The ability to place belief in something tends to be a basic human quality. We all believe: in ideas, in particular values or principles, in country, in leaders, in friends or relatives, in family, in ourselves. We all believe. I believe… But it is interesting, when put firmly to the test; to see how much do I believe, under what conditions and what it is I really believe in?

It is one thing to say what I believe in, but what do I actually do, each day, routinely and under fire? I have found it very valuable, and sometimes rather disconcerting, to compare, for example, what I write to all of you in Words of Caring with what I really do, in practice and in private.

A real factor in this area of believing and doing is trust. Trust to me is also a basic and very pivotal human quality. What I trust in, however, is demonstrated much more by what I do than by what I say. There is, however, a relationship between belief and trust. In many ways my statements of belief evidence what I would like to see or where I would like myself to be, whereas trust confirms more accurately where I really am.

Between these two, belief and trust, lie barriers. Obviously I would like to have and to be what I believe in, but there are barriers, which I place to trusting in that belief which work to keep me from it. Only as I endeavor to remove the barriers do what I believe in and what I trust in begin to come together. And, as this happens, who I would like to be and who I am come closer to being as one.

In this issue of Words of Caring I have provided you some of my experiences with barriers and trust as they have been between my family and me. I hope you find them of interest.

Enjoy!

-- John Borland --


Barriers
By John Borland

I can remember back eleven years ago to when my son Joshua was born. He was bright and alive and so aware of everything around him.

As an aside, let me say that this was very much brought home to me when, as an infant, Judy and I tried one night to figure out what it was that Josh was so interested in. Lying in his crib we could see by his actions and prolonged upward staring that something in his room had gained his attention. We tried for some time moving the various things above and around his crib, but none of these proved to be the source.

Finally, I happened rather innocently put my hand in front the night light built into his mobile. Immediately Josh's reaction changed. I looked up at the ceiling and recognized that I was now blocking the light from his mobile being cast on the ceiling of his room.

I moved back to my original position and watched Josh again. His staring was resumed only now I had a clue. I began manipulating the mobile and the night light, which evoked more changes in Josh. It turns out he was watching with rapt attention the play of the shadows on his ceiling as the mobile quietly revolved with the light.

I so love Joshua and I love stories and books and so I began at this early age to read to him from storybooks for older children. I also used his baby books with him as a springboard to explain rather advanced ideas. I would sit by Josh's crib at bedtime and speak to him of life, philosophy, science, psychology and other subjects containing deep and abstract concepts. My thinking was that there was no reason why Josh couldn't understand these ideas in time and since I didn't know when that time would actually be I would begin now and let him grow into it.

As a result, Joshua began reading, telling stories and really comprehending and thinking well ahead of many other kids his age. And this habit of bedtime contact and discussion on all kinds of deep subjects goes on between us to this day.

I recognize from this that I have had few barriers with Josh as to what he can eventually understand and use. Josh and I both have reaped the benefit of this mind-set. I share with him generally everything I have without reservation for its complexity and he selects and uses what of it he can understand within his current capacity. In short, outside of a preconceived limit as to what he can handle, Josh has been given more and has used well what he has been given as he has been able to.

If only I followed this formula all the time.

For those of you who don’t know it, Troy is no longer with us. He has moved out of the house and is now living on his own in an apartment shared with friends.

I have the opportunity now to observe Troy more from a distance; outside of my direct and responsible sphere of influence and dealing with situations that I have not had a hand in creating. From this new vantage point and reflecting on the past I can see how very much over our time together I have colored and limited the information and interaction I shared with Troy.

Much more than with Joshua, I have been cautious with Troy and have conditioned my responses towards producing a certain end with him rather than simply inputting to Troy from where he is. I can look at this and say I was wrong, but such a conclusion is far too black and white and simplistic.

There are tremendous differences between Josh and Troy and tremendous differences in how I could and did relate to one versus the other.

As I have shown in other articles, Josh is of me. As such, he is understood by me and bonded physically to me. I cannot emphasize the importance of this enough as I think most parents who have children who are their own take this too much for granted. In fact, we natural parents have been given a tremendous gift of attraction between our children and ourselves that is invaluable in getting over the rough spots.

Though Josh and Troy share some similar traits, Troy has always been more anxious and reserved. As such it has been more difficult to develop a level of interaction with Troy whereby I could share with him without him feeling threatened and in need of escape. Also too I came into Troy’s life at a much later age such that the window for an intimate relationship was more difficult to establish and less natural. We could be to each other close acquaintances or friends, or perhaps even buddies, but never really father and son.

And with Troy I was learning. I can still remember how much I thought I knew about raising kids from the time I spent as uncle and confidant to my nephew, but there is nothing at all the same about supporting even a close relative and raising a boy as your own within your own family.

When I look at Josh and my relationship with him at eleven and then look back at Troy and me at the same age I am startled. I have opened some of this time to you in other articles, but suffice it to say it was not pretty, it was never easy on either of us and we were not all that close. Still, without the comparison of Joshua, I would never have had this insight on Troy and I and certainly I did not believe it back then.

Troy has taught me truly tremendous things that I am now applying very actively with Josh. Is it appropriate that Troy was the learning ground to Josh’s benefit? I don’t know. All I know is that it is the past, it’s over, it was what it was, and, given who we were then, it could not have been any different.

Perhaps even these writings that I bring to you are a kind of penance. I will say that it is often in my mind when I am writing, if, from my experience with Troy, I can say one thing that will help one of you in raising your children, then perhaps there was something of worth in all of this.

But please understand, there is something here of worth even so.

As I said, Troy is now out on his own and I am getting to watch him handle his life. Many things he is doing differently than I would, certain things are as yet incomplete and his priorities and points of focus are still other than mine, but Troy is handling life. And, all in all, I have to say he is becoming successful at it.

Frankly, now that the parent-child pressure has been relieved and we are coming more to a situation of mutual equality, the relationship between Troy and me is probably better than it has ever been.

What is interesting to watch is the number of things coming into play with Troy that are very much what Judy and I tried to teach him while he was with us. Our lessons – even the ones delivered rather under combat – are finding a place and a purpose. And Troy is tending slowly to take them on and make good decisions.

But what is really even more interesting to see is how much in living his life his way Troy is starting to look like us, and particularly like Judy.

There is probably another article in this, but it is fascinating to think about just how much of a role model we parents really are to our children. When you get right down to it the life they share with us as family in our homes goes on to become the primary pattern for their lives, with their families in their homes. Something to think about isn't it?

Yes, I have to say there are things about Troy and I that could have been done differently and there were barriers laid down by us on both sides, but that does not mean that, for us, an outcome containing value did not result.

You see, as parents, and even as teenagers, there is one more barrier that we must be cognizant of and seek to avoid; that is the barrier of believing we have failed.

Failure with regard to relationships is a difficult thing to measure, first, because in a relationship there is no absolute standard of quality and, second, because a true relationship never really ends.

But in perceiving failure we build a standard and we create an end such that we become blinded to the perceptions and the opportunities that would work for us to make even the so-called failed relationship a better one. And this, my friends, is the true barrier and an unfortunate loss.

I believe that in a relationship there is really no such thing as a failure. What there is instead is the continual work involved in making the relationship better. To judge what is or what should be is not for us, and this is nowhere more true than in a relationship. Rather, the path of relationship is to grow ever more in love in the way that love is intended.

For all our fits and missteps I believe Troy and I are doing that. I don’t think either of us could have foreseen this outcome, but this is the outcome we now have.

In our own ways we are moving past our barriers and producing something between us that has worth; and this is as it should be.


Trust
By John Borland

We recite at the end of each Parent Seminar session:

- I am a good parent

- What I do makes a difference in my child’s life

- My child will be successful in life

We are taught to believe these statements by virtue of our reciting them each week with feeling and conviction. Understand, as parents it is good and essential to our proper focusing and balance for us to believe deeply in what these statements say. But how much harder I have found it is day in and day out to really trust that the things of these statements are true.

Belief and Trust… There is a very strong relationship between these two concepts, but my personal experience is that they are really not the same. Larry Evans’ story of the tight ropewalker that dares to cross Niagara Falls is illustrative of the difference.

In this story a tight ropewalker sets up his equipment and asks the assembling crowd if they believe he can walk on a rope across Niagara Falls. The audience unanimously agrees in their belief that he can perform this feat.

After successfully crossing and coming back, the walker proceeds to cross on the rope again and again in various ways and with differing pieces of apparatus.

Each time he asks the crowd, “Do you believe that I can do this?” and each time the onlookers affirm wholeheartedly that they do believe he can.

Finally, on what will be his last trip across the rope, the tight ropewalker looks down at the crowd and says something like this, “You have all believed that I could cross the Falls on this rope, and I have done so several times. Now, who of you trusts enough in me to come up here this time and cross with me?”

There are no takers.

This for too long now has been me. For four years I have come to the Parent Seminar and each week of each of those four seminars have I affirmed:

- I am a good parent

- What I do makes a difference in my child’s life

- My child will be successful in life

And I have each time believed these statements, at least after a fashion and to a point. But, when it would come to each day in my home and with my family acting from these beliefs in firm practice, my ability to trust in my stated beliefs would seem to wane.

I particularly have had trouble with our last statement of belief – My child will be successful in life.

I do belief this. I have always wanted so much to believe it. My children will make it, they will be successful, they will be ok.

But when I would look inside me, to my concerns for them and my fears for their futures. When I looked at all of the ways in which I put hands on their lives to change them and save them from the future I too much saw, I had to honestly admit that my trust in my indicated statement did not at all match with my affirmed belief in it.

I say this in the past tense because our situation at home has changed and very slowly I am beginning to see the following:

But what if someone from the audience would have only gone along with the tightrope walker and, with him, would have successfully crossed the Falls, what a difference that would have made. How much more that person would have trusted and how much more the audience would have then trusted with him.

How much more I would trust that “my children will be successful in life” if only I would risk a little more in just letting things happen such that they could be successful. How much more would success in doing by my kids breed comfort in me for allowing them to do more, and how much more success they would have.

Well, now Troy is out on his own, away from us. But for the most part, and against my fears, he is succeeding. And Joshua is growing up and reaching out in his own way and he is succeeding as well.

But what if the tightrope walker, with his new and trusting volunteer, wasn’t successful? What if there was a near fall? The tightrope walker might come back across the rope more carefully and, while helping his partner back to the audience, might ask himself, “Should I be doing this, or how could I do it better?” He might even be inclined to ask the audience and they might, perhaps, say something to help him.

If I were to allow my kids to do more they may well succeed, but they could also fail. But if they were to fail maybe they would come back a little wiser. Maybe some of their blind trust in their knowledge would be diminished. Maybe they would come a little to see that the experience of that old guy at home has some value. Maybe they might come home from the adventure and ask a question of him.

And, rather amazingly, this is what is happening. Not all has gone smoothly for Troy and he has had some binds to get out of. And when this happens we tend to see him more, and he talks to us and asks advice (things he never asked before) and working together we tend to solve the problems.

Joshua too is having some difficulties and certain things have been tense and upsetting for him. But we talk together (not always easily, but we do) and he confides. From this comes ideas to try and things in time tend to move forward.

All I know is that I have wanted control because I didn’t really trust, and too often I really have had little to trust in because I wanted to control. Within this circular trap there is no allowable ground for hope – neither hope in me for my kids, nor hope by my kids in me.

But circumstances have changed what I can do, and little by little, by the Parent Seminar and through my other pursuits, my outlook is changing. I have finally allowed myself just a little, in hope, to say…

Might I dare only to let go a little more,
To allow, in trust, for my kids to do
As I believe they can.
They might just show what they can do
And they also might just find what they cannot.
And from this faith might come increased trust
In each of us for the other
And more hope in each of us
All around.

And in this we might become just that much closer.

For from trust, in faith, comes hope.

It's Time Again for the Parent Seminar
Below is the message distributed recently by Larry Evans announcing the 2004 DCTS Parent Seminar. The Parent Seminar is always a wonderful event and it is never exactly the same twice. I am planning to attend for my fifth straight year. I hope you can be there as well. It is never too late to attend. -- John Borland --

Greetings DCTS Exploratory Parent Alumni and Friends,

It’s that wonderful time of year again. when I get to meet the parents and friends of the student's I've grown to love at Dauphin County Technical School. Each Spring I look forward to the Parent Seminar with increasing desire and this year even more.  It’s been a growing year for all of us and I’m looking forward to sharing the “wisdom” we've gained.

If you’ve attended in the past you will gain new insight into a fathomless subject area of Personal and Social Responsibility.

Please bring any interested person you may know—even your upper class teen if they want.  Let’s “team-up” to greater assure our children’s success. The attached document has the dates and details.
http://www.affectiveskill.com/OtherF/021504_2004_Seminar_Invitation.htm

Sincerely,

Larry Evans
9^th grade facilitator


Easing Back a Bit
I'm sure some of you have noticed that there has not been a meeting of the Parent Exploratory Group (PEG) since November 2003. I sincerely intended to schedule a PEG meeting for either January or early February, but have just not been able to get to it. This brings up a discussion that is difficult for me. I am not sure yet exactly what my decision means, but I believe I am going to have to ease back a bit on activities such as Words of Caring, the Parent Exploratory Group and the Affective Skills Web Site.

There are several reasons for this: I have entered into a new situation with my church over the last year that has significantly changed my schedule, there are also changes at work that are impacting me, and I am dealing with a new physical ailment over the last two months that is forcing me back into a heavy therapy and exercise schedule.

But most of all there are needs coming from my family. Joshua is almost twelve now and I can very much see the teenager in him beginning to emerge. I have written much here since our kickoff in December 2000 about my relationship with Troy and have indicated to you a great number of things that I could have done better with regard to him. I am learning to forgive myself for what I may have done, but I am also coming to better learn from my past. I will not focus myself away from Josh the way I did with Troy, but will devote myself to giving him all the attention he rightfully needs. Judy too very much deserves my time and I intend to honor her in this.

Unfortunately, this means that something has to give and our community activities are the one place I can see where I can adjust. I do not wish or plan to give up on all of you, but the schedules will likely have to change. I am still exploring, but Words of Caring may have to become a quarterly or even biannual newsletter and I would welcome an interested parent or friend to help with or take over organizing PEG.

This is a hard message for me to write as I love this work and all of you, but I would become false to you and to the words I have written in Words of Caring if I did not honor my family above even these efforts. After listening to Larry Evans at the Saturday Parent Seminar I know he has come to understand this and I hope you all do as well.

This is not at all good-bye as I plan, as I am able, to continue with our community, but I am also open any suggestions you might have for how to better spread and continue this work among us. We will see what happens and go on. Thanks. -- John Borland --

YOU MAKE THE DIFFERENCE IN WHAT WE CAN DO TOGETHER!

Thank you so much for your interest in and support for Words of Caring. Please e-mail AffectiveSkill@aol.com with your questions, comments, submissions or suggestions.

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Last Modified: March 06, 2004