Art by Asaiah Ajibabi

BY PIAZADORA FOOTMAN

Most parents whose children enter foster care have to take parenting classes in order to get their children back. My opinion is that many parenting classes are unhelpful. I went to two parenting classes that didn’t help before I found a program that worked for me.

‘Keep Trying’

The ones that didn’t help me were the ones where the instructor read to us from a big parenting skills book or played old videos of moms trying to get their kids to listen or dealing with their kids having tantrums. Then the instructor would say, “Ok, what did you learn?” or just, “Hey, use the skills you saw today in this video.” Then they’d give us our Metrocards.

I sat in the class thinking that the strategies didn’t apply to my son. The book would say to put your kid in a time out if he acted out, but when I tried time out with my son, it only made him angrier. My son, Xavier, who was 5, would stomp and yell all the way to his time out. On top of that, he’d call his little sister to play with him or pass him a toy. He would even tell me he had to use the bathroom—just to get out of time out. We both ended up more frustrated.

When I told the instructor, “That doesn’t work for my son,” she just said, “Keep trying.” I felt defeated, like a failure. I was fighting so hard to get custody of my son, but in this parenting class, it seemed that I wasn’t doing a good job. I couldn’t even get Xavier to stay in time out for 5 minutes!

Fighting for My Son
 
At that time, I was in the middle of a custody battle. My son was living with my grandmother because I’d been arrested and then placed in a mental health facility for 18 months. I’d overcome my addiction and was managing my bipolar disorder and was fighting for my son. Because my grandmother said that Xavier had some behavior problems, she requested that the judge order a parenting class for me.

I also felt like I needed help as a parent. The biggest challenge I faced was getting my child to listen. I was frustrated because I wanted it to be that I spoke to my son once and he would listen, period, end of story. But Xavier was not listening the first or second time (or third time) I told him to do something.

I felt overwhelmed by our little battles because Xavier was coming home soon and we still didn’t have that mother-son respect level. I had to understand that that’s not quite how kids are.

A New Point of View

The court sent me to a different kind of parenting program—video training at a program in the Bronx called Chances for Children. Each week, they took video of me playing with my son and then the therapist discussed it with me. At first I felt like, “Ugh, I don’t want to be here. It’ll just be a repeat of the last two classes.” But it was different. With the video parenting, I got to see the problems between my son and me from a different point of view.

During our video sessions, Ms. Martha would have Xavier and me play on the carpet with different toys. In the middle of the session, she’d stop the tape to show me what she noticed. She said that it was good that I even wanted to play with my son, and that she could tell that we normally play with one another. She also noticed that when we were coloring, Xavier longed for my approval of his picture. Ms. Martha told me that that meant that Xavier cared about what I thought, which is a sign of a mother-child bond.

Ms. Martha also showed me how I was frustrating Xavier by moving too fast from toy to toy. I kept changing the toys because I was bored with them instead of waiting for him to finish. This would make Xavier upset. He would say, “Mommy, I’m not done” or try to get the same toy again.

I thought Xavier was too young to understand playing. I wanted to follow the instructions and teach him how to follow instructions so he could play with his toys how they were meant to be played with. I didn’t understand his way of playing. I didn’t realize that he was amazed even overwhelmed just by the colors and shapes of the game or toy and that it didn’t matter if he followed the instructions if he was enjoying himself.

Trying New Things

It was hard to watch the first day’s video. When I saw myself pressure my son into playing with a new toy because I was tired of playing with the old one, I felt like I was being a bully, not a mom. I felt like I wasn’t allowing him to be himself but instead wanted him to do only what I wanted.

But after that session, I felt amazed. Ms. Martha had already helped me to understand why my son got frustrated when we played together—he was unable to finish tasks that he started. Martha told me to give Xavier time to enjoy himself; it was OK if he stayed on tasks a little longer than I preferred.

At first, when I tried to follow Ms. Martha’s advice at home, it was a disaster. Xavier took so much time to play that he didn’t want to stop to eat or take a bath or do anything that he wasn’t ready to do! At our next session, I told Ms. Martha that I could not just simply let him play as long as he wanted. We had things to do besides play!

She told me about the egg timer approach. I would set the egg timer to go off 10 minutes before clean up or 10 minutes before I wanted Xavier to do a different task. The count down helped Xavier understand that his playtime was almost over.

When I tried the egg timer at home, it didn’t work immediately, but after a while Xavier and I got into a rhythm. It worked so well that, eventually, I just gave Xavier early warnings and we gave the egg timer a rest.

I Changed My Thinking

From our video parenting sessions, I learned that Xavier needed me to be more patient with him and to hear him out. I also felt like he began to understand that when I gave him warnings that it was time to stop playing, or to do a new task, he had to listen.

The biggest change was in my thinking. When my grandmother raised me, her attitude was that children ought to be seen and not heard. She acted like children should have no say so, no thoughts, no feelings and, point blank, no voice. When Xavier was young, I found myself inhabited by my grandmother’s ghost. I treated Xavier the same way.

The video parenting helped me realize that kids have their own minds and have real feelings too. Now that I’ve acknowledged that children are human just like me, I can talk with my children instead of demanding. I notice that my children want to be heard. I even hear them saying, “Mommy, please just listen…” They try to explain why they disagree with what I want them to do, and we can talk about it.

Little Voices, Big Ideas

Once I started listening to my children’s little voices, I heard big concerns from them. One time my son asked me, “Mommy, what time do we need to be at the doctor?” Instead of answering, I told him, “Don’t worry, Mommy will get us there on time.” He said, “Mommy, I just asked because I want to keep checking the cable box for the time so we won’t be late.” Wow, he’s 7 years old! I was amazed that he even cared what time we had to leave the house. He’s become more mature and curious than I’d realized.

When I first went to the video parenting, I just wanted to get Xavier to listen to me. From our experience, I learned that I needed to listen to him, too. We both need to communicate and come to understand one another.

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If you think video training could help your family, contact Chances for Children at (212) 799-3536. Learn more at: http://www.chancesforchildren-ny.org/