A Lesson In Non-Therapeutic Parenting
I often think T deserved a different family.
He clearly had the most difficulties of any child at the Big House at the time he was there.
The nannies ignored him, clearly out of frustration with how to deal with him.
They gave us pitying -- and somewhat judgmental, I felt -- looks of "Are you up for him?"
For good reason.
Today, and many days, I don't feel like I'm up for him.
He needs a Mommy with an inexhaustable supply of patience. Or even one with a lot of patience.
I used to think I was a patient person. He has taught me I am not.
I read about other Moms with attachment-disordered children and how calm and patient they are through every meltdown, tantrum, and attachment-related misbehavior. I try. I really try. But I think I fail more often than I succeed.
I pick him up at after school care -- which he's not even supposed to be going to any more because in August I requested to cut my hours at work so that he could cocoon more with me and spend less time running wild with other mouthy, dispresctful kids -- but lucky for me someone quit right at the same time and now I have even more clients and more work so he's still STUCK in after-school care and I CAN'T ATTACHMENT PARENT from my office, and there's no relief in sight -- and he's deliberately pokey about getting out of there.
He knows he doesn't have time to dawdle, because I've shouted across the room that I have to get him to soccer, and if it were his father picking him up, he'd have been out of there five minutes ago, but because it's me, dawdle he does.
And then I ask him where his water bottle is and he points to his backpack and I ask him if it has water in it and he says no.
So I tell him that it needs to have water in it for soccer and now we start with the grumpies. Again, if it were Daddy, no problem. He'd take the water bottle out of his backpack and go fill it up, but for me it has to be a big production.
But I do my therapeutic parenting and remain calm and tell him to go fill it up and ignore the whining and the antics and the time wasting. What do I care if he's late to soccer? See, I'm using that "get underneath them" technique.
And then he comes back from the sink holding the bottle out to me and whining for me to carry it and he's almost seven years old and I am not carrying a water bottle for him when he has nothing else in his hands.
And we're walking through the daycare facility with him whining and trying to shove his water bottle at me and I'm calmly ignoring him, fists clenched shut so he can't try to shove it in my hands and arms to my sides so he can't get at my hands.
Because he's foiled at that, he starts with Plan B. To whine about his Halloween costume.
Daycare, which he has to go to all day on Monday because it's Indigenous Peoples Day and thus school is closed, is having their Halloween party on Monday. Which I found out about earlier this week when there were sign up sheets for parents to bring in things for the party. I don't normally do drop-off/pick-up, but I do from time to time and there it was on a note at the top of a sign-up sheet.
And I thought "Uh-oh, I just ordered his costume and it might not be here in time and if it's not we're kind of sunk because he wore his king cobra snake costume for pajamas all winter and wore them completely out and he's got nothing and I am NOT buying two costumes for one kid for Halloween."
And sure enough, they are putting up the decorations today and so when the water bottle thing doesn't get a rise out of me, he starts in with this. "Why did you order my costume so late? The party is on Monday and my costume won't be here before then. You didn't order my costume on time. Why did you order it so late? I'm not going to have a costume to wear because YOU ORDERED IT TOO LATE," and on and on.
I considered taking him straight home and grounding him from soccer today, but attachment therapy teaches us that movement is good for our kids and not to pull them from any sports-related actvities they participate in as a consequence for misbehavior.
So instead, I snapped.
For probably a half a dozen reasons, not the least of which was having spent 10 years being the brunt of everything that was wrong in my ex-husband's life and when I left that man I thought I left being verbally abused behind, but here I am now with a SIX-YEAR-OLD child who will yell at me "What's wrong with you? Why didn't you see that van? Are you stupid?" and now he's berating me for not buying a Halloween costume in what he considers to be a timely manner, when I was, at the time, proud of myself for getting to it before his size was sold out.
And if it were me berating my mother, she would have made me eat a spoonful of hot pepper or my father, if he were around to hear it, would have slapped me across the face into tomorrow, and my parenting patience reservoir just wasn't filled enough by the parenting I received to be able to adequately deal with an attachment-challenged child who falls on the storm clouds and thunderbolts side of the attachment spectrum.
I grabbed him by the straps of his backpack, got down on his level, looked him straight in the eyes, and screamed until my already sore throat was even more sore.
"I ORDERED THAT COSTUME THE DAY AFTER YOU ASKED FOR IT. IF YOU EVEN COME CLOSE TO COMPLAINING ABOUT IT ONE MORE TIME, YOU WILL NOT WEAR IT FOR HALLOWEEN AND YOU WILL NOT GO TRICK OR TREATING! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!!!!"
So much for getting under him. So much for caring less than he cares. So much for using two choices or empathizing or doing time in or strong sitting or any of the hundred other techniques that float around out there for "how to cure your child's attachment issues." None of them seem to work and I lose it after just so much button pushing.
Yes, this one needed that nice, patient lady who makes the You Tube videos on attachment parenting and whose advice never works for me, but she could probably make it work in her house. She probably never snaps at her kids because they yell at her for ordering their Halloween costumes too late for the October-fricking-8th Halloween party at daycare.
.
He clearly had the most difficulties of any child at the Big House at the time he was there.
The nannies ignored him, clearly out of frustration with how to deal with him.
They gave us pitying -- and somewhat judgmental, I felt -- looks of "Are you up for him?"
For good reason.
Today, and many days, I don't feel like I'm up for him.
He needs a Mommy with an inexhaustable supply of patience. Or even one with a lot of patience.
I used to think I was a patient person. He has taught me I am not.
I read about other Moms with attachment-disordered children and how calm and patient they are through every meltdown, tantrum, and attachment-related misbehavior. I try. I really try. But I think I fail more often than I succeed.
I pick him up at after school care -- which he's not even supposed to be going to any more because in August I requested to cut my hours at work so that he could cocoon more with me and spend less time running wild with other mouthy, dispresctful kids -- but lucky for me someone quit right at the same time and now I have even more clients and more work so he's still STUCK in after-school care and I CAN'T ATTACHMENT PARENT from my office, and there's no relief in sight -- and he's deliberately pokey about getting out of there.
He knows he doesn't have time to dawdle, because I've shouted across the room that I have to get him to soccer, and if it were his father picking him up, he'd have been out of there five minutes ago, but because it's me, dawdle he does.
And then I ask him where his water bottle is and he points to his backpack and I ask him if it has water in it and he says no.
So I tell him that it needs to have water in it for soccer and now we start with the grumpies. Again, if it were Daddy, no problem. He'd take the water bottle out of his backpack and go fill it up, but for me it has to be a big production.
But I do my therapeutic parenting and remain calm and tell him to go fill it up and ignore the whining and the antics and the time wasting. What do I care if he's late to soccer? See, I'm using that "get underneath them" technique.
And then he comes back from the sink holding the bottle out to me and whining for me to carry it and he's almost seven years old and I am not carrying a water bottle for him when he has nothing else in his hands.
And we're walking through the daycare facility with him whining and trying to shove his water bottle at me and I'm calmly ignoring him, fists clenched shut so he can't try to shove it in my hands and arms to my sides so he can't get at my hands.
Because he's foiled at that, he starts with Plan B. To whine about his Halloween costume.
Daycare, which he has to go to all day on Monday because it's Indigenous Peoples Day and thus school is closed, is having their Halloween party on Monday. Which I found out about earlier this week when there were sign up sheets for parents to bring in things for the party. I don't normally do drop-off/pick-up, but I do from time to time and there it was on a note at the top of a sign-up sheet.
And I thought "Uh-oh, I just ordered his costume and it might not be here in time and if it's not we're kind of sunk because he wore his king cobra snake costume for pajamas all winter and wore them completely out and he's got nothing and I am NOT buying two costumes for one kid for Halloween."
And sure enough, they are putting up the decorations today and so when the water bottle thing doesn't get a rise out of me, he starts in with this. "Why did you order my costume so late? The party is on Monday and my costume won't be here before then. You didn't order my costume on time. Why did you order it so late? I'm not going to have a costume to wear because YOU ORDERED IT TOO LATE," and on and on.
I considered taking him straight home and grounding him from soccer today, but attachment therapy teaches us that movement is good for our kids and not to pull them from any sports-related actvities they participate in as a consequence for misbehavior.
So instead, I snapped.
For probably a half a dozen reasons, not the least of which was having spent 10 years being the brunt of everything that was wrong in my ex-husband's life and when I left that man I thought I left being verbally abused behind, but here I am now with a SIX-YEAR-OLD child who will yell at me "What's wrong with you? Why didn't you see that van? Are you stupid?" and now he's berating me for not buying a Halloween costume in what he considers to be a timely manner, when I was, at the time, proud of myself for getting to it before his size was sold out.
And if it were me berating my mother, she would have made me eat a spoonful of hot pepper or my father, if he were around to hear it, would have slapped me across the face into tomorrow, and my parenting patience reservoir just wasn't filled enough by the parenting I received to be able to adequately deal with an attachment-challenged child who falls on the storm clouds and thunderbolts side of the attachment spectrum.
I grabbed him by the straps of his backpack, got down on his level, looked him straight in the eyes, and screamed until my already sore throat was even more sore.
"I ORDERED THAT COSTUME THE DAY AFTER YOU ASKED FOR IT. IF YOU EVEN COME CLOSE TO COMPLAINING ABOUT IT ONE MORE TIME, YOU WILL NOT WEAR IT FOR HALLOWEEN AND YOU WILL NOT GO TRICK OR TREATING! DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!!!!"
So much for getting under him. So much for caring less than he cares. So much for using two choices or empathizing or doing time in or strong sitting or any of the hundred other techniques that float around out there for "how to cure your child's attachment issues." None of them seem to work and I lose it after just so much button pushing.
Yes, this one needed that nice, patient lady who makes the You Tube videos on attachment parenting and whose advice never works for me, but she could probably make it work in her house. She probably never snaps at her kids because they yell at her for ordering their Halloween costumes too late for the October-fricking-8th Halloween party at daycare.
.
Oh Karen...I am right there with you. I don't have an attachment-challenged kid, but I have attachment challenges of my own and also have no idea how to deal with non-compliance - never mind sass and attitude - when the same behavior from me as a kid would have prompted my father to take out his belt. I don't know where my patience went either, but it has been MIA from the moment I became a mother.
ReplyDeleteHang in there.
Me too Karen on the snapping. I work full time and real attachment parenting is impossible. Who knows about being with another family? I have a bio child and an adopted child and maybe both of them would do better in a another family. But for sure both of them could do worse in other families too. We have each other. We're not perfect. That's life. It's OK you're not perfect. So he'll learn things from the not perfect moments too. My children are extremely challenging and they are not attachment challenged.
ReplyDeleteBe kind and gentle with yourself.
I think these perfect, endlessly patient in the face of relentless button pushing parents are a myth. You are human; T would be hard pressed to find a parent who isn't. I catch myself every day reacting in a less than therapeutic way. Yelling is my weak point. I never yelled before. Everyone who knew me would describe me as patient and quiet... before. These kids are hard work! Even the professionals who work with them get burned out. Take care of yourself.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Barb Aloot - I don't think there's any such thing as a perfect parent. I had to sympathize with you about actually thinking to get his Halloween costume almost a month early (awesome!), and then even that coming back to bite you. I hate when that sort of thing happens. Hopefully a new day will bring somewhat of a fresh start for you both.
ReplyDeleteKaren is patient. Don't let her fool you. She's being way too hard on herself here. A few instances where she was pushed beyond her limit, sure. How could she not be with the button pushing T does? I typically don't actually see it first hand because, as Karen says, if it were me, he'd be all kinds of cooperative. I think he realizes that I don't have nearly the patience and tolerance that Mommy does. So he doesn't push my buttons. Nor does he push Mommy's while I'm present. But he sure lets her have it when I'm not around. Routinely. But he also clearly loves and needs her. He's pretty successful at obscuring that aspect of their relationship with many of his interactions with her. But it's certainly clear to me.
ReplyDeleteSo Honey, despite your current self-image, I am awed by your level of patience, tolerance, and understanding with T. You are an incredibly nurturing, and a more-than-adequate mother. Way more! So do hang in there. We'll figure it out. I love you.
Oh, mama. I feel you. On so many levels. If it's any comfort, I'm another mama who's right there in the trenches with you, stretched thin, working full-time, utterly lacking in patience, and yelling and snapping way more than I'd ever imagined I would/could.
ReplyDeleteYou need to remember to save some kindness and patience for your own self. You deserve it. You are awesome - and obviously so is your hubby!
I think that YouTube mom is an actor, hired to play the role of the perfect mother. She does not exist. Whenever I have days like this, my husband tells me that I succeeded because I didn't kill him. Some days, that's as good as it gets. Am I sorry? Of course. But some days I just don't have anything left. Don't beat yourself up...for everything we do wrong, there are also a lot of things we do right.
ReplyDeleteYou think T deserves a different family. You mean one who hits him? Oh, not that one. One who makes him wear a "147 million orphans" shirt? Not that one either? So... you're comparing yourself to families you perceive as better than you, but not to families that are worse than you. That's not really fair to you, is it? (I get it though, I do that a lot. I always seek out the absolute best example of an attribute, and compare myself to that. It's a no-win strategy).
ReplyDeleteAbout patience, I think we have a certain amount of patience and we dole it out pretty much the same, regardless of the circumstances. If you had the most angelic kid, who'd probably eventually get to the point where you'd yell at him for dangling his prepositions. Our kids are going to annoy us after a while. They just do.
And whining, in my opinion, is a lot like having a worm burrow into your brain, find your rawest, most exposed nerve, and rip its fingernails out (I did not just come up with this description. It has bounced around in my head a lot in association with a certain someone we shall not name).
And a Halloween party on October 8 is the most ridiculous things I've ever heard.
I have nothing to offer that others have said here, except one thing...what I believe T will remember most in a few years, is not the yelling or you losing your patience (because we all do), but you being there, always, consistently. The other stuff fades away, that doesn't...ever.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Barb Aloot too. Those moms really ARE a myth. No one is patient and perfect all the time... I think you are doing fine. We all have our less than perfect parenting moments, and with a challenging child, they are bound to occur with a bit more frequency. I think you can blame the moron that thought October 8 was a great day for a Halloween party. :)
ReplyDeleteDitto to every other comment here. I'm tired of the fake parents who look like they have it together all the time. We all lose it. I've done it way more than I ever thought I would. But we get up each morning and try to love them better the next day. Really it's all about grace...for them, yes, but also for us. Hang in there, and thanks for the honesty. It's so refreshing!
ReplyDelete