Where’s the line between pushing and supporting when it comes to your kid?
Henry has been taking me along on his emotional roller coaster lately. He’s been prone to such extremes and regressive stuff that I’ve even explored whether or not someone has hurt or bullied him without my knowledge, but that really doesn’t seem to be the issue. I've tried to think of any new circumstances or emotional threads that could be going on in our lives that seem inconsequential to me but could be monumental to him, but I haven't yet thought of any. It seems it is just a part of his personality that is for some reason being expressed more strongly right now.
It started about a month ago, after he returned to shool from winter break. The first week went okay, but the second week he started having anxiety about leaving the car in the morning to go into school. That might have been just a blip, except that I then accompanied his class on a half-day field trip and the parting was very hard on him. Ever since that day, he has struggled to go into school every single day. He has gotten better in the past week, with a great deal of encouragement. I rallied a village around him at school to help out -- the mom who helps get the kids out of the car in the car pool line, his teacher, who lets him come into class early so he doesn't sit in the school yard and let his anxieties build, fellow parents who are around the school during the day and can check in on him. I am told he does just fine once he's inside his classroom and can start his work. And he's doing really well academically, seems to be well-liked by the other kids and to be getting along okay with his current best friend...he even has a girlfriend, apparently, though he wouldn't tell me her name after she ran up to him after school and gave him a big hug.
I taught him some breathing exercises that we do in the car on the way to school and that really seems to help. I also give him a little Hersheys kiss to eat as he goes into school, to help distract him. He no longer sobs on the way to school or claws the car seat as he's being helped out, so there's definitely been improvement. But now he's having to adjust to car pooling with some friends who live in the neighborhood. After I drove all three kids each day last week, the other mom is now driving for a week, which started Friday. After saying goodbye to him, I hid in the house while Matthew took him out to their car, and it was painful to watch. Matthew did a great job of injecting humor and lightness into the situation, and Henry was alternately crying and giggling as Matthew tickled him into his seat, but he still had to have his fingers pried from the car door to close it. I got an e-mail an hour later from the mom telling me he'd been great once the deed was done.
Some friends have suggested I walk him into school every day, or have Matthew bring him, but I am trying to find that balance between expecting him to fit his emotions into the needs of our family (such as the need for me to drive him most days since I have to go to work on the east bank anyway, and for him to walk himself in so I don't have to spend ten minutes trying to find a place to park in the neighborhood and crossing traffic and being late for work) and empathizing with him and making some accommodations for his anxieties (such as making friends with the mom-greeter at the car pool and giving him candy, which is not allowed, and giving him rewards to work toward like the Frostys I promised him during the week that he finally became able to get out of the car without tears). I think it is important that he learn that he can trust himself to get through his fears and discomfort, and I think overall he is making good progress.
But it is an exhausting process for me. It brings back all my own feelings and fears about school and separation at his age. I had hoped to avoid some of that by having him start school early, but it just seems to be one of his tendencies, so I have come to hope that he will learn the coping skills that I did, perhaps with less trauma. I vividly recall what the ceiling looked like in my kingergarten bathroom. This is because I once was so overcome with homesickness and tears that my teacher sent me to the bathroom "until you can calm yourself down." Well, that didn't happen. Not every five year old knows how to calm herself down, as a kindergarten teacher should have known, and I persisted in crying hysterically, in a puddle on the bathroom floor, for what seemed like years but I believe was actually a half hour. The teacher's aide found me there -- rescued me, is how I see it -- and scooped me into her arms and talked me down from my cliff of sadness and fear.
This experience came back to me in visceral detail when I went to pick Henry up from karate class after school this week. This was his third class, and like all new social interactions, he was very apprehensive and resistant about starting the first class, but had had a great time during the second class. He had been very excited about his uniform, and the news moves he learned, and being named by the master as the "most improved" student for the second week. But when I peeked into this most recent class during the last three minutes, I at first didn't see him and panicked that he had sequestered himself somewhere in the school, unbeknownst to anyone. But I craned my neck completely into the class and finally saw him: crumpled into a corner, his face bearing the signs of dried tears, the only child not wearing his uniform and not participating. I had to stand outside the classroom for two more agonizing minutes until I could talk to him and the teacher to see what had happened. On one level, the truth is that he was having a mild stomach virus and truly wasn't feeling well and the teacher did not make him dress out or participate and asked him to sit in the corner to watch the class. On another level -- the level of Henry's perception -- no one is listening to him when he says he doesn't want to do karate and the teacher didn't believe him when he said he was sick and got mad at him and punished him by making him sit in the corner.
The car ride home was difficult; listening to him articulate how much he hates having to go to karate because he doesn't know how to do it (he's not the only new kid but is joining a class with a mix of beginners and veterans) and he doesn't think he'll ever learn it and he just doesn't like it, I was reminded of things I was "made" to do as a child, things I might well have looked like I was enjoying because I was more intent on pleasing my parents and teachers than I was in disappointing them by not being a joiner, and I wanted to tell him, you don't have to go, you can quit, no one will force you. But I didn't say that because a) it needed to be a joint decision with Matthew, and b) I wasn't even sure it was the right answer. It has only been three classes, one of which was the first and one of which he couldn't participate in. I don't want to force him to do anything, but on the other hand I know this kid and he never wants to do anything new at first. If I never pushed him, he would never have played with anyone on the playground, never have gone to zoo camp, never discovered how much he loves to swim and to play chess and to read. I am not looking for any answer; I know the answer is to listen to my gut and also to him and keep finding that balance between pushing and accommodating. I just want to complain, that's all. I just sometimes want to be the kid myself and say, screw driving you to school every day, my fingers crushing the wheel as I try to hide the anxiety I am feeling about how you will handle it this morning; screw having to field that call from your dad at the beginning of each soccer game when you cry and refuse to join your team and I have to make that deal with you that if you are still miserable after fifteen minutes you can come home, and yet the call never comes because you end up having such a great time we have to drag you off the field; and screw signing you up for karate, something your dad and I both believe you will end up liking and which will help you gain self-confidence and focus and coordination. Let's just stay home and watch Man vs. Wild reruns.
And then I realize, shit, I'm the parent. I don't get to get out of it. And thank god, because there is no greater reward than when I see him get stronger, when I hear him express confidence in himself, when I get that sideways grin that tell me he loves me and everything's good. I just could use a healthy dose of that right now, because sometimes I want someone to push me, too.
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