For most of my life I have been a type-a strict rule follower. I’ve never been a rebel nor a pot-stirrer so this morning when I read a really great post titled Why I Have No Sympathy For The Mom Of The Child Who Shaved Her Head on a gal friend’s blog I was really surprised by how I reacted to it. I absolutely agree 100% with the argument that this little girl’s mother chose to ignore or be ignorant of a school policy and that what she did broke the rules and there are consequences when you break a rule. Wait a minute, though….

This photo was taken on January 30, 2011. My son was 11 years old and a bunch of his friends got together for a “buzz cut party”. The idea was to show support for their friend, Charlie, who was going through chemotherapy for a rare form of cancer. My kid sat down and told them to shave it all off because Cancer Sucks. He didn’t ask for permission and he certainly didn’t think twice about what his school rules about hair were. At the time, we were living in Denver, Colorado and he attended a private Episcopal School that most likely had a dress code similar to the one at Caprock Academy. Nobody said anything about it to him and our school was so small and close-knit that I’m willing to bet they even knew about the party.

If he had asked for permission I have no doubt in my mind that I would have told him to go for it. I was so proud of him and even had I known about a rule or policy that would have brought on the consequence of suspension I probably would have told him to go for it anyway and we’d deal with the consequences. My message would not be that we should break rules we disagree with but that sometimes when you BELIEVE in something, and what you are doing is a good thing and not hurting anyone, you should be brave and stand up for what you believe in and be a doer, a pot stirrer, and game changer. Even writing those words gives me a boost of anxiety but I want my kids to know that just because a rule exists does not mean that it is right. Follow your heart and listen to your gut. Face consequences but never be afraid to do what you think and feel is right.

I agree that the mother could have asked for permission ahead of time in order to head off this controversy and had I not experienced this very thing with my own son I might have written exactly what Amy wrote on Freaky Perfect but I think I’m changing in my old age because I don’t think “rule breaking” is always a black and white issue. OMG I really just typed that and meant it…

If you haven’t been following the story you might be interested to know that the school’s board of directors met and the girl is back in school. “In a Facebook posting Monday evening, Jamie Renfro said she doesn’t blame the school or the board of directors and insists her family’s top priority is to get the school’s policy changed.”

I wish I could bottle the enthusiasm and positive mojo of a second grader and spread it to the world!

I volunteer for an organization that teaches nutrition and wellness in the local public schools. Over the year and a half I have been involved I have seen evidence of the good the program does and in every interactive and mindful lesson we teach I find myself marveling over the great messages we are bringing to these kids. Today’s second grade lesson was about keeping our bodies healthy, why it’s important to keep your body healthy, and all of the things we can do to have a healthy body. One of the factors in keeping a body healthy is having a positive attitude.

We talk a lot about reframing and positive attitude at our house. Some people are more prone to a negative attitude, but we DO have control over how we spin things, how we talk to ourselves, and how we choose to frame a situation. 

I’ve noticed that staying positive is especially challenging at times for our teens and tweens who are juggling adolescent drama and crazy hormone changes. Teens are learning to navigate all the not so positive stuff in life and it occurred to me this morning as I listened to the second graders tell me what it meant to have a positive attitude that teaching and fostering positive attitude skills is incredibly important because once these kids hit puberty they are going to REALLY need positive attitude habits!

Life experience may cancel out the naivety that makes these second graders so exuberant but does it have to kill their positive attitude? I’m learning that part of my job/challenge as a parent is going to be helping my kids tap into those positive attitude habits as they grow older.

My 13 year old had a notebook go missing, most likely stolen during PE, this week and suddenly his life was terrible, school sucked, he was going to fail his class, and he’d never get into college or get a good job. He might as well just sit on the couch and give up.

HOLD UP! WHAT? 

I’m new to this whole teen parenting thing and sometimes I empathize so well with my kid that I want to cry and curl up in a ball with him when bad stuff happens. BUT I wasn’t about to let some jerky jackass who stole my kid’s notebook win and I definitely wasn’t going to miss an opportunity to teach my kid that sometimes bad stuff happens and how you handle yourself can make all the difference in the outcome. Getting him off the negative battlefield was my first plan of action! This really was a crappy situation but once we determined that the world was not actually about to end he was able to focus on how he was going to deal with this unfortunate situation.

I think the most effective way to help a teen (or any person) get to a place where they are emotionally and mentally ready to say, “That’s life, let’s make a plan and move on.” is to coach them through re-framing a situation in order to approach a solution with a positive attitude.

This was my tact:

What is the worst that can happen in this situation?  (Fail the notebook check the next day. Notebook has ALL of his work for the quarter, so far about 2 months of work.)

OK, so if the worst happens what does it mean? (Grade of A drops to a B… honestly, I doubt it would have dropped that much. No Notebook.)

What, if anything, can you do to help/fix/change this? (Take advantage of extra credit “Egg Baby” project to boost grade. Ask Teacher for help: he approached the teacher and was able to download the 2 months worth of work and spent several hours redoing the notebook. It was a lot of work but once he determined what his solution was he went at it with a pretty positive attitude. Shifting the focus FROM how shitty it was that someone probably stole and disposed of his notebook  TO “that’s life” and  how to resolve the situation was crucial to the outcome!)

Some people may naturally tend towards a positive attitude but EVERYONE has conversations with themselves that effect that attitude. There is an effort required in this self conversation and I think part of my job as a parent is to model this effort but also to walk my kid through these self conversations when his world is falling apart around him.

So, what do you think? What would you have done in this situation? What else could I have done?