Posted By Lee and Paul on September 1, 2010

Since I am back to smacking down, I have decided to skip opening paragraphs. I am the queen of my domain! I have thought long and hard on this topic of adversity (please read a few moments before blindly tapping on the keys) and did some research (I think I looked at TMZ and Perez Hilton). Then, in a sign that I may have a heart albeit black and smallish, I decided to do an homage. I know I will probably smack someone like some sort of violent tic.

In the land of celebrity, adversity is something that is met with a multi-million dollar photo shoot and an interview with Barbra Walters. You ain’t no one until you’ve shared some fucked up tragedy that you will probably use next time you do a movie that requires you to squirt a couple of tears. But honestly, these are things that happen to all of us albeit not under the watchful eye of the paparazzi. I feel for those who suffer tragedy but I have little sentiment for those who throw daily pity parties on Twitter, bitching about how so and so screwed them over or how no one gets the pressure they are under blah blah blah.

I mean, come on, Lindsay. Do you really think regular people fuck up as much as you? I mean, come on, I realize she just got out of rehab but if they would have told me that my outpatient treatment would look like that, I would have opted to go to an in-patient. This is a recipe for disaster. [Please note, I am an addiction professional. A regular inpatient treatment program would probably include 20 hours of treatment a week. She is being ordered to meet with counselors 5 times a week, psychotherapy 4X/week, behavioral therapy 2x/week, drug testing 2x/week and AA meetings. Do the math, she would have been safer and have more time to herself if she had stayed in.] Is this how to deal with this adversity pretending that someone who has no evidence of complying with simple orders can complete this stiff probation without violation? I hate to be mean (not really) but I doubt she will make it. Even the most committed of clients would fail this one.

Others have their adversity projected on the screen for all to see. You have Mel Gibson and his baby-mama-drama. You have Spencer and Heidi playing out their scripted divorce for the media. You have Sarah Palin’s would be son-in-law running for office (I suppose Cheat sheet, gun toting sub morons can hold office in Alaska- Listen Alaska, I am just assuming this based on your previous elected officials). Unlike what others may think, adversity is best dealt with in the open. As a therapist I appreciate watching the train-wrecks and failed attempts at being human but the reality is that these people are playing their adversity up for the drama, not for a solution. I know, call me Captain Obvious!

My beef with these attention whores is that we become engrossed in the drama and miss the lesson. Lindsay’s lesson? When one person calls you an ass, don’t worry about it If 10 people call you an ass, buy a saddle. Lindsay should have bought a saddle long ago. Dina Lohan should have insisted Lindsay buy a saddle a long time ago. How fucked up is it when the only family member who makes sense is a narcissist with sociopathic tendencies?-(Allegedly)

Mel’s lesson is simply Karma. He broke up his marriage over Virgin Mary. This was some weird Catholic fucked up fantasy for him. Then he knocked up Mary. Are you getting the idea here? Mel is God in this little vignette and in his world, God can sometimes lose His shit. His problems are a psychoanalyst’s wet dream!

As for the other nimrods, who gives a fuck? Celebrities, deal with your problems. Grow up. Shut up. Straighten up. Man up. Or just go away and give up.

Posted By Lee and Paul on August 31, 2010

The Author of this post is Cheryl Martinez

          My daughter has to spend most of her time with a babysitter. I have to work two jobs to make ends meet at home and it’s really just the two of us. I always want to show her how much I hate being away from her all day and so I promise her one day a week just the two of us. I always have Saturdays off so we spend the entire day out of the house. We set the Security Choice alarm and hop in the car and begin our girls day. The first thing we do is head down to the park and enjoy the weather. It’s usually not long until she wants to go to her favorite part of our lady’s day out which is going to a movie.

          I let her pick any film she would like that isn’t rated over PG-13. Sometimes she fights me on this but I really don’t think that my nine year old is ready for those types of movies. She is already allowed to watch PG-13 movies because it seems like kids are growing up faster and faster each day. She always tries to pick the most grown-up movies she can find because she literally is nine years old going on thirty. We get a giant thing of popcorn to share and we each get a jumbo soda. Sometimes we’ll even catch two movies if she has a difficult time picking her favorite one. I really want her to feel like she’s the only girl in the world on Saturdays.

            The guest author was brought to you by our friends at Security Choice.

Posted By Lee and Paul on August 31, 2010

Our Tuesdays are now sponsored by La Scuola school. Please take a look at their site at www.reggioinspired.com and give them a call at (305) 278-9555.

Tuesday we discuss kids and kid stuff. We discuss parenting and how Motherhood and Fatherhood are a relationship unlike many others. We discuss children and their development. But we tend to steer away from talking about when kids deal with adversity. We, as parents, want to believe that hardship is exclusively dealt to and handled by adults. This could not be farther from the truth. We shield our children from the boogey man of reality only to find the bastard snuck in through there window when we weren’t looking. Adversity is a reality for children. The only thing that is left to ask a parent is: What is your mettle?

Lee says: I grew up in a weird household. My parents were both there. They both worked very hard outside the home. My parents would take us (I always refer to us because I was always with my big sister, Aidi) to work or provide a nanny so we were never alone. My parents didn’t let us go outside much and I did served as a chaperone to my sister when she began dating. We were sheltered to the point that my father would tell us to shut our eyes if a couple kissed on the big screen. Let’s forget the fact that the subject matter and rating of said films were probably grossly inappropriate for us (Exorcism?). My parents were micro-managing worrywarts who wanted to control all input of information.

What they couldn’t shield us from was the ups and downs of life. Try as they might, sadness, tragedy, nastiness and fear did reach us, from death to someone trying to break into our home through our bedroom window to family tension to threatened kidnapping by a family member to financial woes …and on and on. My parents had a very weird way of dealing with stress. My parents are on average, anxious people. Stress was normal for them and adversity just amounted to varying levels of stress. The more crap the world threw at them the more they seemed to enjoy it. They worked very hard and also partied hard. It was only until recently that I realized my parents were major workaholics, thrived on drama and had taught me (and my siblings) to do the same.

One thing as parents that we are honor bound to do for our children is teach them resilience. Shielding children from pain is impossible but teaching them how to deal with hurt is not. We need to sit them down and get them use to expressing their feelings. We need to get them use to strategizing and problem solving on their own. If Mom and Dad always fix their messes then they will never figure out this all-important skill-set. We need to allow them to fail, get hurt, make mistakes and flub their recovery. This all builds resilience.

A decade ago, everything was about resilience. We were told to create resilient children and how resilience was the leading reason why some children who lived through trauma were successful and others who had experienced a lesser trauma were not. Resilience is a positive capacity to deal with stress and said capacity is both learned and innate. However, as a parent, you can see how modeling dealing with stress in a healthy manner is paramount to creating a resilient child.

So the bottom line as a parent is what is your mettle? I choose to be something malleable and harden upon certain threats. I know it’s not that kind of mettle but the tensile strength of a parent’s resolve is what matters.

Paul says: On the positive side of dysfunction, I have no clue what adversity is since my parents had a kind of constant background noise of adversity. Job loss and spoiled milk had pretty much the same level in the ‘Oh my God!’ factor. Whether this was brilliant preplanned parenting or not, the end result is that I weather all adversity about the same. I go to the extremely practical with more than a little out-of-body shock.

The milk is bad? By more milk. Dog dead? Get a new dog. O.K., so this is not the best way to deal with stuff. This is why I have Lee to teach them to emote. Between the two of us, Mr. Fluffy gets buried and mourned.