Category Archives: anxiety

May 23, 2016 · 4:35 pm

Marching to the Beat of His Own Drum

drums

My nine-year-old son is going to take drum lessons. I’m dreading it, but not for the reason you probably think.

This school year, we’ve dabbled in ice hockey, chess, basketball, karate, and swimming. None of the activities have resulted in any long-term interest.

I don’t particularly care if my children are athletes, artists, musicians, magicians, or statisticians. I care that they feel like they belong. I care that they believe in themselves and feel comfortable in their own skin. I care that they’re willing to try new things and hard things. I care that they learn, embrace failure, and persevere.

So far, this has proven to be a difficult task.

In our current parenting culture of high-commitment and high-competition sports (the ice hockey season where we live is 8 months long), experimenting with different activities to find one that fits (and inevitably stumbling through the ones that don’t) feels a lot like repetitive quitting. And let’s face it, quitting feels a lot like failing.

Chess was boring. Basketball was intimidating. Karate was uncomfortable. Swimming is the one strand of spaghetti that has stuck. My son wants to pass the deep water test at our community pool this summer so he can go down the water slides in the deep end. It’s been useful motivation to go to his once weekly lesson, but I wouldn’t classify swimming as a passion or even a joyful hobby. It’s a means to an end. It’s an obligation. Still, he goes.

In the case of the drums, I’m not dreading the lessons because of the potential for long bouts of loud, ear-splitting, off-rhythm noise coming from my basement. On the contrary, I’m dreading it because I’m excited about it.

I’m enthusiastic about the idea of him playing a musical instrument, and I’m giddy about the positive benefits music has on kids’ cognitive brain development, especially ones like mine with anxiety, attention, and sensory issues. I also think the drums are cool and have found myself daydreaming at least once (or twice) about my son someday playing in a rock band or joining the marching band at school. Most importantly, I’ve imagined him belonging, believing in himself and feeling comfortable in his own skin, learning, and persevering.

I’m worried that if it doesn’t work out, and there’s a good chance that it won’t, I’ve set myself up for a pretty big fall. I’m afraid the reality might not not live up to my expectations, and I’m anxious about finding myself in the uncomfortable position once again of deciding whether to make him stick it out or try something different.

I’m not a Tiger Mom (obviously), but I am my son’s mom, and I know he’ll eventually figure out what brings him joy and inspires him to learn, create, grow, and dream in his own time, just as he did when he learned to walk, talk, use the toilet, read, and tie his shoes. It’s just a lot easier to reflect on these milestones in hindsight.

My son is as excited about his first drum lesson as I am, so perhaps that’s a positive sign. No matter what happens, though, one thing is for sure. I most definitely have a kid who beats to his own drum.

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Filed under anxiety, parenting, sports

January 27, 2016 · 8:23 am

This too shall melt?

I’ve been winter’s biggest cheerleader since we moved from sunny Florida to New Jersey. After all, I grew up in New England. Peabody, Massachusetts, to be exact. Even though I lived in South Florida for a decade, “wintah” (and a wicked awesome Boston accent) is in my blood.

The boys don’t hate it here by any means, but having been born and raised in a tropical locale, moving to the northeast has been a difficult transition for them. The change of seasons, which is what I missed the most living in the Sunshine State, has been their biggest stumbling block.

I’ve actually enjoyed the arrival of winter, and it’s not just because it’s been a good excuse to go shopping. When frigid temperatures finally arrived, I embraced the bitter cold air and gloomy gray skies. When the first snow flurries fell a few weeks ago, no one was more excited than me. It was a delightful little taste of winter, and it made me want more.

There were so many firsts I couldn’t wait for my boys to experience. From making snow angels to going sledding to waking up on a weekday morning to the sweet sound of “school is canceled,” I wanted my little Floridians to have some good old-fashioned wintry fun. I knew a snowstorm would turn their winter blues around, but I had no idea how much it would spin me, too.

Winter Storm Jonas came through last weekend like a wrecking ball. Once it started snowing on Friday night, it. would. not. stop. When we woke up to 30 inches of snow on Sunday morning, I couldn’t catch my breath. It was a gorgeous site to see so much fresh, fluffy, untouched snow, but there was so much of it. There was too much of it. There was so too much of it!

I couldn’t breathe was because there was snow EVERYWHERE. We couldn’t get in or out. In a fit of panic, I dug out the front steps, but then I hurt all over and we were still trapped. Even after two days of endless plowing, shoveling, snow blowing, and salting, our town looks like it’s been eaten alive.

The path from our front door to the street is endless and narrow.

snowpath

The gates that connect our front and backyard are blocked indefinitely.

snowgate

The streets are barely wide enough for two cars to squeeze by.

snowstreet

Parking spaces have been swallowed whole.

snowparkingspace

The trees are drowning.

snowtrees

Our mailbox is choking!

snowmailbox

I feel like Alex from the movie, Madagascar, who, when he realizes he’s trapped in a shipping container on a cargo ship, says: “I can’t breathe, can’t breathe! Darkness creeping in. I can’t breathe. Walls closing in around me! So alone. So alone.”

I totally get his crazy.

On the bright side, even if Winter Storm Jonas has sent me down a rabbit hole of claustrophobia, anxiety, and seasonal affective disorder, it seems to have had the opposite effect on the boys. They still miss Florida, but I saw a much-missed twinkle in their eyes as I watched them hurl snowballs at each other’s faces over the weekend (even though I told them not to).

This too shall melt? I’m dreaming of spring already, but that’s what the seasons are all about – hanging on for dear life in one while fantasizing about what’s to come, which I sincerely hope is not another named storm.

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Filed under anxiety, winter