Thoughts from the Trifecta

First, for historical perspective.

As of September 2015, Niki and Britta had slept every night of their lives together in one room.

In a whirlwind move that was poorly managed by me, an introductory conversation on a Friday night (September 4th 2015) about moving my office out of the house resulted in my doing just that 2 days later. The goal, purpose, and result was to give Niki and Britta their own space, their own bedroom, their own sanctuary.

Which was only partially successful; they still slept together each night in Britta’s bedroom, which is still where all their clothes were.

Fast forward to November 2016, and Niki is taking more of an interest in her bedroom, which had been mostly disregarded for the past 14 months. She decides she wants to sleep in her own bed, which is sporting a new mattress from IKEA.

Sunday, November 20th, 2016: Niki climbs in her own bed, Britta in her own bed, lights go out, and Niki jumps out and runs into bed with Britta, both girls giggling.

Monday, November 21st, 2016: Niki climbs in bed with Britta, lights go out.

Niki: Britta, is it OK if I sleep in my bed?
Britta: (tired, and slightly sick) Yes.

Niki jumps out of Britta’s bed, runs to her bedroom and hops in bed. Lights out. It’s quiet.

Niki: Britta are you sad?
Britta: (Tired, but responds immediately) No.
Niki: Britta are you lonely?
Britta: (Tired, but responds immediately) No.
Niki: Britta are you scared?
Britta: (Tired, but responds immediately) No.
Niki: Britta are you tired?
Britta: (Tired, but responds immediately) Yes.

It’s quiet.

Niki: Britta are you sad?
Britta: (Tired, but responds immediately) No.
Niki: Britta are you lonely?
Britta: (Tired, but responds immediately) No.
Niki: Britta are you scared?
Britta: (Tired, but responds immediately) No.
Niki: Britta are you tired?
Britta: (Tired, but responds immediately) Yes.

I tell a story about a flower and they fall asleep.

Of course, in the morning I awake to find both girls in our bed, but a milestone has been reached. A little funny to watch it play out, but a little melancholy to see it happen. The girls will turn 9 in less than 3 weeks.

This week is Halloween, Annika’s now in 8th grade. A memory of mine came to me last night.

8th grade, St. John’s Lutheran, Napa. Class size was 13, 3 boys and 10 girls. Mark Zeller and Sean Scott had never appeared to be of interest to the girls in our class…which should have been good news for me, but since I was introverted and classmates with girls that (in most cases) I had known since Kindergarten, “dating” or having a girlfriend was foreign to me.

Halloween. Friday evening. 1976. School party. Dunking for apples, etc. Scott Young (my best friend, 7th grade) and myself are re-directed outside to the playground by some of the 8th grade girls – Sherri Lahei; Barbara Rose; Julie Greenwalt; a few others – once it was dark.

Spin the bottle (5-6 girls who are ready to explore; they brought a bottle! 2 boys who are clueless), truth or dare. From the start everyone selects dare. Every dare is to kiss so-and-so. While I hadn’t spent one second imagining a kiss with any of these girls, I was enthusiastic. Kissed every girl, numerous times, lips closed, lots of giggling. It was silly yet endearing, in retrospect. While I imagine it had to be somewhat clumsy and awkward, I don’t recall that at all.

My recollection may be off, but I recall riding my bike to school the next day, on a Saturday, going to the playground and trying to make sense of what happened. I didn’t quiet realize it, but I was different now. End of the chapter of complete innocence. I walked around the playground, around the basketball courts. The school which had been my own for 9 years felt different to me, a bit disorientating. But exhilarating.

I ask Annika now and then about boys. I don’t want to pressure her or make fun of her; rather, I want her to feel comfortable talking with me about her romantic feelings. Nothing yet. She is in Catalina this week for school; maybe there is an unused bottle there, being spun…

Whenever I bring the twins to bed, I tell them a story. Fiction on the spot. Sometimes they will provide input, large or small, a community effort. The challenge for me are two: come up with a good story, and don’t fret about reality.

Case in point. Last night the input from the twins was simply “a submarine”. For inspiration I thought of Jacques Cousteau, National Geographic. The characters, as is the case most of the time, would be two young girls. Maybe they make their own submarine? But out of what materials? Do they take it into a pool? The ocean? How do they get it to the ocean? What is their goal?

The questions came up in seconds, the answers took a little longer. Or, shall I say, it took a little longer to realize the questions were unnecessary. Yes, the girls, make their own submarine, but the only details as to materials were two school chairs and a bicycle for propulsion. Of course they take it into the ocean; and the details of how they get it there are irrelevant (“so Nancy and Pamela brought their submarine to the ocean, and climbed in between the crashing of waves”). There is no goal; it’s just simple adventure (they end up at a small island with lizards and birds everywhere, only to realize after lunch that they forgot to anchor their submarine and it started to float away).

When finished, the girls were still wake (often times they fall asleep) and both suggested that this story was one of the best ever. A reminder, that I need continually, is that at this wonderful age it’s not the details that matter.

Excerpt From: J. D. Vance. “Hillbilly Elegy.” HarperCollinsPublishers, 2016-04-30.

Lindsay was a teenager when Papaw died, at the height of that weird mixture of thinking you know everything and caring too much about how others perceive you. Papaw was many things, but he was never cool. He wore the same old T-shirt every day with a front pocket just big enough to fit a pack of cigarettes. He always smelled of mildew, because he washed his clothes but let them dry “naturally,” meaning packed together in a washing machine. A lifetime of smoking had blessed him with an unlimited supply of phlegm, and he had no problem sharing that phlegm with everyone, no matter the time or occasion. He listened to Johnny Cash on perpetual repeat and drove an old El Camino—a car truck—everywhere he went. In other words, Papaw wasn’t ideal company for a beautiful seventeen-year-old girl with an active social life. Thus, she took advantage of him in the same way that every young girl takes advantage of a father: She loved and admired him, she asked him for things that he sometimes gave her, and she didn’t pay him a lot of attention when she was around her friends. To this day, being able to “take advantage” of someone is the measure in my mind of having a parent.

limbic system (the emotional center of the brain)
cerebellum
occipital lobe (vision)
temporal lobe (emotion, sexuality, language)
parietal lobe (movement, sensation)
frontal lobe (judgment, insight, impulse control)
hippocampus (memory processing)
amygdala (controls our most primal feelings – fear, anger, hate, panic, grief)
melatonin (hormone which induces sleep)

Ch 1 Entering the Teen Years
– When it comes to hormones, remember that the teenage brain is “seeing” them for the first time
– Puberty causes the concentration of sex hormones (which are present throughout childhood) to dramatically change; Estrogen and progesterone effect mood
– Sex hormones are active in the limbic system, which is the emotional center of the brain
– The hormone THP, usually released in response to stress to modulate anxiety, has a reverse effect in adolescents, raising anxiety

Ch 2 Building a Brain

– Brain matures from back to front – cerebellum, occipital lobe (vision), temporal lobe (emotion, sexuality, language), parietal lobe (movement, sensation), frontal lobe (judgment, insight, impulse control)
– The teen brain is about 80% mature; that 20% explains mood swings, impulsiveness, lack of concentration, adventure
– Process is not finished by the end of the teen years; college years are vulnerable as well
– stuff their minds with real stories, real consequences
– hippocampus is the brains workhorse for memory processing – used for encoding and retrieving memories
– an immature amygdala contributes to adolescent explosiveness

Ch 3 Under the microscope

– insight – which arises in the frontal and prefrontal lobes – depends on the ability to look outside oneself

Ch 4 Learning – A job for the teen brain

– Teen brains are learning at peak efficiency, still much else is inefficient, including attention, self-discipline, task completion, and emotions. The mantra “one thing at a time” is useful to repeat to teens; don’t overwhelm them
– Encourage teens to stop and think about what they need to do and when they need to do (instructions, directions, etc); it will increase blood flow to the brain areas involved in multitasking and slowly strengthen them.
– write instructions down as well as orally, and limit to one or two points (not 3 to 5).
– Encourage organization (calendars) on a regular basis
– Keep tabs on homework and digital time; the more you do, the fewer the temptations, and the more their brain will learn how to do without distractions
– count to 10 to stay calm before responding to your teen
– Be truthful – “you’re being irrational or impulsive or overly sensitive, and let me tell you why it’s your brain’s “fault””
– Teens have the capacity to modify and the responsibility to modify their own behavior
– Different areas of the brain process positive information; negative information is centered in the prefrontal cortex (which is not fully developed). This means that teens have less ability to process negative information, so they are more inclined to do something risky and less inclined to learn from the mistake

Ch 5 Sleep

– Memory and learning are consolidated during sleep, which is why sleep is vital
– Average teen requires 9.25 hours of sleep
– Beginning around the age of 10-12 a teens biological clock shifts forward. Melatonin, a hormone which induces sleep, is released two hours later at night in teens. It also stays in their system longer, thus the sleepiness in the morning.
– During puberty deep sleep decreases by as much as 40%
– Sleep gives the brain time to convert what’s been learned into memories
– Sleep deprivation inhibits the synaptic pruning or prioritization of information
– teens who use their cell phone after “lights out” had reduced time asleep and have increased risk of mental health disorders
– Poor sleep results in skin conditions, increased sport injuries
– When they come home from school ask how much homework they have and help them to prioritize
– Computers should be turned off an hour before bedtime to relax the overstimulated eyes and brain
– 2 hours on a digital LED device suppresses melatonin ~22%, negatively effecting sleep
– suggest they do non-tech activities before bed, and do the same activities at the same time each night to habituate the body to winding down at the same time each night
– The bed should be just for sleeping; avoid associations with eating or TV or even homework

Ch 6 Taking Risks

– Underdeveloped frontal cortex means they have trouble seeing ahead or understanding the consequences and are ill equipped to weight the relative harms of risky behavior
– Teens are very vulnerable to the power of suggestion
– Teens are not irrational; their reasoning abilities are more or less fully developed by the time they are 15
– Teen brains get more of a sense of reward than adult brains; the release of and response to dopamine is enhanced for teens
– But since the frontal lobe are still only loosely connected to other parts of the brain, teens have a harder time exerting cognitive control over dangerous situations
– Teens have to put much more effort into staying away from risks
– Adults are better at learning from mistakes due to their developed anterior cingulate cortex, which acts as a behavioral monitor
– Gratification is at the heart of a teens impulsivity
– Without a fully myelinated frontal lobe to provide inhibition, this can drive risk taking behavior
– It’s not the monetary reward, but simply the expectation of a reward that sets the nucleus accumbens buzzing
– Teens are hyper-sensitive to dopamine, so even small rewards if they are immediate trigger greater nucleus accumbens activity than larger, delayed rewards
– Help teens visualize the costs versus the benefits through an analogy
– Socializing with friends or playing sports has a protective value in keeping teens out of risk taking trouble

Ch 9 Pot

– THC (pot) disrupts the development of neural pathways
– Pot can change the receptors in different areas – hippocampus and cortex, resulting in changes of cognition; but also in the nucleus accumbens, which can increase the “addictability” of the brain to other substances
– Fear of losing a parent’s trust and respect is the greatest deterrent to drug use

Ch 11 Stress

– Since teenagers can’t smooth things out with their frontal lobe, it’s up to parents to provide a sense of calm that teens can’t yet provide themselves
– Emotional lives of all humans are closely tied to the amygdala, which controls our most primal feelings – fear, anger, hate, panic, grief. There is much less activity in the teen frontal lobe making it harder to handle emotions
– Teens amygdala are under less control by their frontal lobes, and therefore they will respond with more extreme emotions

Saturday, 10/11/14, Annika and Andrea spend the evening listening to what I hope will be a motivational speech. It’s by a young lady who, when she was 14, sailed solo around the world.

Also that weekend we were helping a friend by taking care of their two kids. Niki played with Kylie, Britta played with Brock.

At night I lost the argument about sleeping arrangements, and thus put Niki and Kylie upstairs in the living room on the twins mattresses, and Britta and Brock downstairs in Annika’s bedroom. I knew Annika would be upset – it happens to rarely that we need her bedroom, but when it does she is wildly selfish and even rude about it.

Annika and Andrea come home from their evening, and Annika immediately throws the mother of all tantrums when she finds out her room is booked. She comes upstairs into our bed, and the tantrum continues. Ridiculous is an understatement.

I know she is tired (cross country race Friday, Soccer Saturday, then out late Saturday night), but in my mind my expectation is that Sunday she will wake up and eventually apologize for her outburst.

Sunday comes and no apology.

Annika’s behavior especially strikes me, since she just heard a talk by a young lady who was demonstrating how to act older than she is. Plus, a few weeks ago Annika and I had a conversation where I encouraged her to continually reflect on the things she does, things she says, and if they don’t feel right (maybe her acts were inspired by peer pressure) to take ownership of her actions and correct them where necessary (even if it’s only a simple apology).

6 days after this is a concert with Luke Bryan that Annika and I were intending to go to. I was really looking forward to this; could not wait to spoil Annika with a concert and my undivided attention. However, given the lack of an apology, I’ve decided to sell the tickets, and not go to the concert.

This is tough! I could just talk with Annika about her outburst, but I feel that at age 11 she needs to start taking responsibility for her actions, rather than continually be reminded. She needs to learn consequences.

And I HATE that I am the one to do this.

“Sunscreen” Baz Lurman (Mary Schmich).

In January at Squaw after one of Annika’s ski races, she was upset and confided in me that she had made goals for herself with respect to ski racing and she didn’t appear to be making progress on them. Two things struck me at the time:

1. Her goals were fair, and for a 10 year old to even think about goals seemed surprisingly mature to me.

2. Until then I thought my goals were the only game in town. They were not that Annika do poorly, but that I not emphasize (or even encourage) the idea of results mattering. I would encourage Annika verbally, emphasize that she simply do her best and have fun, and show up race day ready to take pictures. But I had not yet done anything with respect to hardware (ski) support.

Annika mentioned how many of the girls carry (versus ski with) their race skis to the start, how their Dad’s are at the race start doing last minute waxing, etc. Thus far I had intentionally not done this, as I felt like it was prioritizing results over everything else. It was only now that I realized I needed to take Annika’s intentions and goals into consideration.

Fast forward to this past weekend, the final end of year Far West ski races at Sugar Bowl. Annika is on skis that have been tuned, she is carrying her race skis to the start, she is determined. The last race on the last day of the season, and Annika gets 14th place – achieving one of her goals of getting within the top 15.

I could not be more proud of Annika – for establishing fair goals, and persistently keeping after them. Go Annika!

Britta lost her first tooth; 11/26/13. After the tooth was pulled, she didn’t want to let go of it, and wanted to show it to everyone.

Niki, who also had a loose tooth, was beside herself. Not because she wanted to be the first to lose a tooth; rather: “I love my teeth and I don’t want to lose them”.

Britta was entirely excited about the Tooth Fairy, and woke early to find $2 under her pillow.

Niki lost her first tooth on 11/29/13. It was dangling there for a few days, so finally I easily pulled it out when she wasn’t expecting it. She didn’t cry; but she also didn’t fuss over her tooth, or even mention the tooth fairy. She’s outside playing now, and has not seen or asked to see her tooth since it was pulled.

I could (and should) write more about the beautiful examples of Annika’s daily demonstrations of empathy and consideration; but this is one example that must be noted.

Father’s Day weekend in 2013, and Mama has gone to Germany for her High School reunion, leaving Papa and the girls to enjoy some quality time. Sunday afternoon, with only a few hours left before Mama was to return, I playfully mentioned to the girls how this reunion would play out. All three girls would see their Mama and begin the race, with Annika getting there first. A twin (a kept in generic, although I was thinking Niki) would reach Mama second and push Annika out of the way. The other twin (obviously here I’m thinking Britta) would collapse in tears before reaching Mama. My point to the girls: let’s all be happy Mama is home, let’s not fight over her or get mad, and let’s make the reunion a positive event.

Flash forward those few hours and we are walking to the Train Station to meet Mama. We are at the bottom of the tunnel, and suddenly we see Mama at the top, walking towards us. All three girls bolt. And Annika is in first, by a wide margin. ~20 feet before reaching Andrea, Annika stops; she turns around; and she lets Niki and Britta pass her.

It was beautiful and heart wrenching at the same time. It was the essence of sacrifice.