Tag: family

Friday Night Lights

Friday nights these days are all about high school football games and time spent together as a family.  Is this what other families do?  Or, do they just make sure their high schoolers get a ride to the game?  I ask because my high schooler has Autism and we need to define what “normal” is for our family.

I’m not sure that my son cares about attending these events.  But we are going anyway.  Why?  This is an opportunity for integration.  It’s just not happening during regular school hours.  It’s a chance for him to observe his peers and be part of the high school dynamic.  And it’s a chance for all of his fellow students to see him being part of their community.  Besides, he appears to be having fun while we’re there.

It’s also been a chance for me to connect with this community.  I happen to have a co-worker who has a son on the team.  I’ve been amazed at how important this one connection has been.  At our first game, he introduced me to a parent who also has a child with special needs at the school who has offered to answer any questions I may have and help me navigate the world of special education at this high school if I need it.

My friend and co-worker also introduced my son to a bunch of students who are very involved in student government and peer mentoring.  One of the kids we met happened to already be a peer mentor in one of my son’s classes. This may not turn into anything, but it could turn into something.  A familiar face in the hallway would be nice.  A friendly person saying hello to my son at school might make his day.  Maybe someone will even sit with him during lunch.  None of this may happen but at least we’re trying to create an environment where it could happen.

After all, that’s all we can do.

For those of you who have kids on the spectrum, this is part of our social skills plan this year.  In middle school, our son participated in sports.  With the transition to high school, now we’re dealing with cut sports and a kid who doesn’t want to do Cross Country.  So attending the football games needed to be part of our plan.  We’ve got all of the games in the calendar.  Dad is taking our son on his weekends.  I’m taking him on mine.  We may have one of our ABA therapist take him once so our son has a chance to be there without his parents.  This year, we’ll attend.  Next year, who knows?  Maybe he’ll want to sit in the student section.  Fingers crossed.

To Do: Take Care of Yourself

Ever find yourself overwhelmed, tired, barely keeping up?  For myself, it’s easy to just brush it off and blame it on the facts of life that are part of being a working parent.  But it’s important to look a little deeper and make sure it isn’t something else.

About 6 weeks ago, I finally recognized that the way I was feeling just couldn’t be the new normal.  I’m terrible about going to see my doctor.  Why?  Heaven forbid I allow myself to take time away from work.  (I do this to myself.  This has nothing to do with where I work or who my manager is.)  My doctor recently opened a clinic that is open until 10pm so one day after work, I went in.

Well, something was wrong.  Nothing big.  Nothing life threatening but something was definitely wrong.  My issue was causing me to be extremely anemic.  And when you’re anemic, you’re tired.  VERY tired.  The kind of tired that makes it incredibly hard to get up in the morning, give your kids the attention they need and be a star at work.

The root cause of my anemia has been addressed and I’m on a 3 month iron regimen that will eventually get my system back to normal.  As my energy is starting to return, I’m feeling more equipped to give my family what they need, perform at work and enjoy the ride!

So for all those busy parents out there who may be feeling “off”, when was the last time you had a check up with your doctor?  It may be worth the trip.  As we are so busy taking care of our families, we need to remember to take care of ourselves, too.

The Most Important 20 Minutes of the Day

My son had a basketball game today for his middle school team.  He’s on the C team (which comes after the B team which comes after  the A team) so we’re not talking a glamorous, high profile game.  But when I walked into the door, saw his face light up and then proceeded to witness his game and his constant looking over at me, I knew the 20 minutes of play time he got today were the most important 20 minutes of my day.

For working parents, being able to attend these events is hard.  Looking around today, there weren’t that many parents at the game. I’m sure every parent who was NOT in attendance had very good reasons and it had ZERO reflection on how much they love their child.

My son has Autism so communication, verbal communication, is really hard.  He doesn’t like to have conversations.  He’s not capable of sharing his feelings verbally.  When I try to tell him how I feel about him, he doesn’t want to have that conversation either.  As I’m connecting with more and more parents of typical kids, I’ve learned that my teen with Autism isn’t so different than a typical teenage boy.  My ACTIONS need to be the way I tell him how much I care about him.  Today, I was able to tell him I love him by attending his game.  And he was able to tell me that he’s glad I’m his mom.

But making this 20 minutes happen took a lot of planning and preparation.  I’m hoping that sharing how I accomplished this helps another parent get the same 20 minutes I got today.

Block Your Calendar

When I got the basketball schedule, I added the games to my work calendar along with travel time.  This way, when others are trying to schedule time with me, they know that I’m busy during this time so they can find a better time that works for both of us.

Set Expectations

I’ve let my manager and my team know that attending these games is important to me.  I try to structure my work so it’s about what I’m delivering each week rather than how much time I spend at the office.  This helps.  I set goals based on a full workload for the week and then juggle the time as necessary to meet all of my commitments for both work and home.

Carve Out Time

Even when you block your calendar and set expectations, it’s still hard to find the time to do it all.  Sometimes I get up early so I can start on my work day earlier.  Commute time takes up at least 45 minutes each way.  Today, I worked from home and got 90 minutes back.  I got my full workday in AND made it to the game.  I also reduced travel time by staying closer to home for the day.

It Goes Both Ways

Often, spending time at a school event in the afternoon means I need to focus on work in the evening–and miss that time with my family.  I try to use this to teach my kids about trade offs and balance.  I want them to be hard workers when they have jobs.  I want them to see that when I leave work early, that time needs to be made up somewhere.  It’s a good lesson to teach them.

Let’s face it, we’re all very busy.  It’s easy for the pressures of work, meetings, deadlines and commuting to cause us to miss opportunities to really connect with our kids.  But with a little planning and preparation, we’ve got a better chance of catching some of the precious moments before we lose track of where all our time went and our kids grow up faster than we could have ever imagined.

Bring All of Your Calendars into One Place

Do you find yourself having too many calendars?  There’s your work calendar, your family calendar, and maybe even a personal calendar.  Even if you’ve got all of these calendars in electronic form, you can still find yourself in a situation where you need to check in multiple places to make sure you’re free.  And with multiple places to look, mistakes are bound to happen.

It’s pretty easy to bring all of your calendars together on any mobile phone, but it’s hard to see and plan from such a small screen.  Depending on how strict your workplace is, it may be harder to bring all of your calendars together at work.  I just started a job at a company that takes security around personal laptops very seriously.  I can’t install any old app or plug in onto my computer.  When it came to my calendar, this was leaving me very frustrated because I wasn’t allowed to add my personal account to Outlook.  If you’re in the same boat, here’s how you can easily get around this problem.

I’ve got a family calendar in Cozi.  And a personal calendar in Hotmail (Outlook.com). In my case, as I was trying to coordinate my work schedule against something as simple as attending my son’s basketball game or making sure I left work on time for an evening school meeting, I had to check my work calendar, Cozi.com and Outlook.com.  That was just too much for my brain to keep track of in 3 different views.

We’re using Outlook at work.  We happen to be using the 2010 version but what I’m about to describe also works in 2013 or Office 365. From most calendar programs, Google, Outlook.com, Cozi, you can share your calendar as a calendar “feed” or as a link.  This generates a URL that you can use to access this “calendar feed”.

From inside Outlook, under the home tab, choose “Open Calendar”, then choose “From Internet”.

Outlook Open From Internet
Outlook Import Calendar Feed Menu

After this, you’ll get a dialog box that lets you copy the URL you got from your other calendar program.  Once you paste that in, that calendar will be added to your calendar list.  In my case, I’ve got my personal calendar that I named “Doreen Hotmail” and my family calendar from Cozi.

Outlook Calendar List
Outlook Calendar List including Hotmail Calendar

Now, you can see all of your calendars overlay-ed with one another.  This helps you keep from double-booking yourself and helps you more easily manage family commitments against your work commitments.  The best part is that you can keep your work calendar as the “active” calendar and the other calendars really appear to be sitting in the background, not distracting you but helping you avoid creating conflicts across work and home.

Outlook Multiple Calendar View
Multiple Calendars Overlay-ed in Outlook 2010

Note:  I’ve shaded out the names of my kids and co-workers to protect their privacy