“Meet them where they are” … good phrase, good attitude, good lesson. I’ve heard it used when talking about helping people in crisis, people unhoused, that sort of thing. A social worker might say, “…we meet them where they are to help establish rapport and a baseline of needs…”, something like that. The phrase has a connotation of compromise and ability to pivot to any given circumstance.

This phrase came to mind the last few days as I embarked on a road trip with my kids to the Central Coast. Pretty quickly after we got on the road, the metaphorical bumps began. And the bits of hits just kept coming.

Mind you, nothing was crazy problematic, but enough to create pause, friction, unease. It occurred to me initially and then kept washing over me again and again as it came to mind, “…meet all this where we are…”, realizing when I was unable to dictate things, and instead having to adjust, pivot, to continue moving forward.

And so I did. So we did. Vacation housing a little cattywampus? Ok. Adjust a bit, and it got better. Kids’ behavior not amenable all the time? Oh well (and when IS it actually that way for all three kids at the same time, all agreeable and in great moods, and all getting along ?!) . Kids would rather lounge and nap than get out, thus not seeing as many sites as I’d originally imagined the three days would offer …? No biggie, in the end.

Common theme to all this? Like the title says, “…meet them where they are…” , and so flipping the script to focus on what the kids’ want — after all, it’s their vacation too — that seemed to work better.

I did continue to struggle with some of their behavior choices, but overall I think we communicated and conveyed ok, found the middle ground and even ground and didn’t ground out as much as the week progressed.

And so it goes, lessons learned,

Thanks, Pismo ~~~