Parenthood: Week 437 – Risk & Why Our Children Should Wear Masks (even though they may not need to)

We were leaving the park a couple of days ago, and Ollie was biking towards the street. Unfortunately, he misjudged how the path curved downwards, picked up speed, and lost balance when his bike went off the curb. He was shaken up, and his hand hurt. Now, a couple of days later, he's fine.

Every Ollie goes on a bike, it's a risk, and sending him to school this week of school will also be a risk.

One of the features of parenthood is a risk. In almost every single thing a child does, there is a risk. A kid can choke during a meal, a toddler can run into a wall and bump their head, and a child can break their arm falling off of monkey bars. These are all possibilities that parents have to accept and process. Every time we put a child in a car and drive, we put them at risk. Every time we take them to the park, we put them at risk, and every time we drop them off at school, we are putting them at risk.

There are things we do as a society to mitigate these risks. There are car seats and safety features in cars explicitly designed for children. Car seat standards are so high that car seats expire.  After a couple of years, a car seat that has no sign of damage in any is not recommended for use. Parks have safety measures from padding around metal parts to softer flooring made out of rubber . Schools have all kinds of safety features included the architecture and well-trained faculty and staff. All of these things make the risk, the danger of sending out children out into the world, feel less perilous. The risk is never zero, but it's less, and that's enough.  Without taking chances, accepting risk, life is not worth living.

The fact that there is so much attention in these examples around children's safety validates parents' concern. For instance, we have these fears around our children's risks in cars, so we have all of these things in place to protect children in cars. This expresses to parents that their safety is a priority. It feels good as a parent knowing that people care enough about children in cars to have regulation, testing, and standards around car seats and cars themselves to help keep children safe.

There are risks with our children going back to school in person during this school year during a pandemic. To make parents feel better, we should doing as much as possible to keep our children safe.  We need caution and as an expression that we care about our children.

The reality is that research around mask-wearing benefits for students isn't very strong (here's one article that outlines this issue).  However, I AM pro-mask mandate in schools.

Just because the research isn't conclusive that mask-wearing is essential to in-person school doesn't mean that it doesn't help lower the risk of spread. In the absence of conclusive science, we should lean towards doing more than we need to instead of less.   Mask-wearing in school, while it has its drawbacks and negatively affects our children isn't that bad.  As an educator with seventeen years of experience, with a Master's degree, I know that mask-wearing is a reasonable mitigation for our children and the comfort of parents and families. As a parent, if sending my children to school with masks is what it takes for others to feel more comfortable sending their children to school, I am willing to do that.

I have not heard one reasonable argument against mandating mask-wearing in school this fall.  I've watched those videos of school board meetings and read some posts against mask-wearing, and it's a mess.  I don't think all of the scared parents arguing against mask mandates are bad people, but I do believe people who have turned this mask mandate issue into a political culture are deplorable.  People like desantis are putting people's lives at risk and they should have their platform immediately taken away from them.  Free speech doesn't apply to yelling fire in a crowded movie theater and it shouldn't apply to people putting people in danger by lying about COVID-19.   

I don't think mask-wearing policies are perfect. When he turns two-years-old, I don't think my youngest should have to wear a mask at school. I believe children shouldn't have to wear masks outside, and I think we should create tighter pods in school and have students wear masks less often in school. I also think that parents should be required unless they have a medical or religious exception to be vaccinated for their children to be sent to public school. 

We should be doing everything possible to so that children do not have to wear masks in schools, but we aren't so we got to put them on.

I'm not looking forward to starting another school year with my children having to masks, but I'm glad my children's school is being extra careful.  Asking them to wear masks is another expression of their love and care for my children, which will make that much easier for me to accept the risk of school, and walk away.

This King’s Speech – Part 7

The evaluation started with a conversation. This served two purposes. It gave the speech therapist an understanding of why I wanted to get an evaluation, and it also served as a speech sample.

I wasn’t nervous, but I felt very aware of my speech. There were times when I was purposely trying to speak clearer, mindful that two therapists were assessing me.  Other times I tried not to think about how I was talking so that the therapist could get an accurate sample of how I spoke. I told the therapist about this at a certain point, and they were understanding. Their affirmations helped me focus less on how I talked, and after a while, I was able to get into the groove of a conversation.

I told them about my name and how it was a struggle for me to say it clearly sometimes. One of the therapists asked me to say my name three times in a row and try not to think about it too much.

“I am Kingsley Tang. I am Kingsley Tang. I am Kingsley Tang.”

She looked at the other therapist and said, “I didn’t notice a difference, did you?” The other therapist shook her head “no” in reply.

In my head, each iteration felt different and not altogether clear. I didn’t ask them at the moment if there was an issue with how I said my name. I wanted to, but the therapists kept the conversation going.

After about fifteen minutes of me talking about my life, one therapist explained what she was thinking. Some of the normal speech assessments weren’t applicable here. A vocabulary test was pointless because I spoke with a good vocabulary.  Memory recall tests were not going to help because I could respond very quickly to their questions. In addition, they didn’t think me doing reading samples aloud would provide much insight because they were getting a good idea of how I spoke through our conversation.  So they wanted to chat a little bit more to hear me speak to complete their assessment.

One of the therapists asked me about my job. I talked to them about my school, and what I loved about being a teacher. They looked at me with great respect while I talked.  Which was nice, but their positive facial expressions felt awkward at times, so I broke eye contact.  I wasn’t in the mind space to receive positive feedback.

After I got to the end of my response, they asked if I would leave the room. Instead of having me leave and meeting and then setting up another appointment, the therapists felt like this would better use all of our time. So I left the office and sat in the waiting room.

Later, one of the therapists came out and invited me back into the office. She kindly explained,

I’m not sure if this will be helpful to hear, but neither of us hears any articulation issues in your speech. There is nothing you would benefit from working with us as a speech therapist. You are a powerful speaker. You have a great vocabulary, your ideas are well-articulated, and you are a dynamic in your speech.

She explained that both of them agreed with this assessment and had many years of professional experience that informed their assessment. They told how many people with speech issues work hard on certain sounds as children, and those strategies and negative feelings around those sounds often stick around long after a person masters those sounds.  Then it becomes an issue of affirmation, recording yourself saying those sounds so that you come to understand how you actually speak little by little, not how you remember yourself speaking as a child.  I learned how my difficulty in talking at the end of the day was not unusual, even for people without speech issues. It made sense for me since speaking takes so more me to do clearly than for other people.

I don’t remember anyone complimenting my speech as an adult. I remember my speech teacher as a child being kind and encouraging as I progressed, but the negativity I heard from peers and adults overshadowed those memories. 

I knew there was a possibility that my speech was typical, but I didn’t expect that my speech would be atypical in a positive way. The speech therapist was cautious not to make me feel like I was gaslighted. And in some, it would have been easier to hear that I had an issue saying “r” or that the way I told my name was intelligible, but it wasn’t.

They offered some strategies with words and sounds that I felt I didn’t say clearly. I could make a list, practice these words, record myself, and listen to get a true assessment of how I sounded. As we said goodbye, I felt admiration and respect for the two therapists.  They were kind, and I felt they truly wanted me to see my speech the way they heard me.  

I don’t feel proud of how I talk, but these two therapists gave me an important affirmation that set me on the path to accept and celebrate my speech.

I should feel proud of my speech. I went through years of speech therapy and figured out a way to correct many different sounds. Instead of growing timider in the face of negative comments from my peers and a negative self-image as a speaker, I pushed to become public speaker. As a result, I have brought meaning in a wedding toast, made hundreds of people laugh during delays in school concerts, and in a dedication of a piano affected a mother deeply as I spoke about how her son’s spirit would live on in our school through her gift. 

I am a great teacher, and one the reasons I am effective is because I am a great public speaker.

There are feelings about ourselves that we need to learn to accept and feel that we need to work to change. How I think about the way I talk needs work. I’m looking forward to making progress on this journey. I believe that the speech therapists are right.

I am a powerful speaker.

I don’t feel that in my heart, but I will.

Parenthood: Week 436 – Pandemic As A Feature Of Parenthood

Every year of my life as a parent, there have been new challenges. Some of these challenges were expected, and some were not. The expected difficulties, like minor childhood illnesses you can prepare for but are impossible to fully understand until you have a feverish child in your arms. And unexpected challenges are difficult in a different way because sometimes they are things you should have expected, and often there is nothing you can do to prepare for them.

I never expected that I would be living in a pandemic, let alone parenting during one. In March of 2020, when schools closed down there was no guidebook on how to parent during a pandemic. And as the weeks turned into months, we passed tragic milestones. Acceptance had to set in that the pandemic would no longer be an unexpected detour in the journey of parenthood but a feature for at least another year, with effects that will resonate for our entire lives and beyond.

Looking forward as a parent during the pandemic, I’ve been thinking about language. I have never made casual comments or jokes about COVID-19 throughout this entire pandemic. Hearing students make “corona” jokes towards Asian-American students in the weeks leading up to the shutdown was an important reminder that words matter. I’ve generally tried to be a matter of fact about adjustments in our life. “We are going to wear masks to keep ourselves safe and the people around us safe” felt sufficient to a 3-year-old. So there was no need to tell Ethan about the hundreds of thousands who have died of COVID-19 and the fact that people with power and privilege are deliberately spreading misinformation for misguided short-term goals to consolidate power.

None of our children understood why we were so emotional when we got our vaccines but they have a new interest in vaccines when they noticed that I am not wearing them as often. Ollie has had a lot of questions about how the vaccine will feel. We’ve talked about the negative of the pinch of the shot, and how the possible side effects outweigh the risks. He’s old enough to understand how something that can feel bad can have a positive impact.

Ethan, on the other hand, is a little bit more unclear about vaccines. He asked me recently if our house was big enough to fit his vaccine in it.  For Ethan, the pandemic is "normal" for him. He has no sense of how this has affected his daily life negatively because I’ve never explained it to him in this way. For Ethan and Lucas, so much of their understanding of this pandemic will come years later looking back.

As I think ahead to this school year, we’re not changing course. We will continue to be cautious within reason and do our best to make sure our children feel loved. People keep talking about waiting for the “new normal.” I’m done waiting. Right now, the way we are living and the choices we are making are the “new normal.” We’ve got to make our present the best it can be for our children during this challenging time.

This King’s Speech – Part 6

After about thirty years after my last session with a speech therapist, I found myself searching for a new one earlier this summer.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking for in the experience of meeting with a speech therapist. However, I did know that I wanted to do something about how I felt about my speech. I wondered if getting a professional opinion on my speech would help me better understand how I talked and how I could talk.

Maybe an evaluation would lead to speech therapy sessions that could give me more strategies to pronounce certain words more normally. Maybe I could improve the way I talked, and my perceived deficiencies would bring me less stress and anxiety. And maybe I would learn that there was nothing wrong with how I spoke and that this was all in my head. After spending my life uncomfortable with how I talked, this last possibility seemed unlikely.

There are a lot of speech therapists in my area, but very few who do adult therapy. So, as I looked through therapist websites, I chose one who had experience with children, adults, and English language learners. I liked how she wrote about her work on her website, so I gave her a call.

She didn’t answer, so I left a message. A week passed, so I left another message. I was ready to move on at this point, but I had a feeling that I needed to be patient. So I programmed her phone number as a contact in my phone to make sure I would recognize her when she called me back.

The following week she did.

I was hanging out with Lucas when she called, and I was excited to greet her. First, she apologized for not returning my call earlier. She had just returned from a trip and was catching up on things. Then, after introducing myself briefly, she explained that she didn’t have much time to talk and wanted to schedule a more extended phone call. I said that was fine. Then, she asked me to go a little deeper into why I wanted to meet with a speech therapist.

I told her about struggling to be understood as a child and having speech therapy. I explained how some sounds still feel challenging to say and that I substitute words to avoid saying words with “r” sounds. I talked about people mishearing my name when I introduce myself.  She asked me about my work, so I told her about my school and students.

I noticed that half an hour had passed, and I wondered about what she had said before about only having time for a brief phone call. After I came to the end of a thought, she told me that while she didn’t hear any speech issues over the phone, and she said I was very articulate.  However, there were possibly things she was missing and that she would be happy to meet with me. She explained that she wanted to do my evaluation with another speech therapist because my case was unique, and she felt that this would benefit me the most.

I told her this sounded good.

A couple of weeks later, I walked into her office, and after a brief chat, the evaluation began.

Parenthood: Week 435 – The Forager & Work

The other day I was reading a book to Ethan on the couch, and Lucas casually walked by eating a bagel. Wait, how did he get that?

Lucas is a forager.

Usually, after a meal, there will be some leftovers. We’ll usually make a plate of these leftovers and leave them on the table. So you might see a plate with a couple of crackers, half a bagel, and some carrots sitting out between meals. If a child gets hungry, they can stop by and grab a snack.

This keeps the requests for a snack down and is a good way to make sure we don’t waste food.

Lucas has discovered this and now is climbing up onto a chair and onto the kitchen table to grab food. This makes me worried because he is not 100% steady climbing that chair, and I want to discourage him from climbing on tables.

Lucas has other ways to forage for food. For example, he will go into the pantry, remove a cereal container almost as tall as him, and carry it around the house until we open it and give him some.

It’s cute and a little scary.

He hasn’t gotten into Buffy’s food…yet.

****

I’ve gotten into a good routine with Ollie. After lunch, we do some reading or writing work, I help him practice his violin, and then he has iPad time. It took some time to feel out how to work with him, but we are doing pretty well.

With all of this work, I want to keep it light and not over-teach him. Imperfect work at this point feels appropriate. Routine, practice and good focus are what is most important right now.

Ethan doesn’t want to miss out, so he will sit down and do “writing work,” mostly putting stickers in a workbook and coloring over letter outlines. He wants the routine of doing work, and he doesn’t want to be left out.

I have found that Lucas has a desire to do work as well. For example, we were playing with blocks, and I dumped them out, and as I was building, he would take one block and put it back in the box one by one. I initially thought he wanted to make something, but he was more interested in the work of cleaning up. Finally, after he had put them all away, he looked up at me and grunted. So I dumped the blocks out, and he eagerly began the process of putting them away again.

There is meaning in work, and even though children may resist it, they desire the practice and process of work.

Year 12 – Week -4: August Once Again

It didn't have to be this way.

Children all across America could be going back to school without needing to wear masks. Teachers don't have to be entering the school year struggling to figure out how to create a safe classroom, while reprehensible and irresponsible public officials prevent schools from mandating mask-wearing. We don't have to be starting the school year trying to process the deaths of over 616,000 Americans from the COVID-19 pandemic.

If every medically able American got the COVID-19 vaccine, the delta variant would not spread at the same rate. COVID-19 cases and deaths would be dramatically lower, and schools could open more confidently, likely without the need to wear masks. In some ways, wearing a mask is not a big deal. As an adult, putting a mask on to go to the grocery store takes minimal effort and is a minor inconvenience.

While many children don't find masks wearing that big of a deal, they are missing out on very important social cues and need to see the whole teacher's face to truly connect and learn. Many children, including my own, who has hearing loss need to use see lips to develop communication skills. It is a big deal to have our children have to start a school year again wearing masks.  Just to be clear, mask-wearing with in-person school is without question better than remote learning. I know this first hand.

Where we are right now is disappointing. It feels like during the summer of 2020, most Americans just put this school thing away in a box and tried to get back to "normal" as much as possible. Then August hit, and no one was ready for school. No one even knows what they had to do to get prepared. This summer feels the same. Every policy choice and public health decision since this pandemic started should have considered what was best for the children of America. It didn't feel that way last August, and it doesn't feel this way right now.

It is offensive to me that people who can get vaccines but chose not to are putting our children's health at risk and compromising the educational experience of America's children. And I don't understand the amorality of the people who peddle misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines and those who support them. It is frustrating that I have to take on an extra burden to take care of my students in an unnecessarily difficult situation because others failed to be decent human beings.

At the same time, I feel that I have the great privilege of serving children and their families in this difficult time. My job has meaning. It has a purpose. No, my job is not the most important thing in my life. My family is. This is the reason why it is so important that my time away from them has meaning.

I have really enjoyed my work during the summer at school. I've worked on schedules and gotten a chance to get to know some awesome new colleagues. I am excited to be part of a fantastic team, working so hard for our wonderful students, and sad that so many have let our children done so badly.

Parenthood: Week 434 - Downpour

I'm like the rain in a downpour. I wash away what you long for.

"I hope this is enough," I thought as I held Ethan close to me in darkness, lying on my bed. It had been a day full of tension and tears. I wanted to make things better with my son, but I didn't know how, so I just held as Brandi Carlile's voice gently rose and fell softly emanating from the phone on my pillow.

I'm like the wind in the canyon. I'm there when I'm gone in a second.

It started when Ethan refused to go to the bathroom and then told Diana that he didn't want to go on a bike ride with her. So she left and took my other two sons. Moments later, he realized that she was gone and he wanted to go with her. I reminded him of what he said, and then the tantrum began.

There was screaming, punching, and tears. He opened a drawer and threw its contents around the living room. After he calmed down a little bit, I explained that we needed to take Buffy for a walk. As we walked outside, he told me he wanted to go on the bike ride with mommy. I explained again that she was gone and we were going to take Buffy for a walk. The tantrum ramped up again.

I needed to prioritize Buffy. She had patiently waited for her walk all morning, so I picked up Ethan and, with some effort, got him strapped in. As we got moving, he twisted himself around in the stroller. He screamed at me, scratched me, and at one point tried to bite me. I stopped after about a block. I sat on the curb, and he continued to cry and scream at me.

You're growing older in peace where you're at. I wish I could be there for that.

Eventually, he calmed down a little bit, and we went home. We talked. I explained that he would not get dessert or screen time because of his actions. Ethan seemed to accept the consequences of his actions. While I still held the stress and the emotional exhaustion from his extended forty-five-minute tantrum, Ethan was acting like it never happened.

Later that evening, as the rest of the family settled in to watch some of the Olympics, I reminded Ethan that he had a tantrum earlier and couldn't watch with the family. He was upset as I carried him upstairs to our room. Even though his big tantrum had occurred hours ago, I was still feeling unsettled. You don't get over having your child try to hurt you. You just learn to get past it.

And I wave goodbye with the sun in my eyes. I wish I could be there tonight.

Ethan is always up for a cuddle, so I lifted him into my bed and turned on some music from my phone. As we lay together, I went through a couple of artists, trying to find the right song, and I settled on "Downpour" by Brandi Carlile and set it to repeat.

Maybe if we cuddle enough, it would somehow even out the anger Ethan felt towards me earlier in the day. Maybe if I held him long enough, it could help Ethan learn that he will get more in life from kindness than throwing a tantrum. And maybe if we were just quiet together and at peace, I could let go of the frustration I felt towards him and my feelings of inadequacy as a parent.

You're like the tide in the deep blue. Cause you're always there when I need you.

For almost an hour, I held Ethan. We talked a little bit during this time, but mostly we were silent as the music played.  I felt his eyes looking at me and his little fingers on my chest. Eventually, I felt his breathing slow down and his body relax into a deep sleep. For a moment, it felt like we were the only two people in the world, and I was at peace.

And when you need someone to carry you through, I'm gonna be there for you.