Keep Calm and C-C-Carry On

How our whole family learned to stop worrying and “C” our way through anxiety.

When Enzo was little, he loved doing sleepovers. But that all changed one year, the year he realized lying awake in strange place wasn't any fun. When he was about six, he stayed overnight with his Uncle Zoom, who had a new baby in the house. Between the distracting sounds and his underlying sleep challenges from ADD, he was up at 4 AM, dressed, ready for the strange night to be over.

He really wanted to go away to Science Camp with his class, but could not imagine how he would cope.

After that, he would become hyperaware of the fact he was lying there awake when his friends were dropping off. And then he would start worrying. He’d call to get picked up. Then he’d start planning not to stay over. His dad was sympathetic because that’s the kind of kid he had been. He could never sleep away from home, even if the whole family was with him.

This became a problem for Enzo in 5th grade, when he really wanted to go away to Science Camp with his class, but could not imagine how he would cope.

We signed up for a great class at Kaiser called the “Family Worry Class.” The therapist explained that the people who took the class all had a superpower called sensitivity, which runs in families. She gave us her “Five C’s” for handling anxiety while you’re in the middle of it. They work for your kids, and they work for yourself. In my words, they are:

1. Calm: Take deep breaths. Slow down and don’t rush through it.

2. Cheerlead: Be positive. Tell your kid they can do it — they’ve done so much before.

3. Change the Channel: A distraction can help, like food, a game, or TV; another option is to find ways to cope. (Look, another "C"!)

4. Check In: Let kids talk about their experience and how they're feeling.

5. Continue: Keep going, keep trying, don’t give up.

It was good to learn the therapist's Five C’s. We had been relying too much on our own favorite C’s: Criticize, Catastrophize, Cry, get the Creeps, and Chatter about endlessly about how bad it feels.

Thanks to the Five C’s, Enzo made it to Science Camp, and although he didn't sleep much, he felt very proud of himself. The C’s helped him in so many other ways, too — taking tests, going to a new school, and even trying sleepovers once again. Now he’s away practically every weekend, and can think about leaving home for weeks at a time. Maybe even for good! (We'll see how that goes.)

The other great thing about the class was that we went to go help our kid, and ended up helping ourselves as well. 

Electronic Attention Suckers

Every family struggles with ways to manage this generation’s darn distracting devices. Here’s our best trick for keeping video games from taking over our son's life.

When we got Enzo his first handheld video game, he was too young in my opinion, but still much older than most kids these days are when they are handed their first Electronic Attention Sucker (E.A.S.). We had held off as long as we could for several reasons:

My husband still teases me about my 1996 Mardi Gras Tetris-and-chocolate-cake-binge.

1. He had plenty of toys already that he could never find enough time for: Legos, paper airplanes, and, um, trains.

2. He already didn’t spend enough time outside, and every minute you are in front of a screen is a minute you could be spending doing something usefully dangerous—like building forts, or burning things with magnifying glasses.

3. We knew the power of a screen to suck away one’s life force.

Because it had happened to us. My husband, who I shall call “Dave” in this blog, has for years made a daily hour or two of collecting rings, battling bad guys, or building civilizations part of his life. And “Dave” still teases me about my 1996 Mardi Gras Tetris-and-chocolate-cake-binge before I gave both up for Lent.

It had also happened to people we care about. Enzo’s talented Uncle Art, for example, lost four years of his adult life gaming in every free moment before he chose to spend every possible moment painting and building a career.

The thing is, video games are actually designed for addiction. The tasks are stimulating and challenging. There is always a level to beat, and when you beat it, your reward is to start another level. There is no such thing as a game that will come to a satisfying end just before dinner time. Even game creators are now realizing they have done damage to childhood, and telling kids to go outside more.

It was only fair that Enzo would get his own Electronic Attention Suckers though. We did not want to deprive him of the adrenaline and dopamine-fueled pleasures of his generation. But before we let him put his twitching thumbs on the thing, we set up a Video Game Agreement that said things like he could play age-appropriate games for two hours on a weekend, if he asked first, and so forth. The deal was: if he couldn’t play by the rules, he would have to turn the game off, period.

The best rule on the list was this one, an idea from a friend: When we call your name, you need to pause and look up. The fact that he would lose privileges for 24 hours if he did not hear us and respond motivated him learn how to shift his attention gears, make good eye contact, and mind his manners — all things that can be incredibly difficult for hyperfocused ADDers. But the immediate reward of getting more dopamine helped train his brain in a good way.

View post on ADDitude.

Mastering the One-Track Mind

My son's obsessions run deep and fast. I can't wait to see how he harnesses his pedal-to-the-metal enthusiasms.

Since Enzo was barely out of babyhood, he’s had long-term obsessions. First it was construction machines. He could tell the difference between a street sweeper, a paving machine, and a combine harvester. We had to read Byron Barton’s Machines At Work and say “Goodnight Guys” every single night. At three he built his first collection: all of the Bob the Builder toys. He would go to sleep sometimes snuggling a front-loader.

The love goes deep. And the detail is fascinating.

After Useful Vehicles, he loved TRUCKS of all kinds — dump, fire, and monster — and he liked the song "Hello, I’m a Truck" so much that a friend made a tape of nothing but this song. Over and over and over…and the cassette was played over and over and over...

Then came the big love of his life: Trains. This was no surprise, since his first complete sentence had been, “I...hear...dat...train!” Between ages four and eight, he learned everything about trains and collected no less than seven sets. He could tell us the route of the Santa Fe and the B&O lines, and identified each type of engine that passed by with its model numbers. We were able to recycle an old family joke: “When God was giving out brains, you thought he said trains, and asked for one track.”

Does every child obsess on things? It seemed normal to me. I had my cats phase, my owl’s phase, and my horse phase in junior high, during which I only read books in which the main character was of the equine persuasion. With Enzo, trains gave way to Legos, Legos to Bionicles, and sooner or later, Road and Track magazine arrived, and the vehicle obsession turned to cars. Fast cars. Cool cars. Maybe you know someone like this. The love goes deep. And the detail is fascinating. When I drive down the street with him, I can point to any car and he can tell you its make, model, year, and some interesting fact about the company that made it. It’s a specialized talent that could certainly translate to a paycheck if we could ever figure out how to harness it...

This kid is built for learning. He has an intense ability to focus and absorb, and can stay on track with an astonishing and admirable focus...but only if it is a track he chooses. With a kid like that, you have to find ways to help him keep choosing a track that goes somewhere, be it school or a personal interest. Parenting is all about watching when our kids fall off of their track, wander away from it, veer off course precipitously every time a distraction goes by. Our job as parents are to constantly put our kids back on the track. Day after day, week after week.

Squeedle!!!

How I discovered my son’s distraction reflex is part of a hunter’s nature. Or a golden retriever’s.

A few summers ago we were on a road trip down south. The highway stretched out before us, cruise-control was on, and my husband and I were three-deep into our game of “top five Bruce Springsteen songs.” Suddenly there was a shout from the back seat, where we thought our tween son had dozed off with his nose in a Foxtrot collection.