Our final week of looking at the values that direct our parenting. This week’s excerpt from Magic Lessons looks at a tricky one for our family, communication:

It makes sense that the kids would have trouble asking for what they want. Their early experiences taught them two contradictory lessons:

1. You can’t trust adults. If you want something, you have to figure out how to get it on your own.
2. Even with all that figuring, you can’t have what you really want—since what you really want is safety and stability, which is what you aren’t getting from those adults (whose job it is to provide these), which is why you can’t trust them.

I spent a lot of time working with the boys on that first one. As I mentioned, in the first year, I spent all kinds of time coaching Daveon to tell me he was hungry instead of raiding the refrigerator—i.e., you can ask for what you want and trust that you will get it. I like to think that with all that effort, we chipped away at at least a few layers. If you end up in a relationship with one of my kids in the future, drop me a line and let me know how they do with the asking/trusting thing.

Now it’s your turn! Share your family-building story by leaving a comment, or contact me at joe@jmswordsmith.com to have your story featured as a post in a future week!

As we continue to look at the values that drive our “alt” parenting, this week’s excerpt from Magic Lessons looks at possibly the most important value of all, fit:

For adoptive parents, you are introduced to fit the day you start the search process for your kids. All children have both good and challenging qualities—what you want is to find the kids who are the right fit for your personality, values, and lifestyle. This is just my opinion, but I believe detecting fit is a matter of gut-level, versus brain-level, knowledge. A kid can look perfect—or very imperfect—on paper, but when you meet him or her in person, something kicks in that tells you “Of course” or “No way” or “Maybe . . . .” (For the maybes, I’d recommend a second or third visit before you commit.)

And that’s just the beginning. From the point at which you and your kids become a family, you can apply fit to . . . well, to pretty much everything that follows. Over the years, we had to suss out fit for obvious things like babysitters, coaches, therapists, tutors, and music teachers—but also to less-obvious things like behavioral systems, travel destinations, movie picks, restaurants, and so on. As just one random example, the boys and I had more fun on our previously-described first trip to Victoria (where there is Nothing. To. Do.), than we did on our one trip to Hawaii. All because the former, with its quirky charm, was more us at the time.

Now it’s your turn! Share your family-building story by leaving a comment, or contact me at joe@jmswordsmith.com to have your story featured as a post in a future week!

Week #2 of looking at questions like:

• What ideas informed your approach to parenting: around structure, discipline, identity, etc.?
• Where did these values come from?
• How did they change over time?

This week’s excerpt from Magic Lessons looks at a huge value in our family, independence:

I started fostering (no pun intended) independence pretty much from the day the kids crossed the doorway officially for the first time. I’ve mentioned many of these examples already. From the beginning, they had to clean their own rooms and make their own breakfasts and lunches. Not long after, they began the monthly cooking experiment I’ve also previously described. There was also a period where they cleaned the bathrooms, on the theory that ninety-five percent of the crud came from them. This ended when I realized that it was faster for me to clean the actual crud than to do a second pass on whatever was left after they … did whatever it was they did in there.

Perhaps the most obvious marker of the kids’ independence was how, from a relatively early age, they traveled from place to place by themselves. I did drive them to their elementary school, even though both we and the school are a block or two from BART stations. This was mostly because I wasn’t convinced they would consistently get on the right train. And because I could see lots of arguments when one was sure it was the red line, and the other was sure it was the yellow line, and then I would be getting regular calls from the BART police. On the one hand, being on a first-name basis with a BART officer might not be a bad thing, depending on the gender and level of hotness. On the other … easier just to get in the car.

Now it’s your turn! Share your family-building story by leaving a comment, or contact me at joe@jmswordsmith.com to have your story featured as a post in a future week!

This month, we look at the values the drive the way we raise our families. February’s posts look at questions like:

• What ideas informed your approach to parenting: around structure, discipline, identity, etc.?
• Where did these values come from?
• How did they change over time?

This week’s excerpt from Magic Lessons looks at the all-important (to me) value of structure:

When I got my kids, I made a conscious decision to make myself central in their lives, to a point that others might consider (and that, in retrospect, maybe was) excessive. Want something to eat? Ask. Watch TV? Same. Going outside? Let me know. Have a lot of homework and need to skip chores? Don’t just blow them off—talk to me about it. And so on, and so on.

My reasoning was twofold: (a) They had never had a parent who was a center, so I felt like we had a lot of catching up to do. And (b) I wanted to try to instill the belief—especially in Daveon—that it’s possible to get what you want by going through the person who can provide it to you. You don’t have to figure out everything on your own (he did), you can trust adults (he didn’t), and they won’t let you down (they had). So rather than him raiding the fridge on a whim, or walking up to someone he had just met and fiddling around with their hair, we spent a lot of time—a lot—on, “Ask. If you want something, or want to touch someone, just ask. You can trust that the answer will be yes, or at least, we’ll work something out.”

This message didn’t always sink in—often, for example, when told to close the fridge door and ask for something to eat, Daveon just decided he wasn’t hungry and left the kitchen. But I felt that it was important to reinforce the message whenever possible. You can get what you want, and the people around you will be happy to provide it. And of all those people, the main provider is me.

Now it’s your turn! Share your family-building story by leaving a comment, or contact me at joe@jmswordsmith.com to have your story featured as a post in a future week!