Even as the New Year dawns and I'm teased with new beginnings and bright possibilities, I'm also still mourning how the Old Year concluded with the terrible tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
I find that I keep vacillating between tears and numbness; I can only hold so much sorrow and despair before I have to shut down for a while and not feel.
Then slowly, the sadness and grief return.
What has touched me most in this ordeal is reading about Adam's mom, Nancy, and how it appears she was so isolated while dealing with her son's increasingly extreme social withdrawal.
Aside from a few conversations with casual friends, it appears that she faced her uncertainties, worries, and hard choices alone.
Her acquaintances are quick to describe her as happy and cheerful, but I imagine a different Nancy Lanza living behind the closed doors of her big beautiful home in Newtown.
I imagine a mom who desperately wanted her son to "fit in" and who was sick with worry about how to reach him as he slipped away, receding further and further into his own world.
This breaks my heart because it hits close to home for me.
When my son was diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder and we were dealing with some pretty severe behaviors day in and day out (and I, too, felt he was slipping away), there were times when I thought I would lose my mind.
If I hadn't had a couple good friends around me to hear my painful stories, to witness my struggles and to just be there to love me through it, I don't know how it would have turned out.
What I learned from that experience is it's easy to become isolated when you have a "problem" child.
It's hard to find sitters and play dates and friends who will go the distance with you.
I see this isolation often as I work as a parenting coach to parents who have children with challenging behaviors, whether it's violent outbursts or extreme social withdrawal or some other behavior that doesn't conform to what we as a culture find socially acceptable.
It's easy to wag a finger at the parent and find fault with their parenting.
It's easy to give well-meaning advice of just do this, and that should solve the problem.
But unless you've ever lived with a child who doesn't respond the same way as a "normal" child to "traditional" parenting techniques, then I'm here to tell you, "You don't have a clue!" What these parents need is not finger-wagging and advice, but compassion and acceptance, so that they feel like part of the human family again.
I imagine Nancy didn't feel comfortable and safe enough to let others know the full extent of what she was going through.
I understand that.
Many parents keep family business close to the vest for fear of being judged as bad, or inadequate, parents.
In our society, children who are well-mannered, polite and socially adept are seen as reflections of the "right" upbringing; while children who do not fit this mold are seen as reflections of less than competent parenting.
When there's pressure for families to look and behave in conforming and "perfect" ways, it is scary to let others see that all is not well behind the veil.
That there is conflict and confusion and times when you just lose it because you don't know what else to do.
We can second-guess Nancy and think, "if only she had done this, that, or the other," and we can blame her for taking Adam to shooting ranges and teaching him to fire a gun-just like we can judge other parents who have "weird" or "unruly" or "bully" kids.
But I don't think fault-finding helps anyone.
I think it fuels the shame and fear of judgment that parents of children who are "different" often feel.
And shame and fear is what keeps these parents and families isolated.
What I would like to see is for us to love and support the Nancy Lanzas in our communities-the parents who are struggling with family life, often very much alone.
If only I could get in a time machine and reach out to Nancy before this awful tragedy, I would ask her, "You seem worried.
What's going on? How can I help? What do you need?" I would listen with my whole heart and I would hold a safe non-judgmental space for her to share her struggles, and to begin to heal.
Because I know when parents heal their own pain, they can help their children to heal too.
When parents receive compassion and acceptance themselves, they can extend the same to their children...
and there are a lot of children out there starving for compassion and acceptance.
As a parenting educator/coach, I've seen the power of a group of parents who come together to support each other.
A foundation of my classes is developing empathic listening, so parents are paired up and spend time outside of class just listening to each other.
Not giving advice, not trying to fix or console, but just listening.
The parents are always astounded at how much this simple practice supports them.
As one mom recently said, "My friends and I talk all the time about parenting stuff, but this is a different quality of listening.
Something about it is transformative.
" Who knows what kind of ripple effect a supportive listening ear would have made for Nancy and possibly many other lives? Would it have been enough to change the trajectory of what was to come? It's too late to know the answer in regards to Nancy Lanza, but there are many struggling, exhausted parents out there right now who need our support-perhaps it's your neighbor, perhaps it's your sister-in-law, perhaps it's you.
My vision is a world where we create emotionally-safe, judgment-free communities where parents can come together, share their struggles, be accepted no matter what is happening or how they are handling it, and be supported and nurtured by each other.
If this sounds like the kind of community you would like to be a part of, I invite you to join me in this quest and reach out to a parent who is struggling in your community today.
Rest in peace...
Nancy, Allison, Ana Grace, Anne Marie, Avielle, Benjamin, Caroline, Catherine, Charlotte, Chase, Daniel, Dawn, Dylan, Emilie, Grace, Jack, James, Jesse, Jessica, Josephine, Lauren, Madeleine, Mary, Noah, Olivia Rose, Rachel, Victoria, and Adam.