The real lesson for today wasn't really about math

This has not been a good week for math. The first few days after a longer break are always tough, but when you add something new on top of that... well, it's not pretty. Much of our mornings have been taken up with figuring out the new concepts and controlling frustration and going over what was misunderstood. It can be a time consuming process. 

The math, though, was just the impetus for today's real lesson. One child, whom I won't name, has a tendency to stop thinking and just write answers in the blanks on math pages that are not completely understood. Having watched this process for a while now, it is almost like a form of disassociation (something I am more than a little familiar with thanks to H. and R.) This child works very, very hard filling in those blanks, but there is very little real thinking going in. This has been something we have been working on this past year. Today was worse than usual, though. After having answered questions correctly when we were doing it together, the actual page of work was... well, frankly, baffling. Usually I can figure out where the error in thinking occurred, but not this time. So, as usual, we backed up and I watched and coached as the child started to redo the problems. It became pretty clear that this child could not verbalize at all what he was supposed to be doing and what I had spent the last half an hour explaining. 

(This is where it is always wise to pause and take a few deep breaths before continuing. I may or may not have remembered to do this.)

Aside from this child's amazing ability to not think critically about what is being written down (because this child has totally entered the reactionary part of the brain and there is no hope of rational thinking), what I realized was the real problem was that this child held a very deep belief that math was beyond reach. Why try to engage if you just aren't going to be able to do it anyway? This child needed some truth spoken: You are totally able to do this. There is nothing wrong with your brain. It may feel difficult now, but later on you will look back and wonder that it was hard. If you don't understand something, it is entirely acceptable to let me know. I added that if you don't have words to let me know, scribbling and crumpling your paper is also acceptable and seems to work for your sibling at the table. If I know you are confused or don't understand, then I can help. I am happy to help. I will explain it in as many different ways, as many different times as it takes for you to understand it. How many times it takes has absolutely no bearing on your intellectual capabilities.

This will not be the first child of mine to receive this lecture. I've become rather good at it.

This morning's drama was highlighted for me this afternoon as I sat in my EFL (Equine Facilitated Learning) class. I am enjoying these immensely as I find EFL a conjunction of many of my interests. Today we were discussing the idea of a fixed mindset verses a growth mindset. My child's current difficulty with math was the perfect example. In this child's mind, math was beyond them. There was no way they could ever understand, it was how they were made, why even try. The child saw themselves bumping up against a perceived unchangeable part of themselves and became full of shame. A person avoiding shame will do so at all costs as my children have taught me. Some will rage, some will disassociate, and some will just stop thinking all together. If something is fixed, there is not even a reason to ask for help because it is hopeless.

I often see this hopelessness due to a fixed mindset in parenting, particularly in parenting children from hard places.  It is certainly how I felt in my parenting before we made the move to a much more connected model. Parents want to do what's best for their children. They want to be good parents. No one really sets out with the purpose of being a bad parent, do they? When we were first starting out, I certainly had a fixed view of how parenting worked. Life was orderly, there were definitely consequences, we ran a tight ship but showed lots of love, and the outcome of all this were well-behaved children. We were doing the right thing and making sure we were not raising brats. It is very much a formula... if you do this, don't let them get away with that, then you will have "good" children and you will be "good" parents. At least that is what we were told by myriads of parenting experts. 

When this type of parenting bumps up against trauma, all hell can break loose. Perpetual consequences create even more shame in a child who already has enough of it. Behaviors increase in an effort to avoid those feelings as well as all the fear that is lurking as well. This is seen by the parents as a reason to double down on the consequences because they are so fixed in what is "good" parenting, yet all it does is bring out more behaviors. It is a vicious cycle that can be very difficult to break free from. 

Everyone feels trapped. The child is so fixed in their own self-image that they are sure they are damaged beyond repair. The parents are so fixed in their parenting paradigm that they cannot see how to change without risking becoming a bad parent. The two parties are endlessly stuck in an endless spiral. Unless someone makes an effort to change, this cycle won't be stopped. 

This is where the other topic of today's class discussion comes in. One of our exercises we were to do this past week was to approach our horses paying close attention to their body language. If it was neutral or inviting we could continue to move forward, if it was in any way negative, we were to step back and give room. All the while we were doing this, we were to pay close attention to our own emotional state and stay as calm and grounded in the present moment as we could. 

I find this to be very little different from parenting a hurt child. We want to approach carefully and aware of our own triggers and emotions. Sometimes a child is so hurt and is so distrustful that even a slow approach is too hard for them. We parents need to take a step back and take a little pressure off... in parenting this could look like lowering expectations, assuming the child is doing the best they can at that moment and acknowledging that effort, or doing whatever you need to do in that moment to help your child succeed in staying in their thinking brain. My younger, know-it-all parenting self would have said that I was giving in, letting my child direct the show, tacitly giving permission to let them get away with bad behavior, letting them be in charge. 

There is a difference, though, between giving up and being attuned and giving space. When I choose to give space to my children, it is a conscious choice that I am making to help my child. I am not going away, we may address whatever is at issue later, but it is also recognizing that at that moment, the best way I can be on my child's team is to give them space. 

Taking that first step is realizing that there might be some way of parenting that looks different from what we thought parenting was supposed to be. It is a way of saying help, I don't understand. It is not continuing on because you are convinced that nothing can change. It is changing the way you look at the world so that you can connect with your child. Parenting isn't about winning or losing or being good or being bad, it is about connecting and being more concerned about your relationship with your child than what the rest of the world thinks.

But back to the math and the unhappy child. Math time ended with that child crying on my lap. We decided that continuing to work on the new concept could wait until tomorrow and moved onto something different. And we will go back to the math page tomorrow. We'll start from scratch and I'm pretty sure there will be successful math done... because the child really can learn how to do it and we have all the time it takes to make sure that happens.