BRAVE - Embracing Your Inner Mother Bear

©2012, All pictures are the property of Disney/Pixar

We had anticipated its release for months, watched and re-watched the Brave trailers and teasers, planned what our excursion to see it in theaters would be like. Then we found out that, my husband was going to have to be out of town for the memorial service of his beloved uncle when the movie was released. We, ourselves, would have to be brave. We would wait for him to get home to see it.  Then his wonderful aunt stepped in with a solution. 

She sent tickets for us to go see the movie here while she and Mark would see it there and then we would Skype about how absolutely wonderful it was.  It was perfect.  Perfect, except that by the time we sat down in the theater I had been single parenting it for nearly a week. Yeah, I have a couple adult children but I will remind you that all of them have ADHD so they really aren't always 20 and 18 years old - they're on occasion, most occasions, more like 17 and 15 years old.

That day we had endured the accomplishment of chores (used the movie as a motivator), scorching Central Valley heat with no air conditioner, a trip with seven kids into the store to get movie treats (that's right I took seven indecisive kids into the store for treats). Not to mention trying to get from the entrance of the theater past all the distracting movie posters, video games, shiny lights, and survey-takers to make it to our screening. I had mediated arguments, consoled candy woes, redirected and redirected and redirected again, reminded pretty much everyone what socially acceptable behavior was repeatedly.

Finally, the screen darkened, the movie played, and I watched as the beautiful faces sitting down the row from me lit up with excitement and wonder. I took a breath, a deep one, I made it, and it all looked promising. Then I watched the movie... Wait a minute! This was my house on the screen if you multiply the fiery redhead a couple times and add another brother or two. Even the kids kept nudging me and whispering, "It's US!"  And the mom, the one constantly trying to keep order, teach social etiquette, and help her daughter grow into the wonderful powerful leader she knows she is going to be...me.

Suddenly, I wasn't so sure I wanted to be in the theater anymore. It wasn't the magical escape from reality I was expecting...it was my life!  And then the mother got turned into a bear. Really!? I smiled and nodded through Skype. Later, I would confide to my husband that the jury was still out on this movie for me. I would somewhat tearfully tell him that I was ready for him to come home.

Since then I have thought a lot about it.  I am that mom, I am a mother bear when I need to be, and I am okay with that. 

As parents of kids with ADHD or ASD or SPD or LDs or some combination thereof (and more), we don't have the luxury of not engaging in mother bear parenting. Our kids are brilliant but it takes a mother bear to uncover that brilliance so the world can see what we see easily.

We mother bears research disorders setting aside pleasure reading for books like The Out of Sync Child has Fun, Attention Deficit Disorder: The Unfocused Mind in Children and Adults, and Overcoming Dyslexia. 

We mother bears tell social stories, teach our children how to recognize when they're getting overstimulated by using number and smiley/angry face scales, we teach self-advocacy, right the world when it's unfair and unbalanced (which is nearly every day). We console children who know they're different from their peers who recognize that they will never get an award for staying on task, keeping a clean desk, turning in all their homework on time. 

We mother bears fight back very real demons like self-doubt and inadequacy. Sometimes those demons creep in on the heals of well-meaning but misinformed adults who don't understand the harm their looks, words, and actions can do. We stand between our children and those who don't understand, no matter who they are, sometimes even family, to advocate and educate.


We mother bears are up all night with kids who fight insomnia, depression, anxiety. We are at the school helping mediate in the classroom, we are in the principles office, at 504/IEP meetings often feeling guilty and accused when really we are just trying to protect and help what's ours.

We mother bears laugh at the comedic brilliance, at silliness, and uniqueness. We see greatness in our child's perseverance, diligence, and endurance. We glory in every bit of progress we see and trust me, we see the most minute bits of progress as huge steps. We see potential when the world sees trouble.

You know, I would rather be a mother bear than anything else in the world.  In some respects, I am here to say bring it on! This mother bear is here to stay. Because at the end of the day, like at the end of the movie, I know my kids recognize how important it is for me to be their mother bear. How do I know? My daughter has set a date for us to go see Won't Back Down. She says we have to see it together, "Because it's about a mom that takes on the school for her daughter, just like you."

Stigma and Stereotypes: The Lessons We Teach Inadvertently

Yesterday was crazy, which I expected.  One of our sons has a strange protruding spot in his ribcage that we've been trying to figure out since February.  Nothing showed up on x-rays, nothing really by examination, but when our psychiatrist ordered a routine EKG our son's doctor thought she might have found the answer.  She thought his heart might be backwards.

You can imagine this totally tickled the ADHD minds in our house.  Especially my son who has named the protruding spot, his alien chest baby, 'Lil Elmo.  We were off to the Children's Hospital in our area where we would spend hours doing a new EKG, waiting, having exams, talking medical history, waiting, and eventually having a sonogram of his heart before getting an clear answer.

All that waiting meant lots of children's programing on every TV in every waiting room.  It made me long for the days of Between the Lions, Sesame Street, Dragon Tales and the other programing of my kid's youth.

In the end we were stuck watching a pseudo-interactive magical word fairy tell stories and teach sounds all with an underlying life skill lesson.  I was tired.  I was hungry.  I was cranky.  And when they started to tell the story of the magical porridge pot illustrating the importance of listening I became mother bearish about the implications.

I actually remember reading the story as a child. This was not the same story.  This was an absent minded, distracted girl whose father gifts her, for no apparent reason, with the magical pot.  Gives her instructions and leaves.  She, of course, floods the house because she was not paying attention, she did not listen, as she was supposed to and couldn't remember how to stop the pot from making porridge.  Listen was the word of the day.

The cranky, hungry mother bear in me saw this as a continuation of some dangerous stereotypes about inattention.  I suppose I saw in this little peasant girl as my oldest daughter.  We had no idea what ADHD was back when she was little.  Every teacher seemed to negate our concerns about ADHD by telling us that she was sweet and meant well.  She couldn't be ADHD because she wasn't disruptive; she was dreamy and creative.  If she could just try harder to pay attention, to listen, she would be fine.  She was the little peasant girl.

Stereotypes and stigma can be dangerous and this show seemed full of them.  First, that kids who don't pay attention do it intentionally.  They are irresponsible, ditzy, and therefore end up being destructive. Second, that if they wanted to, if they understood or respected the importance of the information, they would pay attention and listen. 

Neither of these are true.  The danger of portraying inattention (ADD/ADHD) in this manner is that those who suffer trying to maintain focus, pay attention and fail: not because of their intentions, their desires, or their intellect, will view themselves as broken because they can't remember simple instruction.  Our little peasant girl is 20 now and still fights her feelings of inadequacy and failure.  Equally as stigmatizing would be raising another generation that views others who struggle with the way their brains are wired as disrespectful, careless, and unintelligent.

Of course, maybe the father had it too.  Maybe he's in denial about his own ADD/ADHD.  There is, after all, a strong genetic link to ADHD/ADD.  Maybe this explains why he impulsively gave his young daughter a pot that could flood the house with porridge.  Or why he only gave her important operating instructions once and didn't have her reiterate the instructions or write them down for future reference, just left her alone with the pot.

My husband thinks so.  He was that way once.  Now he embraces his own ADHD and works hard to manage and harness it to his benefit.

Children's programming I feel as though you failed me.

I realize that my reaction came from a loaded place.  I even recognized then that I was overly angry. Nonetheless, I was happy to leave the magical word fairy behind and get back to the business of the day.

It wasn't long before the cardiologist came back and announced that Hunter was totally normal.

Totally normal?  He missed the part seconds earlier where he was wishing he was a shape shifter so he could turn himself into a Muppet. Where he was demonstrating by trying to throw his head all the way backwards, mouth wide open, dancing like a Muppet. 

And the part as we were walking out where Hunter was disappointed that he couldn't tell people his heart was backwards - after all that would've been pretty cool.