Interview with Lisa Campbell
Owner of 'My Roller Coaster Kid'

Dot Com Woman Of The Month (April 2007)

When you visit My Roller Coaster Kid, you will realize that almost every Mom can identify partly with the writer. The owner of the website, Lisa Campbell is a Mom of three kids, a successful work at home parent and a woman who has the ability to laugh away the most difficult situation. Her blog 'Parenting an Intense Child - Life with my Rollercoaster Kid' is filled with everyday challenges that any Mom would love to read.

She is here to talk to Dot Com Women visitors about her challenges in parenting her 'intense' kids, her work from home job of 12 years and keeping her sanity while balancing kids, work and family. She shares her inspirational experiences and secrets for success in this exclusive interview, hoping to reach out to millions of moms out there who are reading this.

1. Tell us about your life before marriage and how marriage and later, kids changed it.

Wow, we’re really going back here. I will have been married for 20 Years this August but this isn’t my first marriage. Back when I was young and not particularly bright (apparently), I lived with and then married someone that was, to put it politely, a sociopath. We divorced about 18 months after we got married. From there I led a somewhat haphazard lifestyle. Looking back on that time in my life now is like watching a movie that you know you’ve seen but barely remember. I know now that I was quite lost. I had no direction in my life.

As I think of what to say here I keep picturing a fly caught between two panes of glass in a window. You know how sometimes you see that and you open the screen to the outside to let the fly go out but it’s just too focused on where it is right then and there that it can’t see the opening to freedom mere inches away? That was me.

My parents finally convinced me to move in with them in another city (that was the open window). My mother got me a part time job doing book keeping in a nursing home on weekends and I got a full time job baking in a donut shop nights. From there I started to “find myself”. I know that’s so cliché but there is no other way to really describe the process. I took stock of who I was and didn’t like it much. I decided to fix me and went about it by setting goals for myself – leaving little notes to me all over the place reminding myself of what needed to change and what needed to improve. Over time I started to feel better about myself and felt much more defined as a person.

I met my husband in 1986 and we married a year later. It’s funny, but the only person that really wanted to get married was him. You see, he is 8 years younger than me which made him 17 when we met and 18 when we married. And in spite of his over developed maturity, I thought he would regret getting married so young. At this point I admit I was wrong <grin>. I would have been happy to live together in a committed relationship but he was insistent that I was wrong to worry about him and managed to convince me to tie the knot.

Our marriage has been a lot of trial by fire. We hit the ground running with infertility issues that I had and spent a lot of our time invested in that…. Going from doctor to doctor, leading us eventually to invitro fertilization attempts and applications for adoption. It was very emotional and trying and sometimes I feel that we lost time to our focus on having a family – but on the other hand, I believe we learned more about each other in “the fire” than we would have without it.

I’m sure that if I hadn’t known that I was unable to conceive when we met, we wouldn’t have started our married life that way but we knew that time was a factor and decided not to wait to start working on it. As it turned out, all the fertility treatments failed and we were blessed with our first child a little more than 7 years after we were married through adoption.

Our son, “The Pie” was the light at the end of the tunnel, the being responsible for making the sun rise and the stars shine! I was going to be the PERFECT parent! After all, I’d spent 7 years (and more) thinking about it and imagining what it would be like. I had watched other parents and their children and I could point out every fault, every mistake a parent made and swore I’d never do “that”.

The first night we had him home he cried all night and I sat with him in my arms and cried right along with him. I had NO IDEA what I was doing. That reality hit me fast and hard. Fortunately things got better. We all adjusted to the three of us and life was good. When he was about 2 years old we decided to apply to adopt again and our social worker floored us by arriving a few weeks after this decision with the news that there was a baby boy. His mother had chosen us from our profile and had left him at the hospital. However, our joy turned to devastation because after a week of having him home with us, his birth mother changed her mind and took him back. His name was Adam. More trial by fire.

Eventually though we adopted the “Dervish” (the child that inspired my web site) and 4 years later, his sister.

Marriage has taught me to compromise, that being right isn’t always what’s important and to trust. I don’t think in and of itself it has significantly changed my life – I have a person who knows me – all of me and accepts me the way I am and that is different than when I was single but I still am an independent person with my own thoughts and opinions (that often times don’t match his) so the difference is… I have him… we have each other.

My children, on the other hand, have a knack of showing me how little I know, shining big bright spotlights on my imperfections and make me re-assess my self and my decisions almost minute to minute without ever realizing they are doing it. Your partner, husband, significant other… your person doesn’t challenge you the way children do. When you have children, suddenly every decision is important and needs to be evaluated for merit, fairness, educational purposes, it’s effect on your authority, it’s effect on the child and about a million other things that sometimes you don’t think about until after the decision has been made. No one can make me second guess myself more than my children – they are all powerful!

Last week the Dervish asked us if he and his sister could go to the park … alone. I’m sure that the highest powers of government don’t anguish over some of their decisions the way that we did over this one. Children have changed my life because it used to be all about me or all about “us” – now it’s all about “them”. And that’s the way it should be.

2. Why did you choose to start working from home and when and how was it accomplished.

When The Pie was born the extent of parental leave where I live for an adopted child was 6 weeks. I just couldn’t imagine bringing home this infant that I had waited 7 long years for and then going back to work full time after 6 weeks so I went to the owner of the company I work for and suggested a plan for me to work from home.

Fortunately he was amazingly understanding about the concept – especially since he was young and single – and we worked out an arrangement that allowed me to work from home for 6 months.

After that we agreed on a part time “in the office” schedule that was to slide towards full time once the Pie was in school full time. However, as it turned out, that never happened because Dervish arrived on the scene just before I would have had to go back full time and now The Girl still has another year of part time school. So it’s been 12 years of working from home part time.

3. Tell us more about your work.

I’m an IT Manager for a small group of companies. I use the word “manager” lightly because basically, I’m all there is. I run the network, do hardware and software, user support, literature, web sites, printed material – pretty much anything that has to do with the computer – it’s my job.

Probably the most interesting part of that is that I learned it “on the job”. I was initially hired as a “girl Friday” (I don’t think anyone would even advertise a job that way anymore – it’s not very politically correct!). There was one computer in the office and it ran a DOS program that we used for accounting. I’d never even used a computer before that. I started experimenting with it and the next thing I knew I was the designated computer person in the office.

I have my own business that I play with in my “spare time” I like to do design work, logos, and websites. I have a real artsy creative side that screams at me a lot and so that’s how I express that.

4. When did you start 'My Roller Coaster Kid'? Tell us more about the website.

My Roller Coaster Kid is about the Dervish child. You’ve noticed that I don’t name my children either here or on the site – I don’t want to increase the chance that someone I or they know will recognize them on the site – it could be embarrassing for them and it would probably limit what I say if I had to keep that in mind. So I’ve nicknamed them, The Pie (the oldest), The Dervish (the middle one) and The Girl – the girl.

The site was born in January 2006. There were a few things going on, one of which is that I was experimenting with producing my own web sites and the other significant thing was that I was pulling my hair out with my very intense, emotional, high strung 6 year old son.

So I created “My Roller Coaster Kid” because it was something that I knew about and I had tried to find information about intense children with little success and, sometimes it helps me to write about things so I thought in addition to maybe other people finding the stories about our lives helpful, I might find it helpful to write about it.

Although the site was created because of the Dervish, it’s now a lot about him and a lot about The Girl because she is a mirror image of him.

On the site I talk about the kids and the things they do and I talk about successes and failures in parenting and disciplining them.

5. Please share with us the challenges faced by you in parenting your kids and how you dealt with them.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the only child you don’t have a challenge with is the one you are totally in sync with…. And I don’t think that happens very frequently.

One of my challenges is a combination of wide age gaps (the children are all around 4 years apart). This makes finding things to do as a family somewhat difficult as there isn’t much that’s geared for ages 4-12 so we tend to do things that are unstructured, like going to the beach, camping, swimming, amusement parks where there is a little bit for everyone.

The two youngest are my greatest challenge because not only are we not in “sync” personality wise – I simply don’t understand the way they work. However, you don’t have to ‘understand’ something to accept it and that’s what I work on, accepting the differences – especially emotionally.

I can easily see how the intense personality traits will be wonderful assets as adults, how the ability and desire to focus on one thing for great lengths of time is something that can be a great asset in many potential career choices, how having strong powerful emotions equates to “passion” and “fire” that will drive them reach their potential and turn dreams into reality. Whenever I’m feeling frustrated – this is what I try to focus on.

I also tell them this stuff. They can tell sometimes that I don’t “get them” and they can see my frustration so they need to know that while I do get frustrated, that I don’t want them to be different, that I accept them and that I think that their ‘stuff’ is valuable.

6. Any other parenting tips for Moms reading your interview?

“We are the mirrors in which our children see themselves”

Children need to feel good about them selves. That doesn’t mean that we go around telling them they are perfect or mounding on piles of praise all the time but how we treat them and how we respond to them is going to impact how they feel about themselves.

There is no such thing as cookie cutter parenting – no “one size fits all” solutions. You might find the odd thing here and there that works for each of your children but that’s rare – you have to parent each child individually working “with” them and their personalities, level of understanding and developmental skills.

I place a high value on parenting advice and parenting books. Not because I think that one person a corner on parenting but I think everyone knows at least a few things of value and even though some things won’t work “out of the box” you can adapt ideas to fit your families needs and your children. Often ideas that I have are variations of something I’ve read, heard or seen that are adapted to work for me.

I think though that my best advice would be to follow the ‘golden rule’ in parenting. Don’t do anything to your child that you wouldn’t want done to you.

For example, you’ve taken the kids to the park, they’re having a wonderful time playing a game or just swinging in the swing. You check your watch and it’s time to go for dinner so you call out – ok, let’s go! And your 2 year old starts to melt down.

Turn it around – you’re at a party, you’re having a fantastic time catching up with friends and having a laugh a minute. Right in the middle of a conversation your significant other walks up and takes you by the arm and says “let’s go now” and expects you to do so.

What’s the difference? You’d be annoyed, frustrated, perhaps even angry or outraged and, if you were two, you might melt down.

Now if before the party he had said I have an early business meeting and I’m going to have to make it an early night so can we plan to leave at 11?... one way or the other you work it out…. With the kids in the park you can do a similar thing, let them know that you have X amount of time for the park and then you have to go home (before you even leave for the park) then, since their internal clocks aren’t terribly well developed you start reminding them – the “10 minute warning” – Ok guys, we have to go in 10 minutes so have a few more slides… then again 5 minutes before and again 2 minutes… you give them the chance to switch gears and leaving isn’t meltdown material.

There’s more you can do with that, especially with intense kids but that’s the short version.

7. How did you successfully manage your work along with your kids and other household duties?

I’m not sure that I’m ready to say that I’ve been successful yet. Sometimes I am, and sometimes – not so much. If I’ve been successful at it, it’s balance and support. Maybe some women can be “all that” but I’m not one of them most of the time – I have to count on the support of others to pick up the slack.

8. Has your family, especially your husband, been supportive throughout? Any other people who were instrumental in your success?

Yes. My husband and play a great game of “switch out” – we both are pretty good at determining when the other needs to be relieved and we just step in and take over on those occasions. He does the things I’m not good at, both with the kids and with the house duties and I do what he isn’t good at.

I have an understanding employer – who accepts that I’m not always 100% but knows that sometimes I’m 150%

And then there’s my mother who is probably the backbone of the operation. She moved into our basement apartment about 6 years ago and whenever there’s any slack, she picks it up. She helps with the kids, helps with the house and is very supportive.

9. Your secrets for success in a Work at Home Business?

Be a night owl. I’m not sure how other people do it – I’m not an organized person and I’m not terribly self disciplined so now I do most of my work at night when possible. When the kids were babies it was easier to get things done during the day but it’s difficult when you have a 4 year old doing the “play with me mommy” dance.

You just have to find your own groove and ride it.

10. Any future plans for your kids, your business or your personal life?

Well, as I mentioned – we’ll be celebrating our 20th anniversary this year so we plan to have a re-commitment ceremony of some sort but it’s tentatively set to happen next spring in the Bahamas – The plan is to include the kids in the ceremony because it’s not just a marriage any more, it’s a family commitment.

I’m hoping to expand my own business – I have a goal that some day it will be more than just a hobby but that remains to be seen.

Personally, I just want to keep growing as a person and as a parent – to continue developing my relationships with my children.