Sorting...

Disclaimer: Maybe I am way too transparent on this blog. But if I didn't have the freedom to be transparent, regardless of who reads, than this blog would cease to be a journal and become, instead, an exercise in public writing...

I don't struggle with how to raise Darcy or Rayna. Going by instinct works fine. When it comes to Doug, I find myself continually challenged/frustrated/guilt ridden. It feels to me like I am forever sending one of two messages: either I am lecturing him over what he is doing wrong and needs to change or I am shooing him away. If it feels that way to me, I am sure it certainly must feel that way to him. And that haunts me.

It seems, though, like Doug is usually either seeking attention (in hyper-drive) or misbehaving (in hyper-drive)...or, he is shutting down, tuning everyone and everything else out, as he becomes absorbed in his Nintendo DS game. Sadly, the third state is the one that gives me a chance to breathe. When he is within arm's reach of his father or I, he does a SIGNIFICANTLY better job of self-controlling his inappropriate impulses (if we are in the next room or even just the far side of the room(!), all bets are off). When he is not in arm's reach AND in my direct line of vision, he seldom exerts much self-control and, usually he engages in activity that is not acceptable. So, when I get him back in my sphere of direct supervision, I have to address what has occurred while he was out of my sphere of direct supervision. This has been his life-long pattern. Before he came to us, he would spin wildly out of control CONTINUOUSLY except when made to sit right by the organization's current authority figure. I recognize this is a pattern that has worked well for him. He has learned in a large group that the way to get up close and personal attention is to spin utterly out of control until he has the up close and personal attention. Yet, this strategy wrecks the quality of his up close and personal attention time! Instead of being able to ENJOY Doug's nearness, it seems that, instead, I am having to correct what took place in the absence of that nearness and am in a state of frustration/irritation. It is manipulation. I don't even think it is CONSCIOUS manipulation on his part, but unconscious, unthinking, automatic...sort of a learned helplessness....a "I can't control me so you have to!" I am very tired of it. I am tired of not being able to trust him to control his impulses unless I am there in "radar range". I am tired of his incessant demands on my attention when I am there in "radar range". He doesn't misbehave too much when I am radar range, but he talks non-stop and asks questions non-stop...like a very small child always asking "why". Part of the repetitious nature of his questioning might be his limited ability to express himself with speech...asking the same questions over again ad infinitum is pretty much a no-brainer. If he knows how to ask the question once, then he knows how to ask it a million time...and certainly WILL do so! The non-stop talking/questioning is not only frustrating because of the sheer unrelenting repetitiveness of its content, but also because his speech is so garbled that I cannot absent-mindedly hear what he is saying...I have to struggle to understand what he is saying...it is like an never ending game of charades. I am so weary of having to work so hard to figure out what he is saying. And it frustrates me that things he has in the past enunciated fairly clearly, he so quickly slides once more into garbling beyond recognition. Ahhh...but then if I have to WORK to understand his words, he has demanded (and received!) my CLOSER attention to his words... And, if he garbles his enunciation and forgets to use VERBS and SENTENCES than his father and I stop and make him REPEAT what he has said. Once we figure out what he was trying to say, we have him resay it over and over and over again until each of the individual words reach some semblance of understandability...and we make him frame those words into an actual SENTENCE...and repeat the SENTENCE until he can do so without mixing the order of the word into senselessness and without mauling the enunciation of those words. There is no such thing as a short interchange between our son and ourselves. The simplest thing expressed by Doug, soon develops into something long and labored and exhausting for us (but Doug, himself, is quite content with the entire process). Forever teaching him, but never reaching what we are aiming for. Each day is just a repeat of yesterday...no nearer the goal. Doug doesn't mind. I think that is part of the key...DOUG IS HAPPY WITH IT.

I see the cycle we are in...have been in for four years. It is bad. It is destructive. If Doug is allowed to continue to function with this life strategy, he will not meet with much success in relationships outside of our family, because, frankly, others don't have to put up with it...and won't. I WANT Doug to realize the connection between his CHOICES and the inevitable nature of consequences.

Yesterday, after picking the kids up from school, we headed to Wal-Mart. Doug has been dying to shop for Halloween costumes. I am not a big fan of Halloween...and have always held ambivalent feelings about celebrating it. But, with Doug, COSTUMES are the absolute most wondrous thing in all the world. He used to LIVE in costume. In the last year or so, he has begun to run around the house in jeans and shirt WITHOUT the addition of some costume or other over the top of them...but only in this past year. The child has, easily three dozens different costumes. I usually buy some super hero costumes in the after Halloween clearances and save them back to give him at Christmas time. He used his birthday money to buy a Prince Caspian costume at the Disney store. His world is all about superheroes. It always has been in the four years I have known him. He treasures his costumes over anything else he has...except maybe that Nintendo DS that he buries his nose in for hours at a time. He used to even beg to SLEEP in his costumes. He literally wears the costumes thread-bare and mourns when they become to small to squeeze into. So, there is no way on earth he is going to let me off without dressing him up for Halloween. He starts telling me two months in advance when Halloween is coming. He has been bugging me for weeks now, to get him a new costume. I had told him we MIGHT (emphasis heavily stressed on that word to him) LOOK, not necessarily buy (again heavily emphasized repeatedly well in advance) at the Wal-Mart Halloween costumes Friday evening after school...MIGHT and remember, we are probably NOT buying one yet. So, it was, that yesterday found us at Wal-Mart in the costume aisle with Doug in hyper-drive, frantic in his excitement. I dread that state.

We looked. The ones he liked were too small or were of a nature that I refuse to buy (Darth Vader. Sorry, I know I have friends who say, "But he became good in the end"...too bad...it is not his unhelmetted dying image that it is marketed, but his EVIL state that is marketed, and I flat don't want Darth Vader floating through my home. He does have three Darth masks (none of which his father and I bought for him) that others have purchased and we have allowed him to have them...but, I am not spending MY money to support something that is reprehensible to me.) Anyway, by eliminating the gruesome or evil, the costumes that remained were in a size too small. We looked. I decided that a purchase needed to wait until we could go to Springfield or KC where there will be a bigger selection. Besides, the way the costumes are displayed in our local Wal-Mart are not user friendly for me...the pegs they are hanging on are way too high for me to reach to get them down easily and they are stacked so deeply and tightly on the pegs that it is difficult to SEE what costumes are behind the top one. So, I just thought, "We've been here. We've seen what they have. Ready to move on." I tried explaining all this to Doug. But all he heard, was "Mom isn't buying me a Halloween costume ever." I know that is the message he heard because he became frantic with his pointing and trying to get me BACK to the costume aisle. His entire body language and attitude became hard and resistant and RESENTFUL. When he realized we were heading towards the check out line with our groceries in tow, I saw his eyes get red around the edges and begin to tear up. He went into utter mourning and despair...and the thought reverberating through his head, I am certain, is "Mom doesn't love me!" 'Gifts' is his love language. Give him a piece of penny candy and he interprets it, "You LOVE me!" ...give him a dirty sock and he interprets it "You LOVE me." Hug him and he pulls away, distracted. Praise him, and he enjoys it, but does not internalize it. Set aside time to spend with just him, and he likes that, but does not internalize it. Do something for him, like clean his room up, and he is quick to notice and express appreciation for it...but it does not TOUCH HIS HEART like bringing him a small trinket does. Conversely, NOT buying something for him that he sees in front of him, AFFECTS him like you have shouted, "I HATE you!" at him. I understand this. I try to be sensitive about this...reserving punishing him by TAKING a belonging as a last resort, not as my first resort (though it is the thing that hits him hardest)...I try to help him realize that he cannot treat whether I buy an item for him or not as a barometer of my love for him. He does not tear up to manipulate. His tears are genuine. And his tears are not so much, "I'm not getting what I wanted" as they are "I have been rejected." I get that. I understand that. But it can't continue. It isn't healthy and it isn't accurate self-talk. I can spot when the tears are about to flow, before they even start to well up in his eyes...you can just see the despair begin to creep over his face. Heading it off at the pass, I stopped in the aisle and told him firmly, "Doug, we will look for a costume later at another store. I did not say we would buy one today. I told you we would LOOK and probably NOT buy. But, if you don't handle this calmly and maturely I am not going to take you costume shopping with me. Quit talking about it. Quit pointing back at the costumes. And don't cry." The tears silently welled up in his eyes anyway. When a passing friend called out, "Hi, Doug!" Doug was silent, ignoring his friend as and he glared ahead through wet eyes. As we walked to the car, I thought, "That's it. I am not going through this any more this month. I am not bringing him shopping with me because I don't want to have to weather this storm of his emotions spinning out of control." So, after we got into the car, I told him that I would shop for his Halloween costume without him. He was not going to be allowed to come with me because I didn't want to have to wade through all the drama....the resentment, the grief. I don't need that. I explained to him that if he had caught himself when I stopped him and ask him to reign in first his frantic obsessing (talking non-stop about the costumes even after being told not to talk about it anymore and tugging at me, pointing back to the costume aisle repeatedly) and then his anger (tightened jaw, resisting giving me eye contact when I spoke to him, pulling way resentfully) and then his grief (silently crying as we walked through the store) that I would have been happy to bring him with me on the next shopping excursion...but, that as it was, I had no incentive to bring him with me...I could be pretty sure that future shopping trips for his costume would be more of what I had just experienced with him, so I was choosing not to bring him the next time. I assured him that I WOULD buy him a costume in time for Halloween, but that I would shop for it and choose it myself. He lost the privilege of browsing and helping select his own costume the next time by not handling it well this time.

As soon as I got home, I needed to fix supper. There was Doug, getting tangled under my feet like a lost puppy. I send him out of the room. He opens his Nintendo DS and becomes utterly absorbed. Peace reigns.

Grant and Darcy (and Darcy's friend) dash away from the supper table to get the girls to their school dance and Grant off to a band gig. Doug and Rayna and I finish. After supper, I get around to making the call to report that our internet is not working well. The support person takes me through a bunch of steps to try and help her pinpoint what the problem is. While I am in the middle of a protracted series of diagnostic steps with her, my phone beeps to let me know there is another incoming call. I am not about to hang up with her, because I don't want to have to start all over again with a new person. Darcy was suppose to call me from the dance to solidify her overnight plans...(she didn't have that information for me before she and the other friend had left for the dance. The friend she was going to spend the night with is the daughter of her Sunday School teacher, but I didn't know where they lived or what their phone number was.) After finishing with the internet support person, I check my voice mail. There is Darcy's happy voice informing me that I can pick her up at 9pm the following night. Period. No, "I'll call you back later, Mom." No phone number where she can be reached (she doesn't have her own cell phone). No address. And no clearing it with me if 9pm will work with her FATHER'S Saturday plans (to go to Clinton to a bluegrass performance). I called Grant, since I had forgotten to find out at supper what time he thought we would be back from Clinton on Saturday. He said, "really late". So, not only did I not know where to pick Darcy up, but I had no way of letting her know that we would need to pick her up in the MORNING before we left for Clinton rather than in the evening after we got back. I tried calling back to the number she had called from, but there was no answer and though I left a message, I knew THAT was futile...she had borrowed someone else's cell phone to call and they probably wouldn't hear the message until after the dance when they were no longer with her. So, I loaded the two little ones up in the car and off we went to crash Darcy's school dance. This dance was held in the tennis courts outside. It was like a really big prison...that mob of children contained in the confines of the high fenced concrete yard! The music was blasting. A massive swarm of kids milled about as two kids danced with embarrassing abandon...I guess it was dancing...or maybe those two were having some sort of neurologic convulsion!...it WAS entertaining to watch!...I was just surprised that they weren't embarrassed by being watched... but, I digress... Fortunately, my daughter spotted me (the only adult in sight, except for the "guard" at the "gate" of the "yard") and, probably fearing I was about to humiliate her by being seen by her entire school group, she quickly made a beeline for me. I got the needed information from her and gave her the benefit of the doubt that she "was going to call me after the dance"...yeah, maybe...and headed back for the car. I had only been gone (literally) three minutes at most. I had parked between two other vehicles (both containing waiting moms) and had left the windows cracked but the doors locked (it was a pleasantly cool evening) with strict instructions for the kids to stay BUCKLED into their seats in back and that the pup was to stay in the front (didn't want the two mixing...that would be way too hyperizing). Doug had his Nintendo and Rayna is good at following directions (unless it involves cleaning her room)....AND the car was within my SIGHT the entire time...though, not within my hearing, as the music was blasting from the "prison yard". I was gone three minutes tops. As I walk back to the car the moms in both cars on either side of mine look my direction. Both kids are sitting just like I left them, but, as I am pulling away, Rayna informs me that the entire time I was gone, Doug SCREAMED at the tops of his lungs. Doug hastens to interject that, no, he was SINGING. It seems that the lady in the car next to ours, with her rolled down window, was trying to talk on her cell phone and looked disapprovingly over at Doug...and the other lady on the other side kept looking, too. No wonder both ladies were on the look-out for his missing mother and eagle-eyed my return. Another thoroughly typical experience. Doug had not had trouble modulating his voice and controlling his actions when I was in arm's reach, but, the SECOND he was not longer in the sphere of my direct supervision he began acting in a disruptive, socially unacceptable manner. It isn't that he didn't REALIZE he was being socially unacceptable...he may have started out not realizing, but he had his little sister right next to him, TELLING him, "Doug, you are being too loud. Doug, people are looking at you. Doug, STOP." So, even if he didn't know on his own, he KNEW by second-hand feed-back that what he was doing was unacceptable. He CHOSE. So we are driving home and here I am in the car once more lecturing him on self-control and thinking, "okay so what privilege does THIS infraction revoke...he isn't allowed to be out of my direct supervision next time?...duh, that was his whole intent to begin with..."

We get home and it is basically bedtime...and after I have said his prayers with him, I walk out and think, "the only interaction I have had with my son tonight is to LECTURE him and remove a privilege (Wal-Mart), shoo him away (fixing supper), and LECTURE him (car ride back from the dance) and put him to bed. His attention seeking behaviors make our time together unpleasant...the more he seeks my attention the poorer our interactions. The poorer our interactions the more he seeks my attention. I see the cycle. I just don't know how to get out of it.