Welcoming Remarks to Penikese's 35th Anniversary Celebration

Welcome, everyone, to Carnaval, Penikese Island School's 35th anniversary celebration. My name is Toby Lineaweaver, Executive Director, the person LEAST responsible for making this event possible and so successful, but allow me to take a minute to thank those who are responsible:

• First, I thank the Royal Three who did everything to make this event possible from the first spit-balled idea a year ago to the last detailed preparations in the final hour: event chairs Polly Kisiel and Pennie Hare, and from the school's development office, the extraordinary and unsinkable Suzanne Currier. 

• Next, on behalf of the school I extend our deepest thanks to all the others the co-chairs, the volunteers, staff and any others who contributed their valuable time and muscle to this event. 

• Next, we salute our community's kindest and most generous family for hosting this event and putting up so patiently with all this hoopla and disruption: Bill and Winnie Mackey, and the Greene family. 

• Last, I want to salute the Penikese Island School island staff, those who carry out this formidable and at times unheralded work of saving young lives. Without you we are nothing. 
  

If you didn't hear your name just now, that does not make your contribution to making Penikese Penikese any less valuable or appreciated. All our strength, our acclaim, our success comes from you, our vast community of supporters and believers. As one who has seen Penikese fortunes wane and wax over the years, I know first hand the collective importance of every thing that every one of you contributes. You ARE our success and you ARE Penikese, as much as any student or staff.

Speaking of students, I don't want to forget what our mission and all this hard work is all about, and who better to hear a few words about what Penikese has done for young lives than from the students themselves:

[A stirring speech by graduate Ben Gavin of Sudbury, MA]

Thank you, Ben. Sometimes when we are in the thick of the work we lost sight of the difference we are making, and testimony such as this always puts some fresh wind in our sails.

I want to close my remarks by expressing one final round of passionate thanks. I am sure some of you have noticed our beautiful new vessel anchored just offshore, the M/V Richard S. Edwards, named for the late Dick Edwards, a bigger than life man of Cadwalader-ian proportions, and the very person George Cadwalader himself suggested we name our new vessel for.

That boat being here tonight represents a first time ever Penikese dream come true: the success of a project to raise capital funds in excess of $1 million dollars for a new boat which you see here, and on the island a new dock and a new two story multiple use Boat House and Conference Room. This project is only the first of what we hope to be three successful phases of campaigning that will add value, capacity, strength and sustainability to Penikese, insuring that the school and its mission will be around for a very long time to come.

But never really having done this before, we regarded the first phase as the most important, and thus the folks we approached to kick this off with a bang as critical. I am excited, moved, overwhelmed and deeply grateful to report to you tonight that every one of those families we approached to make this critical first phase a success answered our need and challenge, and in doing so not only helped Penikese grow that much stronger, but signaled the importance of our mission while challenging future givers to follow with similar confidence.

Let me close then by thanking Peter and Ginny Nicholas and their family, Craig and Nancy Gibson, Mike and Gail Jackson, Bill and Winnie Mackey, and a Quissett neighbor from my boyhood, the wonderful Joan T. Wheeler.

Someday soon, we will be looking back and recognizing you few as the ones who helped change and transform Penikese forever.

I Want My Island Back

Every Wednesday we head out to Penikese Island to check in on the staff and students and conduct various school chores, if you will. For the most part the students welcome the midweek break in routine and often crowd the dock for the arriving boat to see who is onboard and if we remembered to bring the newspapers.

There are occasions when, rather than welcoming, the students are testy with visitors and the interruption to their routine. This is apt to occur during visitor’s trips when the island is suddenly awash with strangers and the students are forced to be on best behavior and help guide the tours. Sometimes the boys seem to regress into a proprietary irritation to the extent I have had them say to me “When are these people leaving? I want my island back.”

Inhospitable? Perhaps, but the students are as much evidencing their attachment to place and routine as their discomfort with extended company, and that’s a good thing. Though in their teens, most are developmentally younger, some never having had a stable experience upon which to establish secure developmental footing. Penikese is predictable and safe the way a family should be, and when facing stress or interruption, our students back themselves into their routine like a hermit crab into its shell. Though delayed, Penikese boys are essentially no different than any children who have their ways of letting us know that right here is where they need to be.

Consider this story from my own family: 10 years ago my middle son became gravely ill with meningitis and was abruptly whisked away along with his mother to Boston by Medivac. In a panic, I dumped his older brother with relatives and sped to the hospital and the ensuing two weeks became a whirlwind during which Christian, just three years old, got somewhat lost in the shuffle.

One night, however, I went to retrieve Christian from relatives and found myself lingering awhile to fill eager ears in on the latest news. Suddenly I realized that someone was yanking on my sleeve. I looked down and it was Christian, who was tugging me out the door saying, “Daddy, I want to go home and get on pajamas and read in bed!” I realized then that Christian was telling me that he needed his structure, rhythm and routine back, and now, Daddy! In other words, he wanted his island back, too.

Now as a young teenager he is in a different place, separating from home and exploring social groups, a later stage that depends on first having internalized the foundation of earlier ones such as above. On a shorter time scale, Penikese attempts to give its students the same: external structure, safe attachments and some time to catch up and consolidate. It is only after they have been able to safely “own” and internalize their island that they are then able to let it go and carry this experience of connection and structure into the real world, real world-equipped and ready for what's next to come.

Getting Real: Parent-Teen Breakthrough, part 2

As promised before, I am returning with some more thoughts and observations on Mira Kirshenbaum and Charles Foster’s above-named book, especially as it relates to our work on Penikese. The chapter I have been reading is “How to Get Your Needs Met,” (their emphasis) which centers on getting parents to focus on themselves and their feelings and needs rather than their child’s behavior. Wait a minute, isn't this book about changing our kid's behavior? 

In fact, no. It's about having a better relationship with our teens, and reaching this goal involves reordering our expectations and priorities. For instance, we all know why we are reading the book, and that is because we want to feel in control of or homes and lives, get along better with our kids and somehow make them behave better. But (big but), the only way we will reach this goal is if we first work at letting go of control and focus on our teens and put it on ourselves first. This can be a maddening and bitter pill: “This kid’s treating me like shit and I have to change? I mean how is how is that fair?” This is a good question, but we’d be wasting our time trying to answer it except, perhaps, by asking instead what if anything else has worked so far?

To the getting real part: Kirshenbaum and Foster give some sage advice when it comes to parents getting their needs met, the first and most important being “Make sure you say how you feel when you ask for what you want.” Sounds simple enough, except the concept of being open and honest to someone who by every indication could care less about how you feel doesn't exactly invite, shall we say. This especially true on Penikese, a place where saying something like, “Hey, I don’t like being treated like that” or “What you said made me angry (or hurt)” feels like you are exposing your guts and laying your emotional life on the line.

Just recently on Penikese I told a student who was behaving (I thought, anyway) mockingly and disrespectfully to me that I didn’t like the way he was treating me, and for my trouble was told to “man up” and then verbally assaulted with every homophobic and wimpy name in the book. Quite honestly, I did come away feeling abused, misunderstood, deeply insulted, ineffective and wondering why in Hell I chose this line of work in the first place.

Well, here’s what the authors say about this: “Sure, yelling your kid how you feel is not going to make him turn on a dime, and it’s not going to turn him into an angel. Nothing could do that (their emphasis). And at first telling him how you feel may not do anything at all that you can see. But it will help bring you one step closer to your teenager. Suddenly you’re a person, not just a demander or a criticizer. You’re someone to help, not fight.” 

To this I would add also that the student or child will get from you information about how his behavior impacts other people, and with that information he then can begin making choices, hopefully better ones. Meanwhile, I'll keep reminding myself that my strategy of getting real might not work the first time, it won't every time, but it will work (succeed) over time. Just gotta keep at it!

Parent/Teen Breakthrough: The Relationship Approach

I confess to not reading too many self-help and how-to books. So many of these books and the workshops claim to be the clinical or methodological authority, and that combined with the authors’ and presenters’ certitude (and, occasionally, dismissal of divergent views) and my occasionally shaky self esteem often have me walking away feeling more inadequate than uplifted.

Thankfully, a little realistic thinking can go a long way, which in this case consists mostly of reminding myself that these claims are more about marketing. The workshops and books themselves are actually focusing in on one aspect of the big picture or another for a little clinical refresher, a deeper discussion, a re-frame or some Devil’s Advocacy. The goal for me becomes trying to take away something useful, perhaps a new perspective on a common theme, to use in my every day work.

Then there are those books and workshops that come along once a while to kick up things up a notch and really get the creative thoughts and juices going, while at the same time serve in some way to encourage us that we are on the right track. For those of us at Penikese the most recent example of such a book is a one titled Parent/Teen Breakthrough: The Relationship Approach by Mira Kirshenbaum and Charles Foster, Ph.D.

First printed in 1991, the book itself is not new, nor is its message all that relevatory. Kirshenbaum and Foster explain what the errant control approach is and why, in the light of adolescent developmental tasks, it doesn’t work, and then how to gain more legitimate authority and influence via the relationship approach.

I find this book timely not just because of our work at Penikese, but also because my oldest of three sons has finally become a teenager. At the end of his very first full day of being 13, I remember saying to him, “You’ve been a teenager all of one day, and already it’s getting pretty damn tiresome!” Predictably, Christian replied in indignant tone, “Whaaat?” Not a good start, especially for one supposedly so knowledgeable about these things (me).

Anyway, here’s an example of how Kirshenbaum and Foster suggest a parent goes about avoiding falling into the control trap and building an influential and productive relationship with your teenager: “Work only at improving your relationship with your teenager. If you think something will improve your relationship, do it; if not, don’t.”

Now that has had me thinking the last few days, and I am not even finished with the book yet! I’ll keep reading and let you know how it goes.