Coming "out of the shadows"

Many things can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time. His blood is being formed, his bones are being made, his mind is being developed. To him, we cannot say tomorrow. His name is today.
- Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral

A recent discussion paper on the desperate state of children's mental health services in Canada includes this quote. It is apt because experts now know that most mental illnesses begin in childhood or adolescence and that early intervention is key.

And yet the growing number of kids and teens with mental illnesses like depression, anxiety, bipolar and other disorders face up to a year on waiting lists and the spectre of being bounced from one specialist to another and no co-ordination of services between school and the health care system. The cost to those children and families, and to the system over the long-term, is too high.

That's why Sarah Cannon and her 9-year-old daughter Emily are speaking out. You can read their story in the Star's Health section this week.

Cannon is optimistic the message is finally starting to be heard. Particularly after the release this spring of a report from the Senate Committee on mental health, led by Senator Michael Kirby. Titled "Out of the Shadows At Last," it deals with myriad issues related to mental illness for Canadians of all ages, and includes an entire section (Chapter 6) devoted to children and youth.

Cannon urges Canadians seeking political leadership to address the shortfalls in the system to contact their MPs and voice their support for the Kirby report. She doesn't want to see it gathering dust on a shelf somewhere.

For worried parents seeking information about mental health, here are some sites worth visiting:

Parents for Children's Mental Health is a support and advocacy network for parents across Ontario, led by Susan Hess of Windsor. Hess spent years trying to get help for her daughter, now in her 20s, and travels around the province reaching out to families in distress and rallying communities. When Hess stands up in front of a room to share her story, you can hear a pin drop.

Children's Mental Health Ontario includes information and avenues to access help, including a list of children's mental health centres.

The Canadian Mental Health Association has a site called Mental Health and High School for teens, parents and teachers and a page of links for children and youth mental health.

Mind Your Mind is a site written by youth for youth.

The Global Business and Economic Roundtable on Addiction and Mental Health has guidelines for parents that includes risk factors and signs and symptoms of mental health problems.

Stop and smell the July flowers

It's started. Already. The campers' paddles are barely wet. The preschoolers still can't get enough of the local splashpad. And we've got a ways to go before roadside stands are piled high with fresh corn on the cob.

But those mavens of mass consumerism just can't wait to start getting us revved up and spending for the season ahead. Yup. Three weeks into summer, and the display window of the local Gap Kids store is already themed for back-to-school. There are backpacks and diminutive dummies sporting denim skirts and tights with preppy sweaters thrown over their shoulders. On my desk, the press releases have started piling up from "experts" pitching products to boost your kids' study habits and prime their math brains for September.

It's enough to make a person scream for mercy and hide under the desk with a Popsicle.

Whatever happened to living in the present? Nowadays, before you're finished burping up the Thanksgiving dinner, the Christmas carols have taken over the sound system at Canadian Tire. Boxing Day morphs into Valentine's becomes Easter and then Mother's Day. There's no time of year when you shouldn't be out there buying stuff.

But summer! Leave it alone. We should at least be permitted a few lousy weeks of revelling in bare legs and ice cream trucks. Without being tainted with thoughts of falling leaves or pumpkins or 2-for-1 packs of Hilroy lined paper. September, as we all know, will get here soon enough.

Use your words, Zizou!

I had a flashback. It appeared while reading the latest instalment of the Zinedine Zidane saga, whereupon the French soccer hero apologizes - sort of - for headbutting an Italian trashtalker in the World Cup finals on Sunday. This happened, as you know, while one-quarter of the world's population looked on, many of them still in their prime years for hairpulling, pinching and smacking their siblings.

Here's what I pictured: A beautiful island in northern Ontario, a friend's cottage, where two mothers chat on lawnchairs as preschoolers splash close by in a giant puddle on the rocks. The three-year-old boy snatches a pail from the four-year-old girl. He refuses to give it back. But his feisty blond hostess is not inclined to put up with that behaviour for too long. You can just see her weighing her options - left fist or right - when her pro-active mother hollers out: "Words, Nickie! Use your WORDS!"

This mom did not qualify her instructions in any way. She did not say "use your words unless he calls you a poo-poo head, at which point you may smack." She did not say, "ask nicely three times, then kick him in the shins." It was unequivocal. No hitting. It's uncivilized. It worked.

So I ask you, if toddlers can grasp this, how come grown men can't? There's been no end of lip-reading and pontificating and justifying and arguing about what the head-buttee said to provoke the head-butter. About how soccer is tough and players are mean and racist and they cheat by diving and try to get under each other's skin. So what?

Bottom line: Zizou is a great player. He lost it because he was taunted. But you're not supposed to headbutt. He got kicked out. He deserved it. Enough already.

So simple a child could understand.

"There's nothing to do around here!"

It's week two. Are they bored silly yet? Driving you mad?

Maybe it's time for a little Joan Craven. She's an Alberta mother, grandma, former kindergarten teacher and farm girl who has no shortage of ideas for keeping your little livewires busy, inside in the rain, or outside in the sunshine. And we're talking about simple things that yes, we parents should be able to figure out by ourselves. But sometimes we're just too damned tired, frazzled or fed up to think of them.

What's that, you say? Whatever happened to kids figuring it out themselves? As we did? I share your pain. But the truth is, these days they need a push. Need the grownups to get them going. After all, they've been raised in a world where Gameboy and Dora are constantly beckoning, parents are time-pressed, childhood is structured and arranged for them, and too many toys and gadgets have stultified little imaginations.

Grownups need a push too, it seems. How else to account for the fact that every June, the parenting magazines get my teeth grinding with their summertime guides on steps for how to throw balls, fly kites, play tag and build sandcastles. How sad is that?

But back to Craven, whose book What Can I Do Today? is chock full of no-cost activities for kids aged 2 to 7. The book, laid out in kid-friendly format with an idea for each day of the calendar year, costs $17.95 and you can check it out and order it online. (Your sequential-minded orderly child will love the activity-per-day approach while the freewheelers will want to flip through and pick whatever strikes their fancy.)

Ideas range from a variety of memory games to shadow-tracing with sidewalk chalk. Remember how much kids love forts? Just throw a sheet over the kitchen table and get them to add their own furniture and pillows. Obstacle courses, indoor sand tables using cornmeal, rhyme games, window-washing. All ways to kill time involving stuff that's already in the house.

Craven herself says it's not rocket science. Flip through the book and you'll probably find yourself saying, "oh yeah, I remember that" or "why didn't I think of that myself." But that's the whole idea - she hopes her book will be a starting point for stressed parents who often can't think on their feet when the inevitable whine of "there's nothing to do" starts to echo around the house.

As an educator, Craven knows that to grow and develop, kids need to interact with their environment, use their five senses and play, play, play. With their friends or siblings, alone with their imaginations, and sometimes with adults.

"Hopefully, we can get parents and caregivers talking about the simple things you can do with kids rather than the complicated expensive things," she said today over the telephone from North Bay, where she has stopped amid her cross-country tour to meet families and hit kids' bookstores. She's collecting new ideas along the way and posting them regularly on her website.

After overcoming my initial skepticism and perusing the book, I'm decidedly in the mood to lie in the grass and look at cloud shapes or haul out some empty shoeboxes or sculpt my my name out of dried pasta. Sigh. Now, if only she'd come up with a version for teenagers . . .

Going buggy in the summer

I had almost forgotten about the bug jars. But it came over me in a wave yesterday, while mucking about in my marshy memories of summers at home with little kids.

Giant jars, tiny jars, plastic ones that once housed peanut butter and their glass counterparts for jam, which have way better lids for hammering holes in. They lined the counter some days and believe me, you can get used to cooking mac and cheese with crickets chirping over the noise of the kitchen fan and worms wriggling in the dirt beside you.

Watching and collecting creepy crawlies is an awesome summer pastime, capable of killing hours of boredom in all kinds of weather - through the hunting, the feeding, the watching, the freshening up of the critters' homes with fresh grass and dirt. And just think of all the teachable moments. Ladybugs and caterpillars are good to track in sunshine, worms and snails after rain. All the kiddies need is a shovel and pail. And some patience.

And then, when all is said and done and kids and creatures are snug in their beds, you have no end of storybooks to enhance your daytime theme. You know Eric Carle from The Very Hungry Caterpillar of course. He's created a whole bunch of other endearing wee characters too, from The Very Busy Spider to The Grouchy Ladybug to The Very Clumsy Click Beetle. But there are a whole colony of others to choose from - look here - and plenty of great rhymes by poets like Jack Prelutsky ("Bugs! Bugs!" in A Pizza the Size of the Sun).

Kids who are ready to take a more scientific approach will love Eyewitness Books like Insect or Pond and River or other bug anthologies.

You don't have to actually catch creatures to make an afternoon of it either. I used to kick my kids out to the backyard or front porch to watch spiders construct masterpieces, just like Charlotte. (Yes, I know spiders aren't insects). Ladybugs were usually left to fly away home. But some, you just can't resist bringing home for a few days.

Here are my favourites:

Caterpillars: If you're lucky, and very patient, you can actually watch the entire metamorphosis. Who knew? I never would have guessed, until early one morning I heard the oohs and aahs of a three-year-old who had spent many days staring hopefully at a pair of cocoons, diligently refreshing their jar with droplets of water and leaves. He waited. And waited. While his mother quietly hoped he would give up and forget. And then one day, there they were. Brilliant blue and orange wings flapping inside the glass. We took pictures while he stood in the centre of the lawn, opened the lid and watched them fly away to freedom.

Ants: I hate spending money on stuff you can make yourself. But when it comes to these eensy-weensy creatures, it's worth investing in one of these very cool ant farms. For $12.95 - the cost of renting a couple of DVDs - you get many more hours of entertainment. First, the kids have to fill it with sand and get it all ready. Then, they have to go outside and find the ants and collect them. Believe me, persuading them to get inside the container is no, ahem, picnic. But once the frantic fellows have settled down, you'll be hooked. And there's all that exemplary behaviour on display - co-operation, determination, sharing, enterprise. Then read aloud Elinor J. Pinczes' One Hundred Hungry Ants. It's got great rhythm. There's even a math lesson in there somewhere.

Crickets: These guys are so cheerful to have around. And fascinating too. If the kids look closely, they'll soon figure out that crickets don't make those chirps with their mouths. Complementary reading: Carle's The Very Quiet Cricket.

Snails: Go hunting for these in the garden after rain. Put them in a nice jar with some water and lettuce. There is nothing cuter and if you don't believe me, find your copy of Hurry Up Franklin with Brenda Clark's brilliant illustrations. That face. Those antennae! The more the merrier.

Now, get out in the mud.

Missing the early years

There's a knot been building in my chest lately and until today, I didn't know why.

It's summer. There are tiger lilies and cicadas zizzing in the afternoons and melting tar that sticks to your shoes. Jumbo freezies. The rumble of wheels starts outside my bedroom window at the crack of dawn as the parade of tricycles and wagons and strollers start rolling by.

I love this time of year, when you can hear children outside calling to each other after supper and smell the cut grass. I should be basking in contentment. But there's something else there instead.

I've been cruising around the parenting blogs lately and I think it's been stirring things up, making me wistful. Her Bad Mother is in a haze of sleep-deprivation. Over at Bub and Pie, little heads are curly following afternoon naps. Reading it, I can just feel a groggy baby's flushed cheek against mine. Hello Josephine gets out her sidewalk chalk. And Mom 101's daughter just turned one.

I'm lapping it up. But more and more finding myself preoccupied with trying to somehow recapture, just for a few minutes, a time and place I never prepared myself to leave. Even though it's long gone and I know there is no going back.

My babies are grown. It's summer and no one is throwing sand. There are no yellow plastic dump trucks in my flowerbed, no squeals of excitement as plump little legs wobble away from the long arm of the cold sprinkler. No circle of dead grass where the plastic wading pool used to sit.

When did I stop slamming the popsicles against the counter and doling them out by halves? Where are the jars of snails and caterpillars that used to line the mantel? I can't remember the last time someone picked me a bouquet of dandelions.

Recently, there was a twinge of recognition when one of my favourite bloggers wrote "it's shaping up to be a long, long summer . . . " I remember feeling that way every single year, 'round about the second week of July. Because the days can be hard when there's no nursery school and your friends are on holidays and it's too hot to push a stroller and no one seems to be napping and the toddler has heat rash and the baby's teeth are coming in and you just feel so so weary and stuck.

But then one day - so much faster than you think and before you can even absorb the significance - they're biking off to the park on their own. Bugging you for change to get a slurpee on the way home.

They trade in the wagon for a skateboard and no longer notice the garbage trucks.

And you start thinking about putting in more hours at work, and reclaiming your life a bit, getting together with your girlfriends without any toddlers underfoot. Once in awhile you can even nip out for a plate of pasta with your spouse and leave the kids at home with a video.

This summer, for the first time in 17 years, we will be home for a brief period with no children. They will all be off on various overlapping adventures.

Three of the four are now bigger than I am. I can reach up and hug them goodbye, but it's not the same as hoisting them on my knee and feeling their chubby arms in a stranglehold around my neck. Their eyes and their focus have started aiming outward at the rest of the big beckoning world. Mine has shifted too. It's exciting. It's necessary. But sometimes hard.

There are so many things - from the exhilarating and poignant to the miserable and robotic - that I swore I'd never forget from those blurry, busy years. But it's not as easy as I thought to reach in through the cobwebs and pull out the memories at will.

So today, despite that lump in my throat, I'm grateful for the online adventures I read about that help bring some of them back. Making me happy and sad and proud and thankful all at the same time.

Trainspotting

The following also appears in the Life Section of today's Toronto Star, as part of a regular monthly column.

It takes a lot to impress the generation raised on MSN and Disney special effects. But a freight train thundering past the foot of the bed will do it.

On the north shore of Lake Superior, in a haven of Canadiana called Rossport, tiny cabins face the sparkling waters. And in between, a stone’s throw away, the railway tracks that long, long ago were stubbornly pummelled onto the Canadian Shield.

A crop of kids and too many years of sleep deprivation have left us with little patience for being woken up. But on this magical July evening, we were happy to pay for the privilege.

Can’t you hear the whistle blowing,
Rise up so early in the morn!

Oh yeah, and half-a-dozen times overnight. Is there any choice, once the beds start to shimmy and the windows rattle? You simply can’t resist leaping up to peer through the screen door into the inky sky, listen to the clackety-clack and feel the wind brush your cheeks as the mighty beast chugs by.

There’s not much sleep to be had here, but you can’t get any closer to the national dream.

At breakfast, the hotel guests, a potpourri of middle-aged bikers with tattoos and gleaming Harleys, a couple of families and a sprinkling of empty-nesters, compare notes over high stacks of pancakes and — of course — Canadian maple syrup.

“Mum, that girl from Ottawa? She slept through every single train!”

Later, the innkeeper with the twinkle in his eye — who years ago sailed across the roiling Great Lake waters from Michigan and never went back — takes the boys down to the tracks. Shows them how to tape their pennies to the rails. Tells them about the railway guy who sometimes hides in the woods with his radar gun to catch speeding trains.

Hear that faraway whistle? That means the next one is six minutes away.

Kids these days. All short attention spans and instant gratification. But beside the iron road that runs from sea to sea, they sit patiently. Waiting. Listening. Feeling the rumble build beneath their feet. Off in the distance I think I can I think I can I think I can. And then! The glint of sun on metal. Around the bend it shrieks. You can be ready, but it never fails to make you jump.

Little boys wave until the last car is a speck on the horizon.

What is it about children and trains? Brio. Electric train sets. Thomas the Tank Engine and Gordon and Percy.

But nothing, nothing, captivates like the real thing.

Around the north shore, the trains are never far away, following us through Marathon, Terrace Bay, Schreiber. Even if they aren’t in sight, you can always hear them. They snake their way around rocky cliffs at Neys Provincial Park, high above the beaches soft as baby powder and littered with sun-bleached driftwood piled up like so many dinosaur bones.

“Look, there’s another one!”

The record was 109 cars, at the Lakehead. The 10-year-old counted. That’s a lot of logs and wheat and auto parts. A lot of spikes and railway ties, teardrops and toil.

This is summer holidays. No history lessons, puh-leeze. But — how old did you say those train tracks are? Who swung all those hammers? It took them how long?

Driving down the highway, they want to hear that song again. You know, the one about a time when the green dark forest was too silent to be real.

Back home in Toronto, we only see subways. Not so many big skies and open spaces.

But there on the dressers sit the discs of smooth shiny copper. Look closely and you can just make out the barest outline of a maple leaf.

Raising Canadians - a quiz

It's easy to start instilling Canadiana in the children early. Right after you've heaved a grateful sigh of relief for the publicly-funded health care system that got you through the previous nine months.

So today, let's celebrate the abundance of Canadian-made songs, poetry and stories for babies, toddlers, preschoolers and early readers. In honour of the quiz mania that sweeps this great land every July 1, may I present my own. The topic: best kidstuff.

Can you name the titles and creators that go with some of my favourite snippets below? They are phrases taken from works that, to me, represent the best of the Canadian imagination.

Come back next week for a list of answers. Because if you haven't yet discovered these wonderful works, summer's the ideal time to do so. You won't find better books and music to snuggle up with.

In the meantime, post some lines from your own Canadian favourites using the comments link below.

Here we go:

1)  Lullaby lullaby
     Baby fuss and baby cry
     You'll be sleeping by and by
     Sleepy little baby

2)  He could count forwards and backwards. He could zip zippers and button buttons.

3)  I'm gonna shake, shake, shake my sillies out
     Wiggle my waggles away . . .

4)  Allosaurus, stegosaurus
     Brontosaurus too
     All went off to dinner at the
     Dinosaur zoo;

5)  "Hmmm," he said as his scissors went snip, snip, snip and his needle flew in and out and in and out, "There's just enough material here to make . . . "

6) I love you in the morning and in the afternoon
    I love you in the evening, underneath the moon

7)  And what if . . .
     EVERYTHING was purple
     I mean a WHOLE PURPLE WORLD
     And there was someone just like me
      I mean a purple sort of girl

8)  "I shall never forgive Gilbert Blythe," said Anne firmly. "And Mr. Phillips spelled my name without an e, too. The iron has entered into my soul Diana."

9)  Clang, clang, rattle-bing-bang
     Gonna make my noise all day

10) "I'm Uncle Roy's nephew and I want to go to sea." "Ahh," said the woman, nodding her head. "Come in my little sailor."

11) There were five children, counting the Pollywog, and their names all began with the letter P. Why that should be no one was quite sure but Father said it was done purposely so that it would be easier to divide up the silverware when they all got married.

12)  A mother held her new baby and
       very slowly rocked him back and forth,
       back and forth, back and forth.

13)  My Mom doesn't understand about red.

14) "Take some," said the midnight tow truck driver. "Take as much as you need. You can never get enough red licorice you know. It's good for you and it gives you big muscles."

15)  Old Mister Johnson had troubles of his own
      He had a yellow cat that wouldn't leave his home.

16)  He was two plus two plus two years old.

Your turn.

Happy Canada Day.