softly, my eyes adjusting to the dark so I can see her more clearly. I notice that she looks concerned at my answer.

“Why not, Daddy? … Is it because you don’t like sad hearts?” I can’t help but smile at her logic, and I confirm her suspicions, “Yes, I don’t like sad hearts.” But then I add with seriousness, “Especially yours.”

She is smiling now. She liked that answer and she is aware that she has my full attention. Plus, I think she saw me smile.

“Would you like to pray with me?” I ask.

“Sure.”

“Dear God, please help me and Sydney have happy hearts, not sad ones. And please help us be good listeners and not be people who yell at the ones we love. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Savannah makes her way back into her bed on the other side of the room. She doesn’t speak but I can feel her watching our outlined forms in the dark.

“Daddy, can I ask you a question?” Sydney interjects, before I have a chance to get up from my knees.

“Sure, honey,” I reply.

“How does your heart feel?”

That ruckus you hear is the sound of tables turning. I think for a moment and then with a resolute quietness in my voice I breath, “It feels thankful.” She plays right into my hands when she asks me, “Why?”

“Well, because it’s glad you’re my little girl,” I respond. I don’t say it out loud, but I’m also feeling thankful for the opportunity to affirm her one more time before the day ends.

“Can I pray Daddy?” Oh, I didn’t see that one coming. But maybe I should have. I see now that she is following my pattern of questions.

“Of course you can, Syd. Always.”

“God, thank you for listening to my Daddy and obeying him to make his prayer come true. Aaaamen.”

“Amen” I whisper, risking blasphemy.

A kiss. A hug. And a move to the next bed. Savannah is laying there expectantly. She’s wearing a one-piece sleeper, the kind with a zipper the length of the Orient Express, and she’s laying on her hands which are tucked behind her back.

“Savannah, can I ask you a question?”

“Yes!” She blurts out with 1000 smiles.

“How does your heart feel?”

Still grinning from ear to ear, her hands wiggling behind her, “It feels thankful.”

Ah, we have a copy cat. “Why does it feel thankful?” I’m half hoping for something akin to “Because you’re my Daddy!” but instead I’m greeted with, “Because you let me go potty!”

Before I can begin the appreciate her comedic timing, she continues, “I’m going to pray. Dear-God-thank-your-for-this-food-and-thank-you-for-making-the-whole-world-in-jeezname-amen.”

“Amen.”

Elliot,

I’d like to apologize in advance because I’m going to wrong you. As sure as I know anything I know that when it comes to the task of raising a son, I will fail. You need a certain type of man to teach you the things necessary to find peace in your life. In moments when I feel the most intellectually sober I realize that I just don’t have what it takes.

I thought about this today as I held your hands and let you walk upright across the floor. You chirped and growled as we made our way from one end of the room to the other.

You were feeling big and I was feeling small.

The absurdity of the moment was not lost to me. I was your strength for you are not yet strong enough to carry yourself. I was also your confidence for you showed no fear. In that moment, I was able to meet every one of your blossoming needs and my heart whimpered  a wish for it to always be.

So tonight as I confess to you for future, nameless wrongs that I will undoubtedly feel powerless to circumvent, I want to also issue you a prayer disguised as a promise.

I will never stop trying.

You and your sisters and your Mommy deserve more than I have the capacity to produce most days. And while I cannot manufacture something that isn’t there, I can lean hard in the direction of something that is. First, recognition of my condition and second, the raw and unfettered determination that is growing in me to prove myself wrong.

I love you, son.

Daddy

You can see from the poll results below, that it was a tie. 48% vs. 48%. So enough speculation already. Watch the video for the final word on the matter.

Other times, you hear advice and your immediate reaction is to question the credibility of the adviser giver.

I read some advice recently on how to stop yelling at my children, and it was exactly because of the source, the advice giver, that I paused and soaked it in slowly. You see, this trick of not yelling is one I have not mastered. And I so desperately want to master it.

Her name is Christine and her blog is Welcome to My Brain. She is a pastor’s wife. Her family has been fostering, and then adopting, a girl over the past year-ish. Her name is Mar and I think she’s around 11 years old.

Mar cannot yet believe things are not going to change once the adoption is final. Her last adoptive mom was super sweet and sappy during the adoption process while they waited in Haiti. The abuse started as soon as she became theirs “officially” – literally on her first day home. I can understand her fear. She wants to do whatever it takes to stop the adoption, wondering if we’re just “acting nice” to make her “all ours” … and then we may change. She has witnessed a woman being completely two-faced: one thing at home and another thing in front of school employees, church friends, and caseworkers.

Understandably, due to her time as an orphan and also her prior adoption, Mar has developed a condition called Reactive Attachment Disorder. The wikipedia entry on RAD says, “children with RAD are presumed to have grossly disturbed internal working models of relationships which may lead to interpersonal and behavioral difficulties in later life.”

Two months ago, as the adoption date was looming ever nearer, Mar’s behavior (read: misbehavior) escalated. And who could blame her? Right around this time Christine wrote a post titled: I’ll Just Out-crazy Your Crazy!

When your child has hit you, bit you, had to be restrained, was asked to stay outside then crawled back in a window, locked themselves in the bathroom, thrown something through one of the windows, ripped up some of your garden, etc., etc. … what is a RAD Mom to do?

…

You come home to the child who hit you, bit you, had to be restrained, was asked to stay outside then crawled back in a window, locked themselves in the bathroom, thrown something through one of the windows, ripped up some of your garden, etc., etc.. You enter their room with a can of spray paint and a bag of candy. You step over the posters and notes you’ve made for them over the past year (now lying all over the floor torn to shreds), and you just spray paint your love notes directly on the walls.

…

You out-shine their darkness. You out-love their fear and anger. You out-crazy their crazy.

Right about now you’re really jonesin’ hard to read the original post and gawk at her pictures. Fine. Click here.

So you see, when a woman like this writes a post titled How I Stopped Yelling At My Kids, I stop and pay attention. Then I come here and blog about it, not only because I want to share her wisdom with you, but because the only way for me to own up to my responsibilities as a Dad is to saturate my life with good advice. My brain is dark, and advice like this is white. I have to force myself to think about this stuff over and over, so that it soaks into my thoughts like multiple coats of white paint on a dark wall.

Here is how Christine recommends that I stop yelling at my kids.

STEP 1: Believe yelling is not okay. When you are screaming at someone, you are not thinking clearly, you have abandoned love and kindness, and … well … it’s wrong. It’s just plain wrong. Yelling hurts. It never helps. Ya’ know … cause it’s WRONG!

STEP 2: Acknowledge your children learn through what you do, more than what you say. “STOP YELLING AT YOUR BROTHER!!!” Um, yeah.

STEP 3: If it’s good enough for your kids, it’s good enough for you. Give your kids permission to say, “Mom, can you please change your voice?” Also, in our house we do something extra for the person we have hurt. So, if I yelled at my kids, I owed them an extra treat or some extra reading time or they could stay up a little later, etc. I received consequences for yelling.

STEP 4: Do not yell at your child the first time they rationally and calmly say, “Mom, can you please change your voice?” You’ll want to, but it’s better to put yourself in a time out … in your room … while you scream into a pillow.

STEP 5: Yell less and less and less until you are no longer a yeller.

I want you to take 2 things away from this and the first thing is perspective. Chances are, you don’t have it nearly as bad with your kids as you pretend. If you’re being honest, your yelling is probably a significant part of the problem.

The second thing is a challenge. In the comments below fill out your own report card based on each of these steps. Give yourself an A for excellent and an F for failing. I’ll jump in down there too. And if you disagree with any… by all means say so!

P.S. Christine, your courage and patience dwarfs mine. Thank you for inviting us on the journey.

Because there are some conversations you just won’t see coming.

My nephew has a black Daddy that he hasn’t seen in over a decade and a white Mama, my sister, that he has known his whole life. He is a young teenager now, but when he was five years old he taught me a lesson at the Sam’s Club food court I will never forget. The rest of the family (read: the women) were off doing the hard work of shopping. So it was just he and I sitting there, hanging out. I didn’t have children at the time and I remember something peaceful came over me. Here I was sitting with a five year old kid doing absolutely nothing, and it felt very, I don’t know, right I guess. I should have been in one of my world famous, shopping-induced, foul moods, but I wasn’t. This is how it should be, I thought. Man and boy, eating hot dogs, bonding together in spite of age and a complete lack of words.

But then an unexpected heaviness invited itself to our crummy, fiberglass table and sat down beside us in one of our crummy, fiberglass seats. I realized in a split moment that I was not the man who was supposed to be doing this. This boy had a father and I knew that my nephew would never be able to have his dad in the way a boy needs. I was Uncle Chris. I wasn’t Dad and I never would be. My heart became lethargic as my peaceful mood was buried beneath this data, this… tangle of information.

So I looked at him and I said, “You know what? I’m lucky I get to be your Uncle.”

He smiled.

I continued, “It’s true, you’re pretty terrific. Did you know that?”

Then his face softened and he got, well, almost contemplative. “Really?” he asked as he made eye contact with me.

“Well DUH,” I responded incredulously, and then I added, “When your Aunt and I have kids one day, I hope I have a son. And I hope he turns out to be just like you.”

He studied me as I finished. He looked straight into my eyes and positively studied my face, even after I stopped talking. The silence was almost awkward, just short of unnerving, and finally he spoke.

“You want him to be just like me?” he searched. ”Even my same color?”

And there it was. The moment. The kind of moment that, as a parent, you both long for and fear at the same time. But as an Uncle, you get utterly blindsided by its very existence. One second I’m sucking down a hot dog twice as long as my large intestine, the next I’m staring down a once in a lifetime opportunity to validate this boy’s very existence. This five year old embodiment of self worth was looking up at me and asking a question as old as history itself, “Am I acceptable?”

I met his gaze without hesitation and I lowered my face to be even with his. In a soft, confident tone I said to him, “Christian, I wouldn’t change a single thing about you. If your Aunt and I had a baby that looked exactly like you, I’d be the happiest Daddy on the planet.” I stopped there and let it sink in. I went back to my hot dog.

After a few moments had passed I added casually, while licking my lips and chewing my food, “You realize that won’t happen, though, right? Since I’m a cream colored guy and your Aunt is a cream colored girl, we can’t make little brown babies. We’re stuck with little creamy ones.”

He looked dubious.

“Let’s take you for example. Your skin is brown because your Mommy is cream colored like me. But your Daddy, the one that lives far away, is a darker brown color like that man over there, see him? That’s why your skin is light brown. You got some color from your Mommy and some color from your Daddy.”

He sat there, expressionless, for a full two seconds. Then he shot up unexpectedly, and raised one arm over his head before bringing it down swiftly, pounding his fist into the palm of his open hand while exclaiming loudly, through a triumphant, goofy-looking grin, “I KNEW IT!” I almost choked on my food from laughing. He thought this was some kind of deep, dark family secret or something, and he had finally cracked the case!

So I say again, do not make assumptions about what your kids understand. Talk to them early, and plainly, and often. And get really good at mastering that relaxed, calm, and confident disposition. You never know when a teaching moment will present itself.

But most of all, validate the young ones in your life. Answer the visible questions, but also seek out and answer the ones that lie beneath the surface. Because if you don’t, I promise that someone else will. And they will not necessarily have your kids best interests at heart.

If you weren’t so lazy you’d be done by now.

How could you get poor marks on that exam, are you stupid?

You’re doing this to me because you hate me.

At the end of the song The Unforgiven by Metallica, the narrator says, “You labeled me. I label you. And I dub thee Unforgiven.” And this is exactly how it happens. We as parents label our children. The way we form our words. The frequency with which we use certain phrases. The ratio of praise and encouragement over scorn and disappointment. Sometimes, with no words at all even, we can say to them…

You’re a failure.

You’re a disappointment.

You’re not good enough for me.

But it doesn’t stop with our children. Like the song says, if you label someone, especially a child on a long enough timeline, you train them to label others and to label you right back. 

It is for this reason Dewdette and I took care in selecting names, middle names actually, for our daughters. We searched for nouns that are also character traits. Before our girls could even understand a word or a facial expression from us, we decided to choose names for them to help set a foundation. Before they ever had the opportunity to disappoint us, we wanted them to know what we inherently believed about them. Like Babe Ruth stepping up to the plate and pointing out to left field so that God and everyone will be certain about where he intends to send the next strike that crosses the plate, we too have pointed our fingers out into the distance towards the words Grace and Faith.

But it doesn’t stop there. We exercise our use of labels constantly. And the terrific part is, they’re all true! It’s not like we’re lying. Dewdette and I are really expressing how we see our daughters. The point, the hard bit, is to make the time to actually do it. To get the ratios right. To jog back the frequency on some phrases. To jog up the frequency on others.

Look how lovely you are today.

Good morning, Beautiful!

That’s using your noodle! You’re such a smart girl.

Did you notice how thoughtful she is all the time?

You are such a good helper!

Today would be an excellent day to make a list of labels that you would like to pin on the subconscious mind of your children. Write down 3-5 character traits you want them to grow up knowing about themselves and extending to their fellow man. The above phrases are the actual ones we use in our household. If you don’t want to take the time to make your own list, you can borrow ours.

When we label our children we do two things. First, we convince them that what say about them is true about them. Second, we teach them to label others in the same manner.

So I ask you, what labels have you been giving your children?

1. We get down at eye level with our little one.

2. We ask her to explain what she thinks earned her a timeout.

3. We praise her when she gets it right. If she gets it wrong, we explain it to her in as simple a way as possible what her real offense was.

4. We have her repeat back what she just heard.

And then something wonderful happens. At this point she usually relaxes visibly and starts grinning or smiling. I’m not being sarcastic here, she really does. She knows what is coming next. She knows step #5, and it is this.

5. We give her a deep, reassuring hug and kiss and whisper softly into her ear that we love her so much.

We want her to know without question that our love for her is not contingent on her good behavior.I think I’ve written that down somewhere. It has been my hope that this will also help her realize that being put in timeout is not something I do because I want to. That it is not something I do because I am angry or mean or in a foul mood. That it has more to do with her than it does me.

Apparently I have been naive.

Something interesting happened this weekend, Sydney blamed me for her timeout! She didn’t use those words exactly, but I know that’s what she meant. I had to sit down and explain consequences to her.

Click here for larger, high definition version.

Disciplining a child in a consistent and patient manner is a real challenge sometimes. Mostly because I’m selfish and I just want my way immediately. But our girls are worth the time it takes and Dewdette and I try and keep each other accountable.

It wouldn’t be so bad except our weekend was packed with stuff to do. Both of us were running ever-which-way. The last thing we needed was a fussy one year old tugging on our pant legs all day long. Aside from being distracting, we wanted her to be happy! We knew something was wrong and we wanted to solve it for her.

In the latest video I cover all the stuff we tried, and what finally worked. I totally broke format and just talked into the camera. I hope you don’t mind.

Parenting Tip #4: De-fussifying a Fussy Toddler from dewde on Vimeo.

This whole parenting thing gets a lot easier once they can talk. Ironically it simultaneously gets more complicated. Go figure.

NEXT: Parenting Tip #5 – Explaining Consequences