EXHAUSTED TO THRIVING

I revisited this blog I had written a few years ago when I was a Parenting Specialist. Since November 2018 I am coaching, focussing on emotional strength especially anxiety.

It was interesting to read the thoughts I had written down.

I then revisited an archived group I had.

Scrolling through what struck me was the same things were being shared today by professionals.

When I worked for local authority there was a big push to make change.

The latest research followed by evidence based programmes.

I truly believed in the support that was being offered then,

We worked using a whole family approach.

Not working in isolation.

I believe this is still a great approach.

But this is where my thinking has changed.

A blanket approach does not work where there is trauma.

Changing things on the inside is the only way to change things on the outside.

No one is broken.  

Even though that is what so many of us have been led to believe. We all have days that are shit.

Everyone drops the ball sometimes.

Everyone questions themselves. If you don’t acknowledge this then you become emotionally stuck.

Your feelings become thoughts which in turn become actions that become habits. Habits are difficult to break. So working on things at the feeling stage is a good place to start.

Anger is so often misunderstood.

Anger is anxiety, sadness, hurt, grief and fear.  So many people do not look at what pushes it just how to manage it.  This is tough and drawn out.  Getting to the source is a quicker and more sustainable approach.  

I have been dormant for a while and today has a nudge to write again.  I could give you a hundred excuses.

But to be honest it was just because I lost focus and like with parenting if you lose focus or stop doing something that works then issues start.  So many times parents say to me I things aren not working.

When I break it down with them they would start changing the way they approached things using tools they had learned at the courses or with one to one coaching.  But then because things had changed for the better they would stop.  

My eldest approached his fifth birthday and it was time for him to start primary school.  He had attended Pre School and loved it.  He would go in with a smile.  

As I was busy with two younger children I had not thought what all these changes meant to him.  

When my third son was born he was over the moon and when he was told the news he ran up the stairs shouting 'I have a baby brother!!, I have a baby brother!!" 

I have a wonderful picture of him cuddling his newborn brother in the special care unit; you can see the pure love on his face.

He was a loving and caring energetic four years old.  His first day of school was exciting.  He was dressed in his school uniform looking all grown up.  

The weather had been very cold for beginning of the year and as we arrived at school we were told the school was closed, as the heating was broken.

He came home.  He didn’t realise he would be going back the next day and staying! When I picked him up he said why did he have to stay.  I should have seen that something was not right.

Initially we got into a routine.  Although my mornings were hectic.  Never got it down to a fine art.

If you get the chance watch 'The Mum Song" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nem0bkErGVY , it will give you an idea of my mornings!

Every morning it was a struggle to get my son to go into school.  He would cry and at that time (nearly 25 years ago) parents stayed at the gate and could not go in so he would be taken in crying.

It broke my heart.  I tried to ask him why he cried and he just said he didn’t like school.  My outgoing, energetic, happy boy was behaving so out of character.  

School though he was being picked on.  He just didn’t know how to express his feelings.  One day after picking him up I took the long way home.  

The younger two were asleep in the double buggy.  We walked and talked and he looked so sad.  Out of the blue I just said 'I love you" he looked so surprised and said but mummy you have my baby sister and brother is there room to love me!

Yes those were his words, which have stuck with me all these years.  At five he could not understand how there was room for him.  Wake up call or what?

I had been so busy doing, without realising how the timing of the birth of his sister just before he started school had not been the best.  I was at home with him and he was at school all day thinking there was no room for him.

Transition happens throughout our lives as parents.  If we do not prepare for it we can be hit hard.  It also has an impact on our children.  Luckily I was able to understand why he found going in to school so difficult quickly and work on showing and telling him how important his pale in our family was.

One thing I always did from then on was tell each of my children how much I loved them.  I might not like how they behaved at time but that did not change my love for them.

If only parents were offered support at each of these stages to cope with the emotional impact it has and the change in our relationship with our children.  I believe parents need to have built a strong foundation with their children for the survival of their relationship.

If this has not happened for any reason it will be the starting point every time.  Often in my professional work with parents, parents have wanted a quick answer to deal with behaviour.  Sadly it is very rare one tool with fix the problem.

You have to start at the bottom and work your way up, just like climbing a mountain.  If you start at the top you do no have any learning for next time and it might work for a very short time but is not sustainable. 

Parents need to know their children and this takes time.  You don’t need a microscope to see what is going on with them, best thing you can do is look in the mirror.  It’s hard but they learn how to behave by watching us. 

They know which emotional button to press and they know if you have given in to a demand once then there is a chance you will do it again.  Like wining the lottery, a very small chance to win but people still buy a ticket as it might be them!

My third son was very calm and contented.  He was very different as a toddler from my first-born.  He was happy to just sit and play.  He walked later than six months for a start!

I struggled emotionally as I was still living with the loss of a child.  People seemed to want to forget this or felt I should be over it now.  It had been two years and I had a new baby. So I bottled things up, not helpful.

Grief/loss can take years to understand and this is so unique to each person. I feel we are pushed to deal with it and it is so overlooked when trying to understand behaviour of both adults and children.  

Someone told me that the size of grief/loss does not change; it is just surrounded by the growth of life around it.  My experience agrees with this.  I still find myself sometimes being consumed with emotion as strong as twenty-seven years ago.

When my third born was eight months old I discovered I was pregnant with my fourth child.  Funny how things surprise us.  The only method that is proven 100% effective for not falling pregnant is not having sex!

During my fourth pregnancy both my husband and I decided our family was complete. We did not know the gender.   After lots of discussion the decision was made and he was booked in for a vasectomy. 

  At that time there was a morning discussion show called Kilroy on the BBC.  We were invited to go on and talk about this.   One of the points was how would you feel if your child died and you could not have another child.  My answer was, you never replace a child with another one. 

Like an iceberg the way we behave hides a feeling.  I believe a feeling fuels all behaviour.  The most common are grief, a sense of loss and the big one FEAR which some may say encompasses everything.  We only witness what is above the surface. 

I knew to the date I feel pregnant with my third child.  I went to the scan and was told I was two weeks further into the pregnancy than I thought.  I protested however was not heard and ignored.   Fear of looking silly kept me silently simmering. 

I was so happy but so scared and stopped myself becoming too emotionally attached, some might have thought cold, what if this baby died?

The time came to tell my eldest that we were going to add to our family.  I waited until I was showing and explained very simply in language that a four year old would understand that he was going to have a baby brother. 

He asked if this brother would die and with tears in my eyes I said I hoped not but could not promise.  He kissed me and said he would ask God to let his brother live.  

Avoidance is one of the main coping strategies used by parents who do not want to talk about or answer awkward questions.  Years later I worked with young people who misused drugs alcohol and were in negative sexual relationships. 

I always asked them if they spoke to their parents and they would all say they wished they could but were either ignored, shouted at or parents would change the subject.  Even though teenagers grunt, smell and at times can be obnoxious, they still need love and understanding as its chaos under the surface. 

The day for the caesarean arrived and after being in hospital for ages  being monitored, my third son was delivered on the 11th October 1988.  He had to be rushed into intensive care, as his lungs were not developed enough to breath on their own.  He was two weeks younger than they thought!!

It took me awhile to go down and see him.  I was relived that I had to wait for different tubes to be taken out of me.  What if he did not survive?  Finally I was pushed down to the unit and there was this perfect looking boy lying in an incubator.

I was in a daze for the first few hours after his birth but seeing him lying there was the fuze that lit a flood of emotions.  I was in love again.

Life moved on for us and we had the all clear to have more children as nothing that happened could have been prevented. My relationship with my eldest was strong.  He was outgoing boisterous and smart.  We would bomb about in a little blue mini I had. 

The feeling guilt hung over me though like an invisible cloud. Guilt manifests itself in different ways.  I became obsessed with cleaning and my house smelt of bleach.  

No matter what anyone said, friends, family or professionals I blamed myself and thought it was my fault. 

This stayed with me for years later; some might even call it postnatal depression. I can now look at a time when all my children were young and I had a meltdown knowing it was linked.  At the time I was in autopilot.

I truly believed they would be better off without me and for a very short time I considered not being in their lives.

Thankfully I woke up to myself and was able to start healing and not just being there physically but whole-heartedly.

Almost a year later I was pregnant with my third child.  I was scared but happy.  My Doctor and consultant took extra care through out my pregnancy and I was regularly scanned and tested. 

The death of my second born opened my eyes to how people behave without thinking or realising the emotion that has driven it.  

I believed things needed to carry on as normally as possible for my then two year old. I went back to mother and toddler group two weeks later.  This was not a great experience and maybe I should have given it more thought. 

We have always lived in this small village.  Everyone knew us, as my eldest had been the talk of the mums with his early walking.  

Although this happened more than 27 years ago I still remember it clearly.  I walked into the group, with a friend who was a lifesaver, and without whose support I am not sure I would have ever stepped outside again.  

She had a beautiful healthy daughter who was three weeks old and was the first baby I held after this happened helping me to heal and understand my grief and loss. 

Feeling nervous, a mum rushed up to me wanting to see the baby and asking me where he was.  When I explained that unfortunately he had died she looked at me walked away and never spoke to me again.

Not a great start.  Don’t get me wrong I fully understand how tough that must have been to hear.  Mums I had been friendly with suddenly started crossing the road rather than have to speak to me.

Was this driven by the fear of not knowing what to say or of having to think about babies dying? 

My husbands Nana had experienced the same thing over fifty years before.  She said that back in her day this was something that happened a lot and everyone spoke about it.  However in this day and age because it was less common no one talked about it.

It taught me a lot about human behaviour and I am not sure how I would have responded.  I hope I would have acted differently. 

We do not like to talk about death in any form.  As I am writing this I am constantly thinking should I really be sharing this, not a happy subject, depressing even.  The reason I have is to be honest.  Being a parent is not always happy and great.

I have been quiet for a while due to personal work reasons but am back ..... to continue 

My first son crawled before he was four months old and walked before seven months, active and always on the go.  I was very content and for a while really thought I would only have one child.  I felt complete.

My husband wanted more children, his father who had been an only child talked about how lonely he had been so I finally came round to having another baby. 

This is quiet a challenge to share but I feel I need to be open and honest about my experience.  I didn’t have a happy pregnancy and deep down felt I really didn’t want more children but knew others felt I should. 

I was uncomfortable and much bigger than with the first.  I believed I was having a girl, as it was totally different.  I was not a happy pregnant woman.

On a Good Friday 17th April 1987 I started labour during the morning church service.  We dropped our son off at my sister in laws and headed to hospital.

The labour was quick and there were complications.  Lots of busy doctors and nurses.  My second son was born and rushed away.  Fifteen minutes later we were told he had died.  

It was a very difficult time.  The hospital treated us with kindness, understanding and respect.  We baptised our son and held him for hours. Not one person or class had ever mentioned this could happen. The guilt I felt was immense.

After leaving the hospital and being at home a few days staying in bed, my son who was two crept into my room, all the family were telling him not to disturb mummy.  He sat on the bed and said "Mummy where is my baby?"

No one had spoken to him or explained.  We had been preparing him by saying when you come to hospital you will meet your brother or sister.  But that did not happen.  He was confused and worried.

I had not thought about how I would tell him and I just said his brother had died after he was born and was in heaven.  

He taught me never to underestimate children no matter how young they are.  Do not believe they will not understand.  

He kissed me on the cheek and said, (tissue at the ready), "Don’t be sad mummy, you have me and you and daddy can have more babies"

If an adult had said this to me at that time I would have probably not responded well.  But the innocent heartfelt response from my son made me get out of bed and start healing.

I believe that if you try and hide things from a child they will know and it will show in their behaviour.  You do not have to use the language you would with an adult but you need to give them an honest answer they will understand.  

I thought it was the most natural thing for my son to be at his brother’s funeral.  Some others did not agree.

PARENTING STYLES

I have been thinking a lot about parenting styles while writing this blog.  I wish I had known about them when I was at the start of my life as a parent, but I did not learn about them until my first grandchild was born. 

There are the five-evidenced based researched styles, Authoritarian, Indulgent, Inconsistent and Neglectful.  

The most positive parenting style, Authoritative takes the positives from all of the others.  I love the term used by Strengthening Families UK for this style its called Love & Limits.

 It means just what it says showing your children you love them while you set limits.  I believe this should be for all aspects of our relationships. 

We forget as parents about our own emotional health.   I remember at times being so burned out that I was no good to man nor beast. 

One particular period was when I worked late evenings and nights till about 2 am in the morning.  I would come home go to bed be up with the children and just go through the motions like a robot because I was so tired.

I was not a happy mummy at that time.  I would be overwhelmed with tiredness, guilt and continually feeling useless.  I believed I was the only one going through this.

I felt isolated and so very alone and inadequate.  All the other mums seemed to be doing a brilliant job in keeping everything together.

The first few months of parenthood went by.  My son was active from the word go.  He crawled at three months and by seven months was walking. I was exhausted but happy.  

I remember when he first hurt himself playing with a toy and blood was pouring out of his mouth.  I was so frightened.  Fear is an emotion that can make us very indulgent and the danger is if we look to out children to fulfil our needs it is going to go two ways.

Firstly we can decide that we dont want them to dislike us so we will do everything to make them love us.

Secondly we can feel so hurt that we then reject them because they do not fill our need to be loved.  

I remereber sitting on the stairs one day crying.  My son was on his cot crying as well.  I had changed him, fed him and tried to comfort him. Nothing worked and he got more and more worked up.  I could feel myself getting more and more annoyed and cross.

Because I had been hit badly as a child, my fear was I would also hit my children when I became angry.   There was a sort of red rage that my parent had and once they started hitting they wouldnt stop.  My biggest fear was I would be the same.

I made a promise that I would not hit my children because of this.  I broke that promise once.  My son was a teenager and we had been arguing when he said to me "go on I know you want to hit me, go on'  This is one of my lowest moments. In mynhigh state of anger,  I hit him across the face!  Not sure who was more surprised him or me.  I was so ashamed.

In my ward I was lucky  there were two second time mums who in the short space of five days taught me a lot.

Why was i so low a couple of days later? I had this beautiful son and had the sort of feelings of love that was over whealming  so why was I crying all the time?

'Oh thats normal she said its your hormones, it will settle down in a couple of days'.

I was woken at night to feed him and he just kept crying and not feeding.  Again words of wisdom, 'he was woken up and wasn't ready to feed'.  

The fifth day arrived and it was time to take my son home. There was my good old friend Fear raising their head.  As a parent the one other emotion that stuck was guilt.

Guilt is a emotion that can push a parent to becoming very indulgent, especially if you look to children to fill the need to feel loved.  It is an emotion that can support positive change or give others the tool they need to manipulate getting their own way.

Induction started, waters broke at 6am, contractions started very quickly and did not stop until about six hours later, when I was advised to have an epidural. They were worried I was exhausted and baby had not turned his head so delivery could be another few hours.

It was a teaching hospital and it felt like everyone was just coming through the delivery room.  I did expect the postman and milkman to sail through.

I can remember thinking, oh well I l will just have to leave my dignity at the door and pick it up later. 

After a flurry of worry with words like 'forceps' being muted my beautiful baby son was born at 16.14 or 4.14 pm.  I still to this day, twenty nine years later, remember the immense rush of love run through my entire body.  I do not remember the pain or anything more, just the love.

I was officially a PARENT! 

I stayed in hospital five days.  I was taught all the practical things like how to bathe my son, how and when I should feed him and how I should change his nappy and his clothes.  No mention of parenting or the emotional impact of having a baby.  I can honestly say I had no idea.  

During the pregnancy I attended lots of prenatal classes letting me know about what was going to happen during the labour and how to help with the pain, naturally and with drugs!

 Videos were shown of the birth.  I closed my eyes during most of it. I would not be seeing that end of it so I didn't think I needed to watch.

No mention of parenting styles or how the feelings that being a parent would evoke.

At thirty weeks I remember my inner voice saying, well there is not turning back you just have to get on with it.  Ignorance can be a blessing.

My due date arrived and passed.  After two weeks of being overdue I was admitted into hospital to be induced.  We had our last night as a couple talking about how different out life was going to be, we had not idea!

My feelings soon changed to full joy and anticipation.  Family reacted in different ways about the news.

Although they outwardly congratulated us, the question of marriage kept coming up and was always on the menu of any conversation.  They went something like this .... " of course you will get married" "when are you getting married?" Would that make me a better parent?

Yes I was not married.  I was in a very committed relationship and we had talked about marriage but nothing had been planned.

But there again the trigger from my brain's filing cabinet popped up again. What if it didn't work out?  What if my child had the same experiences as me?  

In my young naive state of mind, not getting married would stop that happening! I always said as a teenager "I would have four children and live with my partner before marrying them so i would know them".  Like I said naive but I was set on that and I was very stubborn. 

The pregnancy went well.  One small blip at twenty weeks with a small bleed which stopped me going out to Malaysia for a family holiday.  I remember the consultant telling me I could not fly and crying in the hospital.  

Lots of sympathetic looks came my way when I left the room, thinking I had been given bad news about my baby.  Funny how assumptions can be so far off.  

One of the first pre natal appointments I had they assumed I was Mrs and I had to say no Miss but every appointment after I was called Mrs. Had they been talking to my family!?

Between weeks twenty and thirty I became fearful of giving birth.  For goodness sake I could not have an injection without freaking out, how in heavens name would I cope with labour?