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Who Is the Adult Here?

1/29/2017

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A 2007 study published in the Journal of Family Psychology, a group of 18-25 year olds were asked which criteria they felt most indicated a person had achieved adulthood.  As reported in the book How to Raise an Adult (Lythcott-Haims, pg 78), “Their criteria were, in order  of importance: (1) accepting responsibility for the consequences of your actions, (2) establishing a relationship with parents as an equal adult, (3) being financially independent from parents, and (4) deciding on beliefs/values independently of parents/other influences.”   According to this same research, only 16% of the young adults surveyed felt that they had achieved adulthood….and their parents agreed!
 
HOLY COW!
 
The author, who served as dean of freshman and undergraduate advising at Stanford University, tells the story of a college freshman who lived in the dorms.  After he’d been on campus a few days the boxes he’d shipped from home, via UPS, arrived…and sat on the sidewalk outside his dorm for several days.   The boxes were big and heavy—a two person job—and he did not know how to get them to his third floor dorm room.    Thanks to a call from the boy’s mother, faculty member living in his dorm ended up arranging for assistance because the boy did not know how to ask for help .
 
“This is a parenting failure,” states Ms. Lythcott-Haims.   “Kids don’t acquire life skills by magic at the stroke of midnight on their eighteenth birthday.  Childhood is meant to the training ground.  Parents can assist—not by always being there to do it or to tell them how to do it via cell phone—but by getting out of the way and letting kids figure it out for themselves.”
 
The book is a fabulous and fascinating read, recommended by the doctor in charge of Utah State University’s medical center.    Across the country, colleges and universities are seeing a trend of increasingly incapable students, paralyzed by their inability to make decisions, plan actions and cope with failure, a paralysis caused primarily by over-involved parents who have consistently made their children’s decisions, plotted their courses of action, and shielded them from failure and/or the consequences of their actions.
 
Alarming (and accurate) as the book may be, I have also found it somewhat affirming.    The parents the author references are almost exclusively motivated by a desire to see their children succeed.    In their admirable desire they overzealously over-involve themselves and, in so doing, rob their children of the opportunity to develop the very life skills that are necessary for success.
 
I now have two young adult aged children.   When they were in my home, as youngsters, I too had a great desire to see them succeed.   What I did not have was much time or energy or money to dedicate to their success.   Even back then I was often old and tired; I just did not have the necessary energy to make things happen.   I did not force them to take piano lessons (I tried and failed); I did not successfully enroll them in Little League wrestling, baseball, or basketball; I did not help them develop their own business or participate in service project in far off countries (or even locally…); I did not pressure them to take AP classes or graduate early.    I never helped them with homework and rarely checked their grades online.
 
I did not direct them much at all.  I did not direct them because I did not have the energy or economics to do so.   I really did not make the decision not to direct; it was a matter of resources…..or lack thereof.    I just did not have the energy to engage.     And, at times (okay, often actually….), I felt guilty about it…very guilty.   I should have done more…..
 
Now, it seems, the decision I did not make was a wise course of action.    I have two children who know how to “get their boxes from the lawn to the third floor” so to speak.   
 
Amie asked me how much tuition is at USU.  “I don’t know,” I replied honestly.   I honestly do not know.   Chick is taking care of it.
 
During her first quarter at SUU, Tanah had some intense (VERY) issues with her landlord.  She ended up filing a police report, talking to the county’s prosecuting attorney, engaging a civil lawyer, selling her contract, and finding a new place to live, all while attending school full time and all by herself.
 
I still have moments of parenting guilt…..I should have more of some things and probably less of others…and there are certainly things I would change if I had a chance to re-do….but not as much.     In parenting, sometimes doing less is more.    

2 Comments

From A to SUU

1/22/2017

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From "A" .......
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...to "S"... (look imaginatively at the tree trunk)....
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..."U"....(more imagination required)....
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.."U" (use even more imagination)
Time is an easily split gift that readily seeps away if not carefully guarded.   Such was Martin Luther King Day for us.     We had a three day weekend and were on the road to squandering it on snow shoveling, house cleaning and Internet trolling when Grace suggested she go see Tanah.   The idea expanded from “she” to “we” and from Cedar to Logan.  An adventure was born……
 
Saturday afternoon (after some snow shoveling, house cleaning and Internet trolling) Lance, Miles, Grace, and I drove to Logan where we found Chick in Building C, room 302.    Whaaaa-whooo!     He looked (and smelled) great.    He also sounded great.   “I did something I am more proud of than any academic accomplishment I’ve made so far,” he said.   ???  “I talked to a girl at lunch.   And kept talking.      In fact, we kept talking until it was time for her to leave for class.”   He is talking to girls (at least one…), he gets along with his roommates, he figured out how to feed himself, and he knows where all of his classes are.    He managed a couple of class changes, registered for Institute, and was on the winning team in both Pinochle games we played.   His face was smiling, his clothes clean, and his aura confident.   He will always be my boy but he is a man now.
 
I arrived in Logan wearing a mother’s heart that was creased with concern.   Fears that my oldest son was perhaps lonely, maybe frustrated, a little lost, and possibly overwhelmed kept gnawing at me.   I left Logan carrying a heart calmed by his competence.    He has the tools he needs and as he chooses to use them, he will succeed.   
 
Sunday afternoon, as quickly as we could after church was over, we climbed in the car and drove south where we found Tanah in Building 1, room 6.    Whaaaaa-whoooo!   She looked great to me (she will always be beautiful to me) but sounded bad, being on the beginning end of a battle with a nasty head cold.     She loves her new apartment, adores her new roommates, and enjoyed feeding us dinner.
 
About 10:00 p.m., all of us (Tanah included) retired to a cheap motel room to begin what proved to be a night of adventures…….
 
The adventure started when Miles discovered a doll under the bed.   The kids almost insisted we change hotel rooms.  “Do you know how many horror movies start with someone finding a doll under the bed?” they asked me demandingly.  –No, actually, I don’t—“It’s a lot,” they assured me.     They could not convince me to change hotel rooms and I could not convince them the doll was harmless.   The compromise took the doll to a garbage can outside our room.   According to them, it glared balefully at us all night.
 
As it turned out, the doll was the only thing that stayed all night in the place where it was put……
 
Cheap motel rooms are not roomy.    The two double beds occupied most of the interior space which was fine with us as all we really needed was a place to lie down.   Grace and Tanah took one bed,  Lance and I took the other bed, and Miles slept on the floor in the narrow space between the two beds.    Cozy but comfortable.
 
 About 1:00 a.m. Tanah woke me as she fumbled to find the van keys.   “Dad’s snoring is so loud I cannot sleep,” she explained.  “I have to get some sleep or this cold is going to kill me so I am going to drive back to my apartment, sleep there, and return with your van in the morning.”    Not wanting my daughter to die, I sent her away with the keys (and the van).
 
She knocked on the motel room door about 20 minutes later.    “I locked myself out of my apartment,” she apologized, “so I am just going to sleep in the car.”    Unwilling to let my under-attack-by-nasty-cold-causing-microbes daughter sleep outside in sub-zero temperatures without blankets, I awoke Miles, put him in bed with Grace, and gave his two blankets to Tanah who took them outside where she slept in the van.
 
The commotion did not stop the snoring but it did awaken Grace….and kept her awake.    “Mom, it is too loud in here.  I am going outside to sleep in the van with Tanah.”     Okay, two girls in a van is safer than one anyway, right?  (Who knows what that balefully glaring doll in the garbage can might do….)
 
I returned to my snoring husband’s side, hoping the night’s adventures were over.   Wrong.   Lance morphed from a steam engine (loud) to a thrashing machine (loud and active).   The sixth time his flailing arm landed a solid blow on my rib cage I decided that a change of venue was necessary for me as well.    I bridged the gap separating the two beds and joined Miles. 
 
Peace at last.
 
When the day officially began it was glorious.    Grace, Miles, Tanah, and I hiked the Taylor Creek trail in Kolob Canyon.   The trail winds through red rock cliffs, past evergreen trees, and over an ice encrusted stream—74 times over the ice encrusted stream.    Glorious.
 
Back at Tanah’s apartment (which her roommate opened for her, much to Lance’s disappointment; he was really looking forward to testing his lock picking skills…) we laughed hilariously (laughter that might have been at least partially attributable to the previous night’s lack of sleep) when Grace turned a circus into an atomic bomb and Lance converted a go kart into a judge during our Telestrations game.     All too soon it was time to go home.  We left Tanah sniffling at the door of her apartment—it was a nasty cold—and headed back to Roy.
 
Six hundred sixty-four miles, 74 stream crossings, 3 times listening to the “Hamilton” (Broadway show) sound track,  and one balefully glaring doll later we’d traversed from Logan to Cedar, from USU to SUU, from Aggie to Thunderbird, our gift of time well invested and our harvest of memories just beginning.
 
May your time investment be wise and your harvest of memories continuous!
 
Love,
Teresa
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My confident, competent son!
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Captain of the Testing Center
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...and Pinochle King!
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A sunset on USU's campus and the symbolic sunrise of Chick's college experience
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Miles finds a doll under the motel room bed...
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....and the doll finds a bed in the garbage can.
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The view from the motel room window....
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...the view from Kolob Canyon.
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This is not what we usually wear when hiking in red rock country....
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Up the stair....
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....across the stream (74 times)....
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...to the door.....
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...on the rocks.....
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...on the rocks.....
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...and into the wilderness!
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Good Question

1/15/2017

0 Comments

 
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What would love do?
 
Good question.
 
“What would Christ do?” is a question that is often given us to use as a litmus test when pondering potential actions.    A recent speaker in church challenged us to change the question to “What would I do if Christ were here?”

Good question.
 
As I pondered the “What would I do if Christ were here?” question I concluded the question was not a good one for me, as I am prone to posturing.    I fear that, if Christ were next to me, I would be so caught up in being good that I would not be good; my actions might be right but my heart might not.    I needed a..
 
Good question.
 
“What would Christ do?” is a question that has not always worked for me as there are still many things I do not know of Christ.   I know that He always did and always will do the Father’s will, that He always did and always will be honest and true, and that He always did and always will be motivated by charity but I do not always know how His obedience, integrity, and love translate into action.  What does doing what Christ would do look like “on the floor”, so to speak?     Is it clearing the temple forcefully with a “scourge of small cords”?   (John 2:15)  Is it gently and compassionately, without condemnation or lecture, speaking to the adulteress? (John 8:11)   Is it publically condemning the Pharisees, calling them “a generation of vipers”? (Matthew 12:34)  Is it feeding the five thousand, some of whom were faithful followers and others simply thrill seekers?  (Mark 6:34-44)   Is it rebuking dedicated disciples momentarily overcome by fear; “Oh ye of little faith?” he said…?  (Matthew 8:26)   Is it healing the ear of one who would hurt him?  (Luke 22:51)  Or challenging the righteousness of a believer; “go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor” he told the rich, young ruler…?  (Matthew 19:21)  Is it tenderly calling the little children to Him, blessing and honoring them?  (Luke 18:16)   Always loving, Christ was not always gentle.  Always obedient to His Father’s sovereignty, Christ was not always respectful of man’s authority.   Always honest, Christ was not always soft-spoken.    What would Christ do?
 
Good question.
 
And a question to which I do not always know the answer.   I am at a point in my life where sometimes I really do not know what Christ would do.    When should I act gently and compassionately, without condemnation or lecture, and when should I arm myself with a “scourge of small cords” and clear the temple, so to speak?  When do I ask hard questions to challenge righteousness and when do I tenderly invite little ones (and aren’t we all little ones in one way or another) to come to me for hugs, literal and/or figurative?   When do I speak against faithlessness and when do I feed the flock?
 
Good question.
 
As I study Christ, one clear character trait emerges: love.   My interactions with Him and His Father are defined by the same trait: love.   “God is love” John tells us (1 John 4:8) and I believe it is that simple.  God is love.   Love is Christ’s power; it is defines Him, describes Him, and directs Him.   His love is universal and it is specific; it is given universally to all God’s children and applied specifically to each individual situation.   If I am to follow Christ, to model my behavior after His, I must also act universally and specifically, loving everyone and manifesting that love individually.  What would love do?
 
Good question.
 
That is my question for the year 2017.   What would love do?  And my resolution is to embrace the answer, whatever it is, and act upon it.    How well will I do it?
 
Good question!!!
 
May God bless me in my efforts and may He bless you in yours as well.
 
Love,
Teresa
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Sweet!

1/1/2017

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“….it was most sweet, above all I had ever tasted….it filled my soul with exceedingly great joy….”
 
Yep, yep, yep sweetness fills my soul with joy!    And it has certainly been a sweet, sweet season.    This season’s sweets include (but are not limited to):
 
  • Snow:    Nearly twelve inches of snow on Christmas…and no need to drive anywhere.   Beautiful!  And cozy….unless you are a chicken….or a lamb.
 
Jill, Lance’s sister, and her husband Kurt have recently become chicken caretakers.    And, as Grace says, if we ever have to come back to Earth as chickens we want to go to Jill’s place.   Kurt, who has skills undreamed of on the Hislop Happy Whole Acre, built their chickens a fortress affectionately called “Clucking-ham Palace”.   It has twice the square footage of my bathroom, is completely insulated, and has a heat lamp that is turned on whenever temperatures drop into the teens.    “Do you close your hen house door at night?” Jill asked me.    Uh….no.   (See photo below.)
 
The sheep have a shelter (nothing like Clucking-ham Palace but it does have a roof and four walls….) which they chose NOT to use during the Christmas Day storm.   Who needs a barn when you have wool coat?   Wool is a fabulous insulator.   It kept Esther’s body heat in (notice the snow did not melted from her coat) and the snow’s cold out.   Presumably she would have sought shelter in the barn if she were cold.   Our little black lamb was almost white. (See photo below.   Does she look sweet?)
 
  • Red:  Grace loves red and we love Grace.    This Christmas she got the red carpet treatment (literally), a red comforter, red boots, a red sweater, and a teddy bear she can “red” too.  (Okay, “red too” was a stretch….Work with me on this one.   Be sweet about it, would you?)
 
  • Teens:   My baby turned thirteen on December 28; we’ve no more chronological children in the house.  (Maturity level is a whole different story….)    One of the first things he did on is birthday was open a Facebook account.   Feel free to friend him.  Sweetly, of course.
 
I also had a ton (Well…..probably not literally a ton….) of Young Women in our home over the Christmas break, first for a movie night in our basement and, a week later, for an impromptu dinner after a trip to Temple Square to see the lights.    These young ladies must not eat many home cooked meals because they think I am a great cook—I am not.    I love my calling to work with the Mia Maids (young ladies 13-14 years old) in our congregation.  They are sweet!  (….mostly….)
 
  • FSA:  Done!  I have filled out all the paperwork to request reimbursement from our 2016 Flexible Spending Account, a task that usually hangs over my head until late March.  SWEET!
 
  • Health:   It’s back after taking a vacation.   A nasty, violent, take-your- pyloric sphincter-and-force-it-up-your-esophagus stomach flu hit our family before (everyone but me) and after (me) Christmas.   Mercifully it left us alone on Christmas Day, a truly sweet blessing.
 
  • Brad and Nikki:   In anticipation of our upcoming February Florida Frost-fleeing Field Trip, they sent us a vacation package planner.    My favorite gift was the necklace Nikki made from shells and stones collected during family reunions though the green death claw runs a close second and the swim cap looks sweet on me, don’t you think?   (See photo.)
 
  • Blankets:  I found a sweet deal on blankets at Sam’s Club and they somehow made it from Sam’s the kid’s stockings….from the stockings to the shoulders (see photo)…and, frequently, from the shoulders to the floor.  Blankets (and socks and shoes and….) shed willy nilly around the house is a sign that my family is home…and that is truly a sweet deal.
 
  • Family:  Next week Tanah will return to Cedar City (SUU) and Chick will move to Logan (USU).    Grace will resume FFA, play practice, and early morning temple trips (RHS).   Miles will extend his active social life (SRJH) and Lance and I will go back to work (SAA and OPA, respectively).     What a sweet blessing it has been to have all six of us under the same roof for two weeks!  
 
I started this letter with a quote from Lehi in the Book of Mormon.  He had a vision wherein he saw a fruit that was “most sweet”, so sweet that eating it filled his soul with joy, “exceedingly great joy”.  (1 Nephi 8:11-12)  In his great joy, his first desire was to share the fruit with his family.
 
Sweetness and joy and family escort and accompany each other.  They are manifestations of the love of God, a love so great that He not only gives us sweetness and joy and family, He also shows us the way to have them all forever.    May we follow Him to them.
 
Love,
Teresa

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No, we don't close the hen house door at night.
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Esther sporting her wool coat
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Grace lies on her red carpet in her red comforter (reverse side is red) wearing her red boots (not pictured).
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The corner where Grace's bear is "red" to...
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Hislop children blanketed
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Miles sewed pillow cases for everyone in the family. (Yep, Miles the Sew-er!)
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Nikki made Harry Potter wands for everyone in the family....just in case we go to Harry Potter World while in Florida.... (NOT going to happen!)
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Notice the beautiful necklace I am wearing! And doesn't that swim cap look sweet?!?!???
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The bird house does not have a door either....
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...and neither do the bird nests.
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But the bikes do have blankets.
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And so does everything else.
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    Teresa Hislop
    thislop@msn.com

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