Tag: Motherhood

School Refusal: One Mom’s Battle With The Irrational Mind

Everything I did with my first two kids never failed to deviate with my third — new play gyms, preschool teachers, and an overall sense of life in general. My first two kids were Type A, but my youngest child seemed to be Type Z. The two older kids went full steam ahead, while my youngest usually went quite unwillingly. I later found that this unwillingness was due to his anxiety, and that I would have to learn to be his advocate. 

I Wasn’t Prepared To Parent a Child With Anxiety 

When my youngest hit third grade, his anxiety began to bubble up to the surface and take control. Yes, we did have a family history so I couldn’t claim to be completely shocked, but I was definitely unprepared. Suddenly, I found myself flying by the seat of my pants with no playbook, no experience, and a whole lot of emotions to keep at bay while I plunged headfirst into navigating a very challenging new normal.

School Refusal Became a Regular Thing for Him 

Anxiety can take many forms in a young child. All three of my kids experienced textbook moments, but of course my youngest had a family trend to continue. Nine years ago, school refusal had just started gaining traction. Thankfully, we were lucky enough to be part of a school system that had put some support in place. Today, after two years of remote learning, I can’t begin to imagine the number of children refusing to go to school every morning. As someone who lived through it, I can say with certainty that it’s more of a nightmare than any words could ever describe.

The biggest thing I learned through therapy and frustration is that there is no reasoning with the irrational mind. It was a head-shaking phenomenon to have my greatest moments of logic stopped in their tracks by pure illogical will. My black was his white and so it went, right along with my emotional stability and a good chunk of my sanity. 

I Had To Be More Than His Mom — I Had To Be His Advocate 

As someone who felt comfortable flying under the radar, it was a daunting task to become more proactive and confrontational. I found an adolescent therapist specializing in anxiety and reluctantly put my son on medication. The stresses of everyday life became a little easier for a short time, but eventually my son became a regular in the nurse’s office. I could no longer relax, even on the days when I got him to school. And by the end of middle school, he was on the attendance radar screen of both the administrators and his peers, leading to classroom ridicule that only made the truancy worse. Yet somehow, he managed to get good grades and make it to high school.

When My Son Entered High School, It Didn’t Get Easier 

When my son entered high school, he struggled. For two years, he repeated a cycle: missing class, falling behind, and then getting too stressed to catch up. Checking the school portal for his grades made me sick before I even opened my computer. Waking him up in the morning was also an exercise in terror because I never knew if he would get out of bed. And during his sophomore year, I had people coming to my house to either prod or threaten him to go to school. Even the principal argued with me that I wasn’t doing enough, as if I had the physical strength to force him into the car or the magic words to talk him out of his irrational state of mind. Every single day was awful.

We Moved Him to a School Better Suited To Meet His Needs 

After an unsuccessful sophomore year, my husband and I thought we had found our miracle in the form of a school refusal specialist (who knew such a thing existed?) and a local private school that specialized in children who needed a different learning environment. We were set to make the move until our district refused to pay for my son to attend. We hired a lawyer and were forced to sit in a room to discuss my son’s issues as if he was a chess piece that could be strategically controlled and manipulated. My family held our ground and the district finally agreed to move my son to a school that could help him. 

We spent the next three years navigating the path to graduation with the help of some of the best people I have ever met in my life. They got it. They were flexible and willing to work with me, even on those days when I still couldn’t get my son out of bed. The right people also understood that anxiety and school refusal can take down an entire family. I didn’t need to be scolded, I needed someone to assure me that everything was going to be okay and to support me in helping my son.

The Bottom Line 

When graduation day finally arrived, it almost felt like an out-of-body experience. It had taken five endless years plus two summers to get through high school. And along the way, he had gotten accepted to his first-choice college, which was a joyous relief. If I had been given the chance, I would have stood at the podium and thanked the numerous therapists, special mentors, and amazing human beings who supported and guided us through a challenge like no other. I often told my son that he had taken an off-ramp leading from the highway onto the back roads, but that the destination remained the same. A boy seemingly fated to follow a different route even before he was born had conquered debilitating anxiety and paved the way to what had seemed close to impossible — getting out of bed in the morning, feeling strong enough to face a new day.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

Posted on by Shari Brauner 0

Walking Away From Mean Girl Energy at Any Age

For as long as I live, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to wrap my head around the mentality of a mean girl. Having been a spectator to the many ways a person can be affected by this form of bullying, I have learned the hard way how even the smallest things can trigger repressed pain. Cruelty that can never be allayed by the words “I’m sorry.” Choices made without ever realizing how you’ve made another person feel. It breaks my heart to think about how prevalent this is in our world and how the widespread use of social media has made a bad thing worse.

Are Mean Girls Born or Are They Created? 

Throwing out the question of nature versus nurture leaves me baffled. I have always believed that children are born a blank slate, slowly becoming influenced by genetics and experiences. And yet, even in preschool settings you can find examples of girls who act naturally kind and inclusive, while others exude selfish and boorish behavior. Is it possible for a 3-year-old girl to innately possess and display such hurtful conduct, or are they mimicking behavior they learned at home? For this reason, it’s so important we teach our children empathy at a young age. 

Unsavory Experiences Have Stayed With Me

As a young girl, my family moved many times during my middle school and high school years, always putting me in the position of being the new kid. Each time I started a new school, the same scene would take place. The girls would give me the once over, assessing whether I was worthy of their friendship. Did I wear the right clothes? Was I cool enough? Which group would I best fit into? Meanwhile, all I wanted was to find someone to eat lunch with so I wouldn’t have to eat alone.

Seeing My Kids Be Victims Was Much Worse 

I thought I had it bad until I saw the 21st-century version of this behavior inflicted upon my own children. Social media brought to light everything they were missing out on: Parties they weren’t invited to, weekend trips they were left out of, and even girls they thought were their friends suddenly deciding there were much better people worth spending time with. Having to live with snubs and disappointments can leave a child with cumulative pain, especially when a hurtful scenario repeats itself over and over again.

I Realized Mean Girls Turn Into Mean Women

Now that I am in my 50s, I have come to the realization that the only path some mean girls will take is to turn into mean women. My mother is almost 80 and she is still dealing with some of this all-too-recognizable behavior. Groups of friends excluding an undesirable woman along with the timeless practice of talking behind her back. And if that weren’t bad enough, when my then-90-year-old grandmother moved into an assisted living facility, the first people she encountered were the mean women who would not allow her to sit at their table to eat her meals. So if any of us think there is an ultimate cure for mean girls, I think we might be deluding ourselves.

Surviving Mean Girl Energy 

Age can often bring wisdom, which was much appreciated when I woke up one day and decided to embrace my power in choosing who I wanted to be friends with. At that point, the bullies in my sphere were probably more of the passive aggressive variety, but it was time for their bad energy to go. No more drama. Only people who were non-judgmental and fun. Friends I could laugh with and who accepted me for who I was. And as my circle of friends changed to fit the new me, it felt great to discover that I had women in my life who could be supportive and kind. No more settling for anything but a mature and healthy female friendship because it turns out that having the right women in your life can actually be quite awesome.

The Bottom Line 

Sadly, some mean girls are here to stay. Even if you are somehow spared in childhood and adolescence, one could be lurking around the turn of any decade. It might help to remember that a lot of this behavior stems from insecurity — theirs and yours. Time is supposed to be a helpful factor, but some will never break free from the desire to make themselves feel better by hurting the people around them. That’s why it’s so important to grow from the experiences and find empowerment on the flip side of the pain. Because when you get to the finish line of owning and controlling your own life, a mean girl will never be able to hurt you again.

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

Posted on by Shari Brauner 0

Strengthening Kindness Through Mourning

Sometimes it takes the worst tragedies imaginable to shake people outside of themselves. Our world can seem so divided until something happens to flip an ingrained behavior or narrative on its head. We’ve all lived through 9/11 and the ups and downs of the coronavirus, but in my experience, one of the worst things someone can be forced to endure is the loss of a child. It’s a moment in time that can forever decimate life as you know it.

Once upon a time when my oldest son was in first grade, I had my first encounter with a family faced with this kind of horrific nightmare. Their 6-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor that was operable, but most likely terminal. I would never be able to describe the ashen faces that walked around our elementary school almost every single day after Katie’s diagnosis. But along with visible heartbreak came a level of compassion I was only beginning to understand. People from all walks of life learned to respect a family’s privacy while offering support and comfort through a journey that would last six years. It was a miraculous coming together that I wish could be mirrored in today’s polarized society.

That family’s life obviously never returned to normal, but things in our town most definitely did. Busy families resumed lives that were all-consumed with obligations and activities that often cloud the reality of how fragile life can be. And then it happened again. Another child in town was diagnosed with a horrible form of cancer, this one in my daughter’s grade. Ian’s battle was shorter but no less heartbreaking. He was a brilliant high school student with his whole life ahead of him, until it was stolen by a cruel disease. Once again, the town pulled together with the utmost respect for the privacy of a grieving family. 

I have three children and a superstition about things happening in threes, but I never expected the events that would unfold only a few years later. Six boys who my youngest son had grown up with decided to drive around together on a rainy fall night. Wet leaves are tricky for drivers with experience, but for newly licensed 17-year-olds, they are the most unpleasant kind of surprise. These were good kids who had nothing in their systems but the desire for some innocent fun. Unfortunately, the car went into a skid and ejected one of the passengers straight into a tree, killing him instantly. The other boys sustained treatable injuries, but Nick’s passing hit the town with a magnitude that I had never seen.

“It is encouraging to see compassion is still out there wherever it might be needed. Our community does not stand alone in being full of good people who can jump into action when given the opportunity.”

This time I knew the family well, but by some indescribable phenomenon, it felt like everyone in town felt just as close to them. Hundreds came to the wake whether they knew them personally or not and did not hesitate to include the other five families who would never be the same after that horrific night. The mayor organized an evening vigil on the high school football field that allowed all of the boys who were in the car to speak about losing their friend as our community embraced them in a circle of love. Visitors streamed into Nick’s home for months as it became a place for his friends and everyone else to keep his memory alive. The family never turned away any acts of kindness, leading to the start of new friendships and adding to bonds that only grew stronger. The end goal was to ease the family’s pain and loss, but deep down we all knew that this kind of broken heart is impossible to repair.

Almost five years later, we have continued to see unimaginable tragedies in our town taking children far too soon. Suicides, drug overdoses, a congenital heart defect, and even a college shooting have touched families in this town year after year. One would think we would all be numb at this point, but the response has been just the opposite. Time and time again, the outpouring of love and support is always there. It’s like the rest of the world stops so each family can receive whatever they might need to help ease their shock and pain. 

The flipside to having so many parents in town who have lost children has been the opportunity to pay the experience forward. Grieving mothers can comfort other grieving mothers in ways that others could never duplicate. With that in mind, these families came together and started their own support group now known as The Mahwah Angels. Thanks to videoconferencing, they have been able to speak once a week to help each other with their own personal form of grief counseling. It’s a special community that no one would ever want an invitation to, but the fact that these moms and dads have joined together to foster even the smallest amount of healing is truly amazing.

It is encouraging to see compassion is still out there wherever it might be needed. Our community does not stand alone in being full of good people who can jump into action when given the opportunity. Most don’t need a tragedy to lead by example, but there are some circumstances that will always pull at the universal heartstrings. In this town, we have seen too many of them, but the result has been a comfort in knowing that kindness can still prevail.

Posted on by Shari Brauner 0