Pre-cautions

Pre-cautions

Crack! While taking a walk in a wonderful wooded park with our grandchildren, we were startled when we heard what sounded like gunshots. Frantically grabbing the kids and scanning the woods, we saw a great tree breathe its last and crash to the ground. As our heartbeats returned to normal and the kids “Awwwed” and “Wowed,” we thanked our lucky stars that we had not been standing under that tree.

Sometimes, it is hard to locate danger.  We had taken all the precautions necessary for a walk in the woods. We were wearing good hiking shoes, carried water bottles, and wore sunscreen, but we had never thought about having a giant tree fall on our heads on a windless day in the sunshine.

Parents take a lot of precautions for their children. Before the baby is even born, they child-proof the house, buy the very best of car seats, and read everything they can about non-toxic child rearing. The house is safe, the car is safe, the clothes and food are organic. But parents can’t plan for everything. Hidden dangers lurk.

Before very long, babies meet a noisy member of the family, the box that sits in the corner bringing the world into the house, the TV set. This member of the family exposes the baby to the values of the world. What is this member teaching your child?

Responsible parents take precautions with TV shows. They don’t allow their children to watch violent shows or shows for “mature audiences.” What about the programs they do watch. What precautions have you taken there?

Think about it. What are the shows your children watch teaching them about life? About what it means to be a man or a woman? Are they learning that men are unfaithful or inconsiderate husbands? Are the dads more interested in drinking or sports than the needs of their families? Are the women focused on fashion and sexuality or on responsibility and social consciousness?

What do teens learn from the shows which target them? Is the show really about the joy of singing with a group or about making sexual conquests? Is the purpose of high school to prepare to be a seductress or to be a graduate with a future? Do the kids on these shows ever study or help out at home? Are they focused on themselves or on becoming contributing members of society? What do they learn about greed, goodness, evil, tolerance and pride?

Some folks say, “Oh, the kids know that the shows are fantasy. They understand that this is not real life.” Just like they understand why they must clean up their rooms, practice the piano, flush the toilet every time, wash their hands before they eat, and wear clean underwear every day. What may be evident to adults may be hidden from immature and impressionable minds.

So before taking that walk in the woods, or letting your child watch TV, wander on the Internet, or join Facebook, take precautions. Check it out first. Find out what safety measures you can take. Don’t let your children wander alone. Watch TV with them. Discuss the situations presented. Remind them that profanity and rule-breaking are not solutions. Spend time knowing what they know. Not every risk can be averted, but there are many for which we can prepare.

Luckily, the tree did not fall on us. We didn’t get sunburned, stub our toes, or get dehydrated. Be as prepared as you can and keep an eye on the horizon – and on what your kids are watching.

Healing Touches

Healing Touches

 

“Ow,ow,ow,ow,ow!” My three-year-old grandson comes running.  I scoop him up and wipe the tears from his cheeks. 

“I pinched my finger,” he cries. 

“Let Nonna kiss it better,” I say. A quick hug and a few kisses and he skips off to play.

How simple; a few loving touches and the world is rosy again. Remember those days with your little ones? Mommy or Daddy kiss it and make it all better.  Complete comfort and healing available 24/7. 

Elementary teachers continue this healing service.  A stubbed toe or a skinned knee is fixed with a quick hug or a few loving shoulder pats. Sometimes the nurse may get involved adding a few professional words and a kind smile. But as children grow, parents and teachers start preparing them for the “cold, cruel world,” where hugs and kisses may not solve all of their problems.  

Sure, there are still comforting words and shared smiles (sometimes shared tears,) but we begin to train children to become more independent. Now we may, after a few comforting words, add, “Why don’t you go wash your bruise and get a drink. I am sure you will be fine.” More and more we hand over the band-aid rather than apply it. We tell them to wait a few minutes to see if it feels better and let us know later. We ask them to take responsibility, to grow up a bit, to detach.  

In this country, independence is highly valued. We began with a declaration of just that, independence for our country and for all of its citizens. It’s a virtue to which we aspire. How many media stories of an individual pulling himself up by his own bootstraps, striking out on her own, building up a business, or an empire have you heard?   

What about all those great “up close and personal” profiles we see during sporting events.  We encourage our children, to become independent of us as they grow. How else will they learn to take care of themselves?  

Independence is a good thing. Can you imagine the line outside the nurse’s office if every bump and bruise required professional help?  Kids learn to “self-comfort,” to assess the hurt and take care of it themselves.  But must we lose all those consoling moments, those loving pats and shared smiles?  

One spring, our second grade classes went to a Veteran’s Medical Center to perform a few songs and poems. After an exciting bus ride, we walked into a ward full of patients, some in wheelchairs, some snoozing or wandering about. We had prepared the students to expect an audience of men and women who had been wounded physically, emotionally or mentally during service to our country.  

We also told them that we would greet the veterans, talk to them and perhaps shake a few hands. This can be scary for little people; meeting any adult is intimidating.

After the show, while we were enjoying our juice and cookies, one sweetie came up to me and said, “I thought you said we were going to greet the soldiers.”  

“Let’s go,” I said. We walked around, said hello and shook a few hands.  

“Let’s get some more kids,” my little friend said. He invited a few of his classmates to join him. When they acted shy, he said, “Come on, I’ll show you how it’s done.” Before long, kids and veterans were sharing handshakes, smiles and even a few friendly shoulder pats.  

When we walked out of that ward, new friends waved and smiled.  A few loving touches and the world brightened. Independence gave my little friend the courage to reach out, but those loving touches helped him connect. 

Let’s not give them up. 

 

         

           

The Inner Voice

The Inner Voice

There’s a short story by Kurt Vonnegut about a future society in which all people are made equal – not created equal, but forced to be equal. Any beautiful person is made to wear a mask. A graceful ballerina wears weights to keep her earthbound. An opera singer must sing in a gravelly tone. Anyone who is exceptional in any way is forcibly “normalized.” No one can be any more attractive or intelligent than anyone else.

None of us would not want to live in that dystopian society. Yet for many people, the world we share is just as judgmental and difficult. For those among us with “syndromes” or “disorders” accepted standards exclude them. What we don’t understand, we label as outside the norm, a problem -- weird.

Naoki Higashida, in his book The Reason I Jump, offers an insider’s view into the world of a person with autism. Naoki wrote this book when he was 13 years old. Unable to communicate his thoughts and feelings verbally, Naoki expressed himself in the way many children with autism do, with repetitive movements, tears and shouts. Eventually he learned to spell out words using a Japanese alphabet grid. His words became sentences, then paragraphs, then this remarkable book in which Naoki explains why he, and many others with autism, do the things they do. He gives us the inside scoop on what it means to live in the world with autism.

         

Naoki begins by answering many of the questions he is asked by his friends and family. Why do you talk so loudly and weirdly? Why do you repeat things? Why do you ask the same question over and over? Why don’t you like to be touched? Why don’t you look at me when I am talking to you? Why do you jump?

His answers are both enlightening and beautiful. He tells us that people like him know that they are not acting in accepted ways. He knows that the things he does can aggravate others. He wants to answer the questions, be understood, love and be loved. He says he often feels “miserable and ashamed that I can’t manage a proper human relationship.”

Yet, while at times he feels “desperately lonely,” he asks us not to give up on him. People like him have much to offer, he reminds us. They should not be shunned or ignored because they are different. He notes that “A person who’s looking at a mountain far away doesn’t notice the patterns of a dandelion right in front of them. A person who’s looking at a dandelion doesn’t see the beauty of a mountain far away.” Some of us see the mountain. Some of us see the dandelion. Both are things of beauty.

Naoki reminds us that “every human being, with or without disabilities, needs to strive to do their best… For us, you see, having autism is normal – so we can’t know for sure what your normal is like. But so long as we learn to love ourselves, I’m not sure how much it matters whether we’re normal or autistic.”

Naoki asserts that many people with autism are “stoic heroes.” The challenges they face trying to fit into the “normal” world might crush many of us. Naoki merely asks us to lighten the load, remove the weights of normality we force on every one, and appreciate the gifts each one of us offers the world.

In one of his short parables, “The White Dove and the Black Crow,” Naoki illustrates this charmingly. The white dove is sad because she cannot find the path to happiness. The black crow tells her that “All paths are one connected path.” In other words, all people travel together on the path to happiness. The white dove flies happily off. The black crow follows looking “no less perfect against the blue sky than the white dove.” Let us see others as “no less perfect.” Let us focus on the path we share.

(Quotations from The Reason I Jump: The Inner Voice of a Thirteen-Year-Old Boy with Autism by Naoki Higashida. Translated by KA Yoshida and David Mitchell)