Saturday, February 11, 2012

Confession...

Oh, holy crap.

I just (as in less than an hour ago) experienced a most heinous rupture with child #2.
#2 is 5 years old.  #2 is smack in the middle of a HUGE neural growth and hence, if you remember from my last post, a HUGE regression. If you don't know about these touchpoint regressions, please read some Dr. Brazelton touchpoints.

AND if you remember, I expressed it wasn't easy?  Today was equivalent to torture for me.

If you really want to know the details of the day leading up to it it consisted of working at a preschool with 24 children, whom I adore every one of them, and the needs that arise from a yard full of kids 5 years old and under can be draining at best.

Plus, I was starting to get sick (headache, exhaustion... eventual fever... at least I wasn't PMSing, I might have seriously bulged out some muscles and turned green).

The silver lining to it all was child #3 was asleep at home, #1 was home after having gone to the orthodontist (damn my genes and the colossal mess my poor children's mouths are shaping up to be... not to mention painfully expensive).  And more luck came in the form of a friend who is living with us who was able to stay home with #1 and #3, so praise the powers that be, I was alone when I went to pick #2 up from school.

Now, #2 was under the impression Dad was going to pick her up since he had to collect #1 earlier that day to go to the college-fund-draining orthodontist (remember, I was at work... with a whole bunch of kids with big needs... perhaps this is an important point to remember in defense of myself).

When I arrived, standing among all the parents in a holding pen where we can watch the children and essentially choose the one that belongs to us, I see my #2, walking along in oversized boots and the cutest pink sun hat you've ever layed eyes on.

A wave of warm fuzzy comes over me because, well, she's super cute (always a bonus with children... and frankly, when is a child ever NOT super cute), and her arrival means I can go home, take a shower, get in pajamas and finally indulge in my sickly exhaustion.

Haha, not so!!!  My child, upon seeing ME, runs in the opposite direction.  Those cute oversized boots jiggling away as she swaggered ever farther from me and the gaggle of parents waiting to carry their super cute kids away to the safety of home and family.

Crap.

I wait, thinking, HOPING, it's a game.  She resolutely sits on the play structure across the length of a basketball court.

Crap.

I walk over, and with each step I take she's like a cat ready to bolt in the opposite direction.  I walk slowly so as not to spook the cat.  She indulges me by not leaving the play structure, though she has climbed to the highest point... just out of arms reach.

Crap.

Me:  "#2, I'd really like to go home.  I don't feel well.  Your sister is asleep at home and I'd really like to go home."

#2:  "I'm not leaving until Daddy comes to pick me up.  I don't care if it takes all night.  I'll sleep here."

Crapity, crap, crap.

Me:  (here comes the empathy for you learning how to use it) "You're really disappointed.  You really wanted Dad to pick you up.  It must have been disappointing to see me standing there."

#2:  "hmpff..."

So I call Daddy.  I think perhaps he can negotiate in a way I am unable to muster in the face of such... disconnectedness.  (I refrained from saying defiance, because in the nonviolent paradigm, the behavior is a strategy.  When I judge the strategy, then I become triggered and I have allowed a complete disconnect between me and my child).

As I hear only her side of the phone conversation with Dad, I can tell she is getting more and more worked up.  She is starting to get upset. The sadness is mounting.  I hear her say, "I'm not going to leave!  I don't care if I have to wait until it's dark!" And then the tears begin.

At this point I'm looking for an exit strategy.  I pick up her pink backpack and super cute sun hat (remember when she looked so super cute in that super cute sun hat??  Why can't I imagine her super cute at this exact moment?!  My brain is unskilled at maintaining the warm fuzzies when I am not at my strongest... which is a huge plug for self-empathy... I digress...)

I ask to talk to Dad.  As I tell him I will call in case of emergency, I simultaneously gather said pink backpack and sunhat and oversized shoes, all of which were flung willy-nilly in a fit of despair.  I stuff them all in the pink backpack, and place the backpack on my back so as to free my hands for whatever might come next.

And then I said very clearly.

Me:  "Honey, I want to be very clear, it is time to go home, if you are unable to walk with me then I need to pick you up and carry you.  Are you ready to go?"

#2:  "NNNOOOOOOOOO!"

And here, dear readers, the proverbial ca-ca hits the fan.

I reach up to pull her down from the play structure.  She bolts.  I walk away toward the parent holding pen in desperate hopes she will follow.  Nope.  I turn around, she hides.  I walk toward her, she runs around the structure, I walk, she keeps running away.  I say:

Me:  "I really don't want to chase you.  Can we walk to the car together?"

#2:  "NNNOOOOOOO!"

And then she moves to a corner and there I have my advantage.  I walk in a very slow cautious way, I'm not angry... yet.  Perhaps annoyed, though I'm still seeing her clearly without a full lower brain primal attack feeling... yet...

She kind of giggles, I interpret that as play and perhaps, maybe just maybe, an invitation for connection.  I pick her up playfully.  My hopes are high that we have moved past this,t hat we have found a connection.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

She starts screaming and kicking and yeah, trying to hit and scratch me.

Did I mention, due to the regression, these are strategies I haven't seen in a few years.

I hold her close, I hold her arms, I walk towards the car all the time saying calmly:

Me:  "I can't let you hit my body.  I can't let you scratch me.  You're really upset.  I can't let you hurt me."

And as if this ALONE wasn't bad enough, I have to walk through the sea of love-struck parents all harmoniously reuniting with their super cute children.  I was the lady carrying the screaming, kicking child through the crowd with a host of spectators... and in my mind, judgment galore is being thrown at me from every direction.

For the record, I can't know for sure if I was being judged.  I have heard someone say recently, "the world is a reflection of our inner self".  Under that logic, I was so harshly judging myself for this unsavory exchange that I simply assumed everyone else was judging me, too.

Yuck.

When we got to the car she willingly entered the car, still crying, only she screamed:

#2:  "FINE, BUT I'M NOT STRAPPING IN!!!!"

A fine strategy to foil my plans for getting home.

At this point my frustration compounded.  I was moving into dangerous red zone, I could feel it in every fiber of my being.

What would have been wise:
- Take a walk around the car a few times to cool off
- Jump up and down
- Shake my hands as if wringing off water and sing a ditty or take deep breaths
- Look around me and make a mental note of all the objects or color of objects (great exercise to move into the reasoning higher brain)
- Stomp my feet
- Take a big swig of water, maybe even poor the water over my head

ANYTHING else other that what I did, which was to get in the car, close the doors and trap myself with a completely disregulated screaming child.

Here, dear peeps, is where I lost it.

I got in the driver's seat, turned around and screamed at the very very top of my lungs:

Me:  "WHY #2, WHY?!?  STOP SCREAMING AT ME?!?"

The irony was not lost on me folks.

I'm screaming at my child to stop screaming at me.  I even knew it as it came out of my mouth.  It would have made me laugh had my brain been accessing any higher brain functions.

I could see by her reaction she was scared.  She immediately strapped in.

And holy hell did I feel like utter poop.  The dominant paradigm would say, "well, she strapped in", but (yes BUT) I know enough to know what damage I just did.  I just, with great force, broke a connection with my child.

In essence she wanted Daddy/love/connection/safety... and I spewed ick all over her core human needs.

The car ride home was nothing but her crying in the back seat.  I knew I couldn't say anything right now.  I had to regulate.  I had to breath and get away from my nasty, toxic thoughts of judgement and anger (anger also being a symptom of unmet needs).

When we got home, I shot out of the car like a bullet. I opened the door for #2 and ran inside.  I did a few laps around the house (#1 and #3 were watching me with great amusement) flapping my hands and breathing and moving my voice in a sing-songy way up and down, up and down.  I was doing everything I knew to get myself back to the high road, or higher brain.

#2 refused to come in the house (not surprising).

She spent a while crying outside.  I was watching from a distance.

Eventually I opened the front door and moved away so she had a clearing to enter without interruption from me.

She came in, went to her bed, found her lovey and finally began to regulate.

By this time over an hour had passed.

I was able to take a shower, which, readers, is perhaps the most therapeutic act on the face of the planet.
I finally saw clearly what she needed, I could finally understand her deep disappointment AND I even realized #1 had had some Dad time over the weekend, and in #2's mind there was waning connection between her and Dad.

I arranged Dad to pick #2 up for dinner, just the two of them.  I requested he talk to her about her needs and how we are a family that wants to help meet her needs when we can.  I asked him to talk about expectations and how hard it can be when expectations aren't met.

Oh, praise to my amazing husband who empathetically heard me and left work to be with #2, even at the cost of having to work late to make up for his time away from his studio.

As I went to tell #2 Dad was coming to be with her and talk to her because I really heard that she wanted her Dad, she hugged me.

She hugged me and said:

#2:  "I'm really sorry I hit you and scratched you. I love you. You're the best Mommy in the world."

I was dumbstruck.  I have never, EVER asked my children to apologize, especially when I knew the rupture was really caused by me.  I've never requested she tell me she loves me, I've NEVER prompted her to tell me that I'm the best Mommy in the world (despite my intense feelings of the opposite).

I hugged her tightly and said:

Me:  "I love you, too. I'm so sorry I yelled.  That wasn't cool.  I was upset and I'm sorry I yelled."

#2:  "It's okay."

Then Dad wisked her away to a dinner of pizza and root beer.

Prologue:  As I write this prologue, a few days have now passed.  #2 seems much more connected and present.  She started to have a rupture with me the other day and I said, "Remember, you can talk to me.  I want to help you.  Just tell me what you need."

And she did.

For the dominant paradigm that believes I rewarded the "behavior" let me say this: I do not believe in rewards.  I also don't believe in punishment.  I believe we are all, not matter what age, seeking to meet needs.  My job as a parent is to help guide my children how to meet needs by building trust that needs can be met and ultimately the "behaviors" are no longer necessary because my children TRUST me to help them meet their needs.  The irony is, dominant paradigm, the more you help them meet those needs, the less they need the unsavory strategies.  Consequently, the more you deny or discount a child's needs, the more crafty they will become to meet their needs because they will not trust you to help them.  They just might become the type of child that sneaks out at night because they are too afraid to tell you where they want to go.  Or they will hide their report card for fear you will hurt them emotionally (or physically).

I want my girls to know I hear them. I want them to know, unconditionally, I will be there for them.  There will never be a need for them to sneak, or hide, or manipulate because the respect in our family will run thick, all because I am committed to helping them meet their needs.