It's amazing how easy it is to mess up the moral of the story!

[elfs]

For the past five days, Omaha has been teaching Yamaraashi-chan to ride Metro by herself. Omaha has taken her everywhere on the bus, to the library, doctor's appointments, haircuts, since it is her only mode of transportation, but we weren't sure how much attention Yamaraashi-chan was paying when she did. We made this effort to help her get to school on time without having to wake her at 6:00am, which is unholy for me, much less for a kid. In the winter time, that's nearly three hours before dawn! An extra 45 minutes is a blessing, and that's what we were trying to buy with Metro. When I was her age, I was taking Metro regularly to bookstores, the movies, and the mall. That was back when malls had video arcades, which made them legitimate places for kids like me to hang out.

For four days, Omaha rode with Yamaraashi-chan the entire route, showing her the steps to take, how to take them. On the last day, Omaha had Yamaraashi-chan do the route herself, telling Omaha what steps she would take and so on.

I love my kid. In way too many ways she's a very smart kid. But if there's one thing she lacks it's self-confidence. I see this very much as a consequence of her early upbringing, and it manifests itself very clearly. So on her first day riding the bus alone, she missed her stop. She apparently totally freaked out, and with tears in her eyes begged the driver to help her. She gave the driver her mother's phone number (not mine, not Omaha's), and... we're not sure what happened next, but Yamaraashi-chan made it to school eventually. Apparently a Metro supervisor at the next transit center gave her a ride in his truck.

So that ends that experiment. Yamaraashi-chan has learned that passive-aggressive works, and unfortunately she's still young enough that people take pity on her and don't recognize it for what it is. It also means that another opportunity to teach her think for herself has ended in failure.

This is really kinda frustrating. We've been working hard to teach her independence, to "free range" her as the expression goes. We've sent her and Kouryou-chan down to the store two blocks away to buy things like bread and milk for dinner, but if everything isn't exactly like what the script says she freaks out and cannot handle it. That's why we send them together: Kouryou-chan has the self-assurance to ride her bike high and low through the subdivision, but Yamaraashi-chan is objectively frightened of going anywhere she's never been before, facing any problem she for which she doesn't have a script. She's at the age where we should be able to leave her alone for long enough to run to the grocery, but whenever we run through the house emergency procedures ("What do you do if there's a fire?" "What do you do if the toilet overflows?" "What do you do if you smell something really bad?"), if we add some new problem to it, she says "I don't know" and just freezes up. She doesn't think to solve the problem. Someone else will solve it for her.

Sigh. She really needs to unlearn that. Someday, her mother's not going to be there to solve her every problem, and neither will I.

---

Since Omaha had taken Yamaraashi-chan this week, I've been dealing with Kouryou-chan. She's not too hard to deal with, though, getting her through breakfast and making her lunch and all that. After her carpool picked her up, I drove to the Park'n'Ride transit center near my house because the bus that goes by my house to the transit center doesn't run by for another forty minutes or so, but there's an express leaving the transit center in ten.

I had a pretty good day at work. Figured out the internals of XUL node addressing, and hooked up a Python interpreter to do it for me.

I rode the bus home. I took the express, which turns into the bus that goes right past my house, so that was good. Omaha and I sat down and had a long talk with Yamaraashi-chan about all the things that went wrong, and what we were going to have to do now to deal with it. It wasn't an easy talk, but it was better than not having one.

After we were done talking, Omaha and I went back out into the living room to discuss what had happened. I looked out the window and noticed something odd. "Omaha, where's the car?"

I'd left it at the transit center's Park'n'Ride lot. I'd missed my stop.

We told Yamaraashi-chan about my stupidity, and then for practice brainstormed alternatives. I could wait until tomorrow; I could bike there; I could take a bus there; I could call a friend who'd help me. lisakit lives just a few blocks away. "I don't want to impose on Lisakit," I said. "She's a good friend, but that would be imposing."

More in bemusement than anger, I looked at the schedule. A bus was coming in five minutes back to the transit center. I ran for it.

It took only about ten minutes to reach the transit center. I got off the bus and found my car.

I'd forgotten my keys.

Okay, you all can stop laughing now.

Since Omaha couldn't help me-- she had the kids and can't drive anyway-- I took a deep breath and called Lisakit anyway. After she was done giggling at me, she kindly agreed to swing by my house, grab my keys, and bring them to me. I bought her dinner to show my gratitude.

Man, I felt stupid after that.

But while I was sitting on my car, I did have a good idea for another Bastet story, this one involving hemp rope and fortune cookies and ivolucien's house.

Comments

[irismoonlight.livejournal.com]

*giggle* Sorry. Thanks for sharing your human moment.

I was a kid much like your daughter. And my problem wasn't that I couldn't think. I was an excellent student and I did great on pop quizzes and that type of thing. But off the script? Synthesis of information? GAHHHHHHHHH.

Don't know what her issues are. I was terrified of giving the *WRONG ANSWER.* Nothing, no humiliation, no punishment, no being told I was a wuss was worse than being wrong, than giving the wrong answer. That would mean I was stupid, and stupid (and wrong) were lethal/suffocating forms of bad. As in "mommy and daddy will be so disappointed I won't have a chance for them to love me" kinds of bad. *I* would be wrong. Don't know if that makes any sense, but it was a paralyzing fear.

My parents made mistakes on rare occasion. But I didn't have that option.

[athelstan.livejournal.com]

May I ask how you learned to go off script and synthesize? Your story and Elf's reminds me of what I'm dealing with now and was wondering if you had some advice.

For me I'm 32 and learning to live with myself for myself. I'm highly functional, but it's a very shallow functioning.

So far I've learned that logic does very little help with the emotional responses.

[irismoonlight.livejournal.com]

Therapy. *wry smile*

Not entirely. Experience. Looking at previous life experiences and breaking them down into "why" and "how did I contribute to that mess."

You have to break yourself out of the fear (or whatever emotional response is holding you back). Therapy can help that. You have to want to live differently, be different.

Realizing I *wasn't* synthesizing information helped. (Like realizing I'd gone to college for six years just *assuming* I'd get a liberal education because that's what college **was,** without ever parsing out what "a liberal education" meant to me, and looking at the classes I was taking, and realizing that wasn't what I was getting. DOY.) I was really good in the structure of western education (school), but I suck at LIFE. I never took any class that "taught me how to think." I'm not sure anyone could have at that point. I wish I had challenged myself in that way, though; it might have helped.


Life coaches, actually, can be helpful for some things. But therapy really needs to come first.

[athelstan.livejournal.com]

Thank you for answering.

Well considering I have a year of therapy under my belt, I think I'm on the right track.

Also, I'm glad I'm not the only one who went to college, got good grades, graduated and can't synthesize.

Well here is to keeping up with the hard work.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

hee hee hee hee... oh, jeez.

Well, at least (a) you had your *cell*, and (b) you didn't freeze up...

Poor kid. That one's gonna take a long time to undo. At least it's fall now... no impending summer to unlearn what you'll be trying to teach her.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

If I hadn't had my cell my options would have been use a public phone; go home and get the keys, and come back; go home and just wait until tomorrow. It's the freezing up that's so worrisome.

I didn't have a cell phone when I was her age. I managed. So did my sister at that age.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

heck, I didn't have a cell until I was 30... I just always (from when I was, oh, what, 12 or 13, kept a coin (two, usually) of the appropriate denom in my change purse for just such an occasion. 'course, pay phones were much more common then.. like, usually near the bathrooms of most public places. Including the local skating rink where we all hung out.... if you wanted to bug and go home early, or stay late, you used your dime/quarter...

But you're totally right. The point is to *think*...

I'll admit that when things go *really* sideways, I'll go "AAAAHHHH" for a bit... but then it's like, ok, nitwit, what do we do now... and (here's the important part) once I've got a plan? I feel *so* much better.

[urox.livejournal.com]

You have mentioned before about Yamaraashi-chan's difficulty with paying attention. Perhaps things might be helped with indirect keys? Like if she has an ipod, playing the "bus set" such that once she gets past a certain song in the set, she needs to pay attention to her stop coming up?

6am: (smiles just slightly) 6am was when I had to be *at* school by for my last two years of high school. Drill team the first year and an early start class the second. Just wait to see if she gets into swim team. ;)

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Heh. I wouldn't mind if she had the gumption and initiative to be at swim team practice at 6am. I remember swim team practice at 6am! But I was fourteen then. What bugs is that she gets on a bus at a stop less than two miles from her school for a ride that's an hour and forty minutes long.

[blaisepascal]

I take it she's not quite at an age where walking the less than two miles daily would be an acceptable option? Among its pros, it could easily cut an hour off her one-way travel time!

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Actually, I just checked with Google maps. It's 3.5 miles. That's a bit much. I could do it-- I have done it-- but it's a lot to ask of her. Kouryou-chan could do it easily, but then Kouryou-chan knows how to ride a bike. (Yes, this is a point of contention with Yamaraashi-chan; she's the only member of the family who doesn't ride and she adamantly refuses to learn how.)

[blaisepascal]

Ah, well, 3.5 miles is a bit much.

I may be mistaken, but isn't Kouryou-chan younger than Yamaraashi-chan?

[aelfie.livejournal.com]

What about skates or blades or a scooter or a skateboard?

Just a thought.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Her mother bought her a set of blades, since she'd been asking for them for months. We, predictably, ended up buying her the helmet, gloves with wrist guards, and knee pads.

She used them once.

[rand0m1.livejournal.com]

Actually to my eyes it looks like a perfect example of how things can go wrong and how a person can calmly think about the issue, find a number of solutions, and how to choose among those solutions.

OK, maybe you didn't feel quite so calm sitting at the Park and Ride without your keys, but you were still able to deal with it.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

Actually, I was pretty calm. There was a Burger King and a drugstore, and I had my bus pass and a few bucks. If my phone had died, well, there were alternative. And it's only 2.5 miles back to the house according to Google. A long walk, but my knee would hold.

[trickofthedark.livejournal.com]

...refuses to ride a bike, frightened of new places, misses a bus stop she ought to know well, loses her family in crowds, prefers known places and scripts, no self confidence...

Is it vision issues, subtle ones? Has she got depth perception and peripheral vision? Because I could see how being asked to solve problems and synthesize her environment with senses she simply doesn't have could make her throw up her hands and give up. I could be totally barking up the wrong tree, but if I'm not, perhaps the navigation techniques of the vision-impaired (maps, counting, asking drivers to tell you when it's the right stop) would be more useful to her than the navigation techniques of the normally-sighted.

I'm likely completely wrong, but I grew up with people with invisible disabilities, and it rather reminded me of it.

[bldrnrpdx.livejournal.com]

Add in the refusing to ride a bike and some other things Elf has mentioned, and I wondered about some level of sensory integration (which of course could include vision and visual processing issues).

[elfs.livejournal.com]

She has a depth perception problem. I've blogged before about her lazy eye. According to her eye doctor, though, her strong eye is very strong and she should be able to do all these things.

But you could be right. I'll talk to her doctor and her counsellor about it.

I understand the thing about invisible disabilities. Trying to explain that my rather vivacious Omaha can't drive because she's physically disabled is more than a little difficult at times.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

I've got a lazy eye, too, and I end up being a lot more timid in three-dimensional things than in intellectual ones. FWIW, I ended up learning to ride a bike when I was 12. Driving *still* feels terrifying to me, even six and a half years after I got my license.

If you end up deciding to explore the sensory integration possibility, check out Catherine Whiting, on Bainbridge Island (catherinewhiting.com). She's been very helpful to my daughter and to several other kids we know.

[jenk]

Just have to say I love your icon.

[shunra.livejournal.com]

I wonder if the Metro-riding training needs to be much, much, much longer - and with a peer (or peer-like person) rather than a parent. Some kids just kind of check out when they are not actively on-the-spot.

FWIW, using her phone was a pretty good strategy (although using it passive-aggressively, to make you look bad to the co-parent... ...not so good.) One kind of has to sigh and add that to the list of things one does: "if you slept here, we're in charge - call US for rescue FIRST." (We had to phrase it that way once.)

Is there any way the school district could help out with the use-the-bus skill? Even by putting a high-school "big sister" on the project (which could work for community involvement credit for the high schooler)?

And kudos to Omaha for doing the Metro-training with Y-C. That's important, and your family is the SECOND one I've heard of that does it - mine was the first. All the other parents I know seem to be able and willing to ferry their kids around to all of their activities (except the ones they can walk to), by car, and continue to do so until the kids have their own licenses. Doing it all by car seems like bad parenting, maximizing the hassle factor and leaving the kids dependent far too long; it almost forces them to be passive. And that passivity steps up and bites them in the face, just as you described above.

In short, you & Omaha are in my golden-roster-of-child-raisers.

Third! :)

[rand0m1.livejournal.com]

Actually, my Mom got me started riding the bus to school when I was in second grade. Granted we lived in a mid sized town (100,000) in the midwest, but she did exactly like Omaha....rode it with me the first few times and then left me on my own from there.

Re: Third! :)

[shunra.livejournal.com]

I'm glad there are still some good parents around.

I got the All Parents Stare Of Disapproval when my daughter was 8 and wanted to walk the seven blocks home. Apparently, that was NOT OK. (Seven blocks? Are you kidding me? HALF A MILE???) but the theory was that kids should not cross streets if they're under ten years old.

In a *tiny* town (population 8500 or so).

I have no words.

Re: Third! :)

[elfs.livejournal.com]

But you have allies (http://freerangekids.wordpress.com/)

[jenk]

Heh.

I taught myself how to use Metro when I was 14, largely out of desire-to-go-to-the-mall...

[omahas.livejournal.com]

Those are some excellent suggestions. I spoke to her today about if she understood the difference between "we're not upset because you called your mom, we're upset because you didn't call us." She didn't, so I explained it to her. I think she understands better that it's not her calling her mother, generically, that is the problem, but the "the parent who has physical custody is the one who you call first." Hopefully, that will work better.

I couldn't possibly have let her go on the bus without basically training her first...I know that she's taken the bus with me many times, but that just isn't enough to just say, "Okay, kid, here's the schedule, here's some money...go for it." And knowing that she has big problems about situations where the schedule is not in black and white before her, I needed her to really know what she was doing.

And thanks for the compliment. :)

[edichka2.livejournal.com]

All kinda strange to me. I was riding buses all over San Francisco and the surrounding area when I was maybe eight, sometimes after dark. I don't remember Mom or anyone walking me through it, though perhaps she did.

Of course, I don't take my eye off my five-year-old for more than a second now that the shoe's on the other foot....

- E

[(Anonymous)]

Re: asking the driver to inform you

As someone with a visual impairment I can say my experiences and those of the visually impaired person who gave me training in mobility are that bus drivers fairly consistently don't remember.

I did hear of a device being tested that will alert you of which stop you're at, but I never heard anything more about it sadly. This would probably be so useful for both visually impaired and non visually impaired, just set it to the right stop and let it buzz you when you're there or something.

[bldrnrpdx.livejournal.com]

In Portland at least, many of the bus drivers will call out major stops routinely, and will call out in-between stops if you ask (some do the minor stops routinely too). They now *have* to do it if you request it - I don't know if ADA requires it, but our bus company tries very hard to be as accessible as possible for everyone. Calling out the stops helps not just for visual issues, but folks who can't read too, and for the folks in the back of the bus who can't see the street signs in time.

The bus company has also started using recorded messages that are apparently tripped by some sort of electronic signal as the bus approaches a major stop, and will call out that stop on approach. Some buses even have a reader board at the front of the bus, over the aisleway, that prints the name of the upcoming major stops.

Portland transpo rocks.

[lisakit.livejournal.com]

You're such an airhead. ;p

Thanks for feeding me. Didn't realize how hungry I was.

[marketeer]

Do you think she called her mother because she was reluctant to disappoint you? I can see myself thinking that way when I was her age.

My husband has left the car at the subway parking lot and taken the bus home numerous times.