the family that slays together…

Tags

dnd, dungeons and dragons, games, rpg

Just over a year ago (the end of 2018 over the kids’ Winter Break), Scott (AKA: The Hubby) and I busted out one of the moldering skills of our misspent nerdy youth (before it was cool man!) and transformed our family into a costume-wearing, accent-wielding, foam weapon toting band of comedic adventurers of Faerûn.

Sharkbait takes his turn designing a one-off mini-campaign

Phee updates her notes

Multitasking…

Talking our way through bailing out an informant and fighting a notorious pirate lord

Today, we parent an adolescent half-elf druid and a pre-teen dragonborn barbarian. …Except when we parent a moon elf bard and a grung pirate.   It gives the hubby and I no choice but to make household chores “taking the trash out from the keep to avoid the plague” or “dishwashing at the inn because you ran out of gold.”  We watch shows like Critical Role like other families watch football and the kids watch YouTube animators like Puffin Forest and Dingo Doodles like the Saturday morning cartoons of my back-in-the-day.

More props (the fancy, more pricey kind)

Improvised scenery

Sharkbait’s battle map…

Props

Making up our own items for quest rewards

In our adventures, we have taken out a thieves guild, rescued small children from a troll, saved a village’s hunters from a roving band of evil goblins, and more.  But more practically, playing Dungeons and Dragons (we play 5th edition) was a bit of a no-brainer as a family activity:

1. Players work together for a common goal with individual motivations and have to resolve conflict collaboratively, or they all potentially pay the price.
2. The game is heavily steeped in imagination and creativity as skills that are frequently overlooked in other games in both character development and during the progression of the game itself.
3. There’s a huge opportunity for customization and creativity outside of the game that gets them doing stuff they’d normally bypass as “not fun,” from painting tediously tiny minifigures, learning to sew making costumes, writing backstories and reading big fat books (in the immortal words of Sharkbait: “Who knew instruction manuals could be this fun, mom?!?”).
4. Playing and planning games teaches them strategic thinking, cause-and-effect, organization and planning (both in-game and out), conflict resolution, “public” speaking, storytelling, improvisation, and more;  and
5. It’s a fun way to spend time together creating valued memories.

…As a parent, I value anything that gets my kids to read more, draw more, find ways to entertain themselves without having to hear the words “I’m bored,” and to enjoy spending time together.  As the parent of a kid with ADHD, I value anything that helps teach him to appreciate the value of the tasks he often finds difficult (and therefore tedious) and encourages him to develop the social skills that he so often finds challenging.  As a mom, whose creative outlets often feel stymied by adulting and parenting, I appreciate that I have the opportunity to engage in the former without feeling like I’m shirking the latter…also, I flirt with the hubby’s character, and there’s some good that comes from that as well when the kids aren’t around.

Lorelia, half-elf druid

Phee’s drawing of Lorelia

And…don’t just take my word for it…if it’s not something you’ve thought about or considered before… Anecdotal information and some preliminary studies suggest that kids that play RPG games like D&D do better in school, even when they have struggled in school and discuss the mechanisms by which such games may do so.  It’s being used as a form of therapy,  for teaching social skills to kids like mine, etc.

Don’t get me wrong, there are challenges to playing with kids vs. playing with other adults, especially when it comes to adapting to playing with kids for the first time, running an entire campaign of just kids (The Hubby and I hosted a campaign for our kids and their friends–6 to 8 preteens most sessions–until we moved to Germany over the summer), and in running a campaign with multiple kids with ADHD or other challenges (luckily there’s advice for that).  There are simplified character sheets for kids, official books geared towards teaching kids the game (I’ve not gotten these because my kids love the official manuals, but I can see how they might be great for kids with reading challenges), and even choose-your-own-adventure style books.

And the best part about playing Dungeons and Dragons today, compared to 20-30 years ago, is that it’s more accessible and cooler than its ever been!

But (to quote another childhood favorite who has made a comeback), don’t just take my word on it!

A Primer for Awe (Part II)

Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.

― John Muir, A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf

When last we approached this topic (in response to blog posts last summer by John Halstead and Allison Leigh Lilly) I left off with the idea that we can influence how our children experience nature…and its true!  We can totally influence how our children experience nature.  But first we need to understand how children instinctively understand nature.

Before we “civilize” them, kids grok e e cummings’s idea that “the world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful” and that they are part of that puddle stomping, mud pie making wonderful lusciousness of the world.  Before we teach them to not get dirty and not pick stuff off the ground because (gasp!) it has germs, all you need to do to teach most children to find awe in nature is to take them outside and let them do their own thing.

Hmmm…

Teach is not the right word.  It has been my observation (as a former kid, a big sister of brothers 18 years my junior, a former frequent babysitter of neighborhood kids, a summer camp counselor, and among other things, now a mom) that kids will find awe in nature in direct proportionality to how often they are outside, how little you direct them to “do this” or “do that”, and how dirty they are allowed to get.  Parents (or teachers for that matter) don’t teach their children to love nautre so much as they facilitate the encounter and let the magic happen.

The key to is to go somewhere where there isn’t a built in playground (don’t get me wrong, playgrounds are fun, but they are also an implicit directive to go there to play rather than in the field or the woods–unless, maybe your playground looks like this).  Look for places with plenty of plants or other things that are at their level (the beach is good, a creek is good, a trail with lots of things to turn over and look at is good…a big empty freshly mowed field is probably not so good unless you bring along a kite or a telescope at night or something).  Trust me, they will figure it out…but, if they are having some trouble, give them a few hints to look around, “I wonder what lives under than dead log?” or “Look at that spider web!  Where do you think the spider is right now?”  or “You know, so-and-so used to find arrow heads out here when I was a kid.”

The tricky part comes after they’ve grown out of that innately curious and fascinated with nature age (it varies, but in my experience, it seems to occur somewhere around 8-10).  Some children that are exposed early will “grow out of it” anyway and some kids that haven’t been given the opportunity to grow into it will find it on their own (I’ve observed that these are often kids that read–they may not have been given leave to find awe in nature itself, but they’ve developed a healthy foundation for it from books…but for the most part, its been my observation a kid that doesn’t experience nature before then has a harder chance of learning to appreciate it later.  You and the Great Outdoors have now come into competition with Xbox, the internet, and Nickelodeon–why go outside when soda, AC, and Mortal Combat are all in your room (or at least your house)?

One thing hasn’t changed though, for most kids, they need action, they need activity, and (after pointing them in the right direction) they need you to stop hovering and nagging (even a bookworm like myself as a kid wanted this–mostly I wanted to try out the stuff I had read about).  So, for older kids, get them them gadgets, get them boxes or jars, etc to bring stuff home to (normally I don’t advocate taking stuff with you–leave no trace and all that (and there are some legal concerns), but in this case, most kids like collections, and…really, there would be no Audobon, Muir, or National Park system without it) and send them forth in the neighborhood or park or yard.  Particularly in this era of over-programming our children, and  especially since you can’t count on schools to get them outside (not really the school’s fault…they often just don’t have the time or the resources), getting them outside is of vital importance (I’ve talked about the reasons why on here before).

Okay…now that I’ve stood on my soap-box, lets get down to the nitty gritty!   If we are honest, we parents, sitting on our duff and waiting on our kids to figure it out on their own is hard.  But never fear, there are five things we can do that are minimally invasive:

• Consider some  low-tech gadgets to enhance observations of the very far and the very small–binoculars, telescope, magnifying glass, microscope, etc.  Learning to use these together, before going out in the field, is a great indoor rainy/cold day activity.
• Field Journal and/or Sketchbook (and appropriate paint, pens, etc) to record what one finds.  This might be something to cart around, some kids like the idea of recording things when they see them, or they are into art.  If they aren’t, let them bring stuff home and preserve it appropriately–consider making a herbarium, or insect collection.
• Make or find tools for collecting and preserving specimen–plant press, geology kit, butterfly net, underwater viewer, etc.  Perhaps (or perhaps not) surprisingly, a really good source of what tools are useful (and the environments in which they are useful) and how to make them are old natural history books* (this is one is a particular favorite of mine).
• Field guide, field guide, field guide!!–Using a field guide effectively takes a while to develop as a skill, learn together.  If your kids are young (or even if they aren’t) consider these folding guides, which stick to the most common species in a region. They are small and they are laminated–I have this one, for shells, and to be quite honest, we  have yet to find a shell that wasn’t on the darn thing, and the kids find it quite easy to use!
• Hold down the snack, water, and sunscreen fort–hey, maintaining home base is an important task!  Were would all those Everest explorers be without the people that kept the base camp waiting?  Pop a tent up in the back yard, or even at the park (seriously, if you aren’t actually camping overnight, where’s the harm?) for shade or wind protection, give the kids a map and compass (pre-stage a snack or prize and mark it on the map), keep the score for a scavenger hunt, etc.

Whatever you decide to do (because there are also some pretty awesome structured activities available out there for teaching kids stuff about nature–I’m not knocking them, I just think they are more effective after kids have been rewild-ed…perhaps that should be a part 3), just remember that its mostly about taking them outside, and letting them meet nature on their own terms.

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*Lots of these sorts of books are available online, for free, on Google.  Additionally, there are a few sort of “survey” books of the history of Natural History as a phenomenon during the Victorian era (this one is pretty good).  For the homeschoolers in the crowd (particularly for an older kiddo), a study of Natural History as the for-runner to the modern fields of geology, botany, and zoology (biology) and as the catalyst for shift of science being an amateur pursuit to a professional field, might be right up the alley of kids interested in both science and history.  Also…the study of natural history was a pursuit considered acceptable for women of that time period, and a number of women contributed quite famously to the field (in acceptable, conventional ways as well as less conventional and more risque ones).

Something else is shiny!

Tags

ADHD kids, parenting children with ADHD

More random thoughts and ideas (based on my own experiences) about parenting a kid with ADHD… *

(None of this is meant to be judgemental or preachy…its stuff that works for us that I am sharing for anyone that might not have thought to give it a go.  Not everything works for everyone, and everyone’s experiences are different!)

Finding a group–Parenting a kid with ADHD is stressful.  They can be like 5 kids in one body…sometimes 10. Sharkbait has so much energy sometimes its painful to watch.  ADHD is stressful on you, on your relationship with your spouse (particularly since there’s a good chance one of you have ADHD as well–in our family, its The Hubby).  It takes its toll on your job (I’m at the point where I cringe if I see school on the line, because its almost always either Sharkbait in trouble or Sharkbait hurt), on your relationship with your other children (ADHD kids take away a lot of the attention from your non-ADHD kids, even if you know its a probability and go out of your way to minimize it)…on every aspect of your life.  Going out to dinner?  HA!

One thing to consider if finding a group of people like you. Look for a CHADD group near you or see if there are ADHD play therapy groups (we have one here, its run by a speech/occupational/physical therapy clinic that has therapists teaching social skills though play for kids with ADHD, autism, or other disorders).  I can’t ever make the CHADD meeting here (we have something else going on those days), but they post lots of useful articles and advertise when people are hosting classes and talks about different ADHD topics.   Bottom line, its okay to need an outlet, its okay to need a break, and its okay to want to have some of those with other parents that understand.

After-school meltdowns:  Often when kids with ADHD come home from school…they go a little overboard. Perhaps they throw some tantrums, or maybe they become a ping pong ball bounding and bounding about, or maybe its something else.  Sharkbait runs around like a chicken with his head cut off unless we let him play a computer game (or a game on the Kindle) or go outside (and we grown-ups all know that going outside isn’t always practical as soon as we get home from work).  This is common, and nothing to fret about.

After working so hard to be good at school, when they come home, sometimes they can’t help it.  If they are on medication, it might wearing off, which can exacerbate the problem (if you think this is what is going on, and particularly if your child has after-school activities, you might mention it to your doctor)).  Either way, try to consider it a compliment.  When I was mentioned it to our doctor she said this:  “Hey, it means he feels comfortable enough at home to let go  Even more importantly, it shows that he knows that you love him even when he’s a little bit wild.”

Toy soldier tea time
(what the kids are doing while I edit this)

Outdoor reboot:  I try not to get preachy about how someone else should parent (because I surely despise it when people do it to me), but for the love of whatever you consider holy, PLEASE take your children (ADHD or not, but especially ADHD kids) outside to play. Baring medical conditions that make them unable to enjoy the outdoors, take them to the park, take them running on a nature trail, let them dig in the dirt, take them to play in the surf, teach them to fly a kite.  Let them get dirty, and let nature be a full sensory experience.   But please, just take your kid outside.  Take them often.  Better yet (depending on their age and your surroundings) let them go alone…

Give them unstructured, minimally supervised, free play time in an area of greenspace.**  If you haven’t already, pick up a copy of Richard Louv’s Last Child in the Woods.  In several studies of children with ADHD, time spend outdoors equals milder symptoms (here’s info on one).  Heck, take them outside even if its *not* to play–if your child has problems concentrating on homework or reading while indoors, try letting them do it on a blanket in the back yard or at a picnic table at the park!

Looking at therapies that compliment the areas where your child has trouble.  Sharkbait now goes to speech therapy–he’s “normal” in terms of speech and has a great vocabulary, but he’s in the lower range of normal because his pragmatic speech skills are lacking.  His therapist is working with him on that, and its helped allay some of his frustrations in expressing himself.  If your child has problems with reading, you might consider tutoring…if he/she has trouble with handwriting, maybe see about an occupational therapist for a short time…there are lots of options out there that can help with developing specific tasks or skills.  Don’t think you can’t ask for help!

(I realize this is expensive for many families–the only reason we can afford this now is because we have much better insurance and I now have a career…just two years ago when our insurance wasn’t as good, it wasn’t covered and even if it had been, we couldn’t have afforded a $30 co-pay every week for him to go)

Behavioral Therapy:  Studies show that the most successful treatment of ADHD involves medication (to make ADHD symptoms manageable) AND behavioral therapy (to teach strategies and skills to kids with ADHD so that they can manage tasks that the rest of us find relatively easy).  The problem with this is that medication is easy to get for your child…and behavioral therapy is much less so.  I live in a fairly well populated area (1.7 million in our metro-area, which is the 37th most populated in the US), and even here, we only have about a dozen behavioral therapists that deal with pediatric ADHD, and only three of them deal with kids under 6.  Out of those three, one is not at all receptive to having a Pagan family as clients.  Oh, but this time insurance won’t pay for it (although, it *can* later on, depending on how the request is worded).

So…the problem is that half of the most successful treatment for our family is hard to come by and hard to pay for.  Needless to say, we haven’t started behavioral therapy yet…though, there are some books that talk about different strategies which are pretty good (on my short list): The Explosive Child, Cognitive Behavioral Training: A How-To Guide for Successful Behavior, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy with ADHD Children: Child, Family, and School Interventions, Think Good – Feel Good: A Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Workbook for Children and Young People, and The ADHD Workbook for Kids: Helping Children Gain Self-Confidence, Social Skills, and Self-Control.  (If any readers have further recommendations, feel free to offer them up!)

SLEEP! Sometimes kids with sleep disorders are misdiagnosed as having ADHD…but more often, kids with ADHD have sleep problems because of their ADHD.  If you are concerned that your child has a sleep disorder, you might want to see about having a sleep study done.  But when child has ADHD and has sleep problems, well…bedtime can totally suck. Sharkbait has sleep problems, and those sleep problems exacerbate his ADHD symptoms hugely. As a result, we have to be try to be pretty strict when it comes to sleep hygiene.  Bed time is consistent, and bedtime routine is consistent.  An hour before bedtime, electronics are turned off and lights are turned off and/or down, etc.  And yet, the best laid plans often go awry.  Oh, so very often, Sharkbait ends up in bed with us. Or gets up at 3 am.  Or doesn’t actually fall asleep until 11 (this happens less often now, thanks to medication–we take clonadine because melatonin cause wake-up headaches).

And, parents need to sleep too…  If your ADHD child isn’t sleeping well, chances are you aren’t either (particularly if you also have ADHD).

Some other random stuff that works for us:

• When kids are yelling, don’t yell back!  Whisper.  Seriously, try it! It has been my experience that most kids will almost always immediately match your tone of voice.  If they don’t right away, continue whispering in response, they figure it out pretty quickly.  Little kids are more likely to follow along and enjoy it, but even my middle school brother will roll his eyes and modulate his voice.
• Maintain a Unified Front–Whatever you do, do it as a team and have each other’s back. Even if you don’t agree, discuss it later.  You both need to send a consistent message, together.
• Give your kid a back massage!  I’ve been meaning to do a post on child and infant massage forever (like since I started this blog a couple years ago) and I still haven’t gotten around to it!
• 1, 2, 3 Magic.  Its a book I loathe (the tone comes off as really condescending to me), but the system works (minus the idea of a token system–at the age of my kid, its immediate rewards or bust).
• Meditate together.  I’m working on a post right now on teaching kids to meditate–the expectations and methodology (particularly for ADHD kids) is NOT the same as with adults.  This means that you, the parent will need greater flexibility in practice (if you already have one), you may have to adjust your own methods and expectations of meditation when meditation with your kids quite a bit.
• Find them an active hobby–take them running or biking or swimming, a kids yoga class, soccer or another sport, karate, music lessons.

*A continuance from this post…I figured a 3000 word post was a bit tl;dr!  TBH, I could keep going…but for now, I’m taking a break–I have a tiny pot of tea calling my name.