Speech therapists help kids learn to talk and to play with tigers. If you didn’t already know that, Sarah has clarified it while waiting for her bus. That is her customary time of pretending to be a speech therapist. Apparently SLPs also help kids learn to play with speedometers.
Sarah’s interest in watching videos of crying babies getting bloodwork has waned. It has been replaced by watching clips from Super Nanny or people talking about Applied Behavior Analysis. That’s a different approach than the Son-Rise Program. I think I prefer the crying babies and parents cooing and singing to help them. Hearing parents struggling themselves and being quite harsh with their kids is not what I want to hear. I overhear that ABA is helping, but it feels quite clinical, at least in the videos Sarah is seeing. Also, doing any sort of reward for a behavior we wanted from Sarah has never truly worked and has only backfired in the long run. I also have more than enough times where I have been harsh and then regretted it, knowing that there would have been a more loving path if I was more clear. The limits being placed on the kids can be the same between different methods of therapy, but it is the manner of enforcing the limits or even of explaining them that can vary widely. I’m ever seeking to be clear enough in my own self that I can respond with spacious loving kindness rather than tight judgmental rigidity. It’s a work in progress, but I do have more tiny moments of noticing that I’m getting tense and realizing that it is because I’m holding onto some idea of how I want things to go, and that I can let go of that idea.
My goal of trying to elicit times of Sarah protesting or being upset by asking her to do things rather than tiptoeing around and not asking her to do things has gone differently than I expected. I have asked her to practice piano, to clean her room, to fold clothes, to put shirts on hangers, to help me unload the dishwasher, to put her dishes in the dishwasher, to go for a walk with me, to sign her name on a form, to write a thank you note, to make her lunch, to make her breakfast, and to strip her bed, wash the sheets, and remake the bed. . . and she has done so with minimal upset!!! It’s not that I never asked for these things before, but I always knew a request came with a risk of backlash. Making the bed was the hard part because it is difficult to put a fitted sheet on a bed that is next to a wall. It can be hard to scoop up a mattress and push a sheet corner under it. Still, she did it all. When she started to get upset I was able to offer a hug and she moved into equilibrium quickly. She did have a couple of times of getting upset with Amy being in the bathroom, but I was able to again offer a hug, with more space in me for her to be having the upset to begin with. I don’t know if I have been missing out on opportunities for her to do more because of fearing her upsets or if she is only responding differently now because I am feeling different about her upsets. Maybe both. I can still see that she doesn’t like feeling like she doesn’t know how to do something, but that means I want to help her face those things more often not less often.
I catch myself making comments sometimes like, “when you have a fridge of your own you can keep the eggs on a lower shelf that will be easier for you to reach.” I said that yesterday and then thought, “Wait! I can move the eggs to a lower shelf now! Let’s make this house more Sarah-friendly and accessible.” What this means is that I want to add lower hooks for her robe and towel. I ordered a small nonstick pan for her to make scrambled eggs so that she can lift the pan when she is done to get the eggs easily onto her plate. We need to find a place for this pan that isn’t so high she can’t reach, which is where our pans are now. One of our volunteers used say Sarah was just waiting for her to catch up. I am feeling that way now. How can I have been so slow to realize some of these things about how to adapt our house? Better late than never!
Last night I inadvertently did score a big Sarah upset, but at first I forgot to appreciate the moment so I wasn’t quite as relaxed as I could have been. Carl is away so Sarah gets to sleep in his spot. Friday night this was no problem and she went to bed easily, not minding that I was going to stay up to watch a movie with Amy. Amy and I watched The Neverending Story, another movie I watched repeatedly in my younger years. I predicted that Amy would want to ride Falkor, and I was not wrong. Anyway, last night Sarah was not at all ok with my staying up to read downstairs. She started yelling and screaming for me. I insisted that I would come up but that it doesn’t work for her to share my bed if she then dictates when I come to bed. She was claiming to be scared, but she is never scared when in her own room. Eventually she came downstairs to voice her complaints in person. I maintained that I wasn’t going to come up until I was ready to do so. After a few minutes she changed modes as quickly as turning a light switch. She eagerly grabbed a newspaper from Carl’s pile and sat on the sofa with me until I was done reading. I’m reading Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it. It is already one of my favorite books and he is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers.
Just because Carl is away doesn’t mean he wasn’t on Algebra Homework Duty. Thank goodness he still remembers how to do all of the things. I know I used to know math and I used to enjoy it, but now I look at Amy’s work and am just as confused as she is. The examples help me not at all because they fail to have any words to explain why they are doing what they are doing. Luckily, Carl not only remembers how to do things, he is really good at giving us a simpler example and explaining why we are doing what we are doing. We paused our Neverending Story for a math lesson, delivered while Carl waited for his bag at the airport. Luckily our cat was then available for her Algebra Feelings Cuddle Duty, which is a very important roll that only she can fill.
My event last weekend at Booked. in Chestnut Hill in Philadelphia went beautifully. It didn’t go as planned because my conversation partner was under the weather, but that presented a wonderful opportunity for my mom to introduce me. She has lovingly threatened for years to stand up at any of my events and proclaim, “That’s my daughter!” This gave her the perfect moment to do so. My mom, stepdad, stepsisters, and cousin-in-law were there, along with one of my favorite English teachers from high school and one of my classmates from 7th-12th grade. Some friends of my parents were there too, along with some people that none of us knew. I talked about my book and experiences with Sarah as well as how the Alexander Technique helps me as a parent. Mainly when I am failing to find peace, I can use the thought process of the Alexander Technique to help me feel more present and grounded, even if such a reach at times feels like a drowning person reaching flailingly for a raft. It is always a beautiful moment to talk people through noticing themselves and their environment in certain ways and feel the whole energy of the room shift. You can think a room is quiet and then suddenly a new quietness enters in, a new more peaceful space. It’s really amazing that we can feel such intangible things.
Sending you a moment to notice the room around you and your condition within your physical position. Without changing your position at all, can you allow a little more ease into your body?
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