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Dad Diary

An annoying thing happened at my child's school. His teacher inexplicably disappeared for three months--and the district, frantic for coverage, hired a sixteen-year-old replacement. No, she was not sixteen. But she was pretty close.


My shrewd son quickly sussed out the truth--the new teacher was not adequately familiar with her "steering wheel." No one was captain of the ship. This caused distress for my son--who could not express his distress in complex sentences. So he began to pull down his pants.


Pulling down one's pants is a not uncommon choice in the context of a speech delay. But the choice was terrifying for the sixteen-year-old--who chose not to share her concerns with my spouse or with me. To me, this choice has just a whiff of (unexamined) homophobia. It's hard to believe--if my child had a mom--the situation would have been handled in the same way.


Long story short. My son essentially lost three months of instructional time because the classroom was spinning out of control--and my husband and I were left to make inferences that should not have been inferences. There should have been clear communication. Cosmically, this is not a big deal. All is well.


But I write to share something I learned from this. It's called DEARMAN. When I have a difficult conversation, I feel rudderless. I have no idea how to construct sentences. But DEARMAN has made my life easier. It's a step-by-step guide to delivering your messages. Describe what happened. Emote. Ask for a concrete change. Then I don't know the rest of the acronym--because the rest does not matter. The crucial step is to emote. If you do not explicitly name your emotions, people will be left to wonder--because we human beings are not very bright. Naming the feeling helps everyone--it helps all parties in the conversation.


So that's my TED Talk. I know things now--many wonderful things--that I hadn't known before.

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