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(Note: This is another entry I made in my journal out near my pond the other day. It may be of some interest to some DUers. Or it might not.)
I love to walk barefoot in the early morning, when I head out to the pond. The ground is cooler than the air, and there is a light fog hanging in the air. It’s still dark when I begin my walk after my 4 am cup of coffee, and reading of the morning "newspapers" on the internet. I walk slowly, aided by a nice walking stick I fashioned out of a branch from one of my father’s apple trees about 25 years ago. Although my eyes still work quite well in the darkness, I am confident that I could find my way on this path with my eyes closed. Still, falling down is a drag, and I’m in no hurry.
A few birds are already out and about. I ran out of bird food yesterday, but I have some bread and some stale Cheerios from a box that someone tucked into a cupboard some time ago, and forgot about. I go through my near-daily ritual of spreading food under the bird feeders. I also use bread and some cereal, along with three types of fish food I bought, to feed the fish in the pond.
From my Adirondack rocking chair, I can hear the splashes from the larger minnows and trout, as they go after the bread. About the time I can make out the hundreds of ripples on the water’s surface, and the song birds express their approval of the stale Cheerios, it’s time to leave this peaceful pond community, to wake the girls up for school. This morning I will be driving them to school, because Chloe has too many materials to bring along for a class presentation, and the school bus policy only allows a certain amount of things can be carried on. She’s doing a presentation on how to collect and properly document Indian artifacts from the plowed corn fields, something that many local schools have invited me to do for decades. A new generation takes over, like another ripple on the pond.
When I get near the dogs’ pen, which is large enough to have a game of touch football in, only Mugsie is up and about. He signals to me that there is something to look at near the pines, and I can make out three deer, walking only a few feet from the pen. The largest of the three shadowy figures stops and through the rising fog, I see the doe that raises her fawns each year in the relative safety of that section of the woods. It’s funny, really, to think that she chooses to spend nights so close to the dogs. But the coyotes often come fairly close through the woods; one group howls, which scares prey out into the field at the edge of the woods, where a larger number of coyote wait.
Until I got Mugsie, I lost a number of fowl, rabbits, and even cats and a dog to the coyotes. But Mugsie is 130 pounds of German Shepherd, and when the coyotes howl, he howls back. Though I can only speculate on the exact words, his message is clear – "Come closer, and feel the fangs of one larger than you." My son’s three mixed-breed dogs, primarily boxers, are all about 100 pounds. The coyote stay a safe distance, and the deer map out their territory accordingly.
There was an article in this morning’s local paper, about Family Court and various community services coordinating a program for families where the parents are at risk of losing custody of their children. The program is several years old, dating back to the time when I retired. It’s a 16 week program, which I know, because I did the course planning, including finishing 9 of the sixteen outlines, in the weeks before I retired. Two close friends and co-workers from other agencies completed the other seven. Somehow, the deer and the newspaper article have merged in my mind, but I suppose this is what happens when one hobbles through retirement.
One of the frustrations that people often feel when attempting to run these types of courses comes from the most obvious factor: the vast majority (if not every) of the parents involved did not have anything approaching adequate parenting, and hence have little reference to draw upon when they try to raise their own children. There are, from time to time, individuals who are nothing but predators, and who really should not come into contact with children. But at the other end of that spectrum are people who have been mistreated since they were little children, who have both low self-esteem and a low self-concept, and who have become convinced by their life experiences that doing better is not an option for them.
Children tend to get their sense of self-esteem by the time they are five, and going off to school. These are the years that should provide the safety of those pines, and the nuturing of parents. Those parents, and others playing a role in the child’s life, can teach that child four building blocks for good self-esteem: that he/she is lovable, worthwhile, capable and responsible. If any one of these building blocks is missing – meaning that the child learns that he/she is NOT lovable, worthwhile, capable, or responsible – it damages the child’s self-esteem. If one or more of these blocks is missing, that child will experience difficulty, because by the age of five, they are able to draw conclusions about how others’ view them, and that impacts how they view themselves.
By the age of 12, most children have developed what is known as their self-concept, which combines their experiences at home and in school, and involves their sense of self-esteem. If damage has been done at home and/or in school, it can be very difficult to take actions that improve their self-concept. Most adults have encountered a youngster who we recognize has real potential, but who has an entrenched self-concept, featuring low self-esteem, that prevents them from doing their best. (In fact, human nature being what it is, most people are more afraid of reaching their best potential, than in settling for a fraction of it. We are all human.) When an adult – be it a parent, relative, family friend, teacher, or social worker – attempts to encourage the youngster to reach their potential, we are met with resistance.
That same entrenched resistance becomes a stumbling block that can make parenting groups difficult. "I’ve tried that, and it doesn’t work." "You don’t understand." "My father did this, and it didn’t hurt me." And on and on.
Change is hard. Refusing to change is even harder, in the long run.
When I drop the girls off in front of the school, they are both eager to get inside and start their classes. It’s quite a contrast from my approach at their age. I was an angry kid, with a speech impediment and a chip on my shoulder that weighed my self-esteem down into the mire. I found glimpses of happiness through that fog in two ways: books and beating up those who made fun of me. I was pretty intelligent and a heck of an amateur boxer as a teen-ager, but that wasn’t the life I wanted for any of my children. As a parent, I put more effort into making changes than I put into preparing for all of those boxing matches.
Change is hard. But it can be done.
When Chloe gets out of the Jeep, I ask her if she is nervous? "Yeah, a little," she says. Then she grins, and tells me, "But I know that I can do this."
Don’t let anyone tell you that there’s no such things as miracles. They happen all the time. But, as Rubin used to tell me, they just take a dog-gone lot of work.
Peace,
H2O Man
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