Rowan has been particularly challenging lately. Mostly, it’s a good thing– I like being challenged. Sometimes. It builds character, and all that sort of thing, you know. She has become very intense. She feels everything so deeply, especially love and anger.
Here are a couple of scenarios that are good examples of how almost every morning goes (and please note that I am a work in progress, and have made SERIOUS progress here lately even if it doesn’t seem like it.):
Scenario One:
Ro: I want some cereal.
Me: Okay, I’ll make you some… Oh no! We’re out of milk!
Ro: (growl) You. Are. So. Mean!!! I never want to see you again!!! (followed by hysterical screaming and kicking/hitting me.)
So my first instinct during these times when I’m being attacked by a child is to give in to anger. Then it’s the urge to smack the hell out of her. Lately though, I’ve been trying to see that in the mornings she usually wakes up feeling very angry at everything for about two hours (while also trying not to EXPECT that to happen). This helps me stay in my calm place where I calmly stop her from hitting me but do not get mad enough to yell or hit back.
One thing we’ve been doing is to say a code word whenever we’re both angry at each other and need to just remember how we feel about each other. I let her pick the word, and she picked “Protect”, which I thought was quite appropriate. The point is to Protect our relationship. Very insightful. It’s been working well for the most part and occasionally she wants to have a drill so we can practice it. But then:
Scenario Two:
Ro: I want some oatmeal.
Me: Okay, I’ll make you some. (start making oatmeal)
Ro: I want oatmeal RIGHT NOW!
Me: Well, it has to cook.
Ro: I want it NOW! (crying hysterically) I CANNOT GO ANOTHER SECOND WITHOUT OATMEAL! I’M GOING TO DIE!
Me: It. Has. To. Cook. I cannot pull it out of the air. You need to just chill. Why do you have to act like this?? Wait a minute… Protect!
Ro: (punches me and kicks me and screams at me) Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t! I want my oatmeal RIGHT NOW! (goes into a hysterical screaming fit)
Well, obviously I was not able to immediately manifest the oatmeal that was cooked AND cooled off to place in front of her. I’m not that skilled in magic. And just that fact, I think, is just a daily “lesson”, if you will, of how sometimes you have to wait for things. At least it will be a lesson in how you have to wait for oatmeal to cook.
It’s absolutely HUGE that I didn’t give in to anger here. I was a little annoyed, sure, but I didn’t feel the vein in my neck throbbing. So I think I’m making progress. And maybe as I find better ways to deal with her, she’ll be able to choose love over anger.
Baby Boy frets, I strum.
You can hear my songwriting on my 
wow, this is intense. i noticed at the park the other day, she had this same insistance of ‘RIGHT NOW’ about things. do you feel overwhelmed?? you seem to be handling it real well. have you talked to her about where these intense feelings come from, or do you think that would be too big for her to know or understand? i think things in her world are so very much out of her control that she needs to try to control situations this way. does that make sense? she’s got a powerfully strong soul and personality and she’s gonna let it show as she figures things out and grows more able to understand herself and her needs and the needs of people around her. hugs to you in the meantime!!
Wow, you are a patient woman.
I’m trying to remember what it was like to be that age and I can’t; I wonder if some of her anger is coming from the fact that she’s at a point where she can understand things but cannot control a whole lot, and the screaming and yelling is a way to try to control the situation.
I’d probably be in tears, myself. Which is just one reason why I’m not a parent.
Crap, nothing like a cuppa anger to get you going in the morning. Tyler used to scream at me – not really words, but the same feeling you describe at her age over things like me not wanting to stand in the bathroom and watch him brush his teeth or walk with him up the stairs to get something he was totally capable of doing without me. He has a high need to be in control of what he does and has let go of needing to control me so much. It took a long time for him to be able to understand what I could do/couldn’t or wouldn’t do for him. I am not saying my choices should be yours, I wonder if maybe I should have done more of what he wanted. It is like me to second/third/fourth guess everything. But, what I did is what I did and he can accept the no’s and the wait a minute’s of life much better now. Maybe that is just a part of being 3 years older, maybe it is b/c I was pretty consistent in what I would accept and what I would do/wouldn’t do. Aleah was a big difficulty for him, sharing me and me realizing that I could not keep up all I did for him and with him was hard for him. Maybe it is part of being a big sister that shares mom. I have often thought about how hard it is to be little, then thought Hell! its hard to be big, too! I try to remember that my job is less about making everything perfect and is more about just being there with them through it all.
She sounds a lot like Jalen. If we were out of something, it was often “you SUCK!”. The explosiveness has calmed a LOT in the last year to year and a half. So hang in there. I know so many times I wanted to fix things, to make him happy. But that got me focused on behavior and things don’t go as well when the focus is on behavior.
I learned (and am still learning) that I just needed to BE with him in whatever he was feeling. Not to fix it, or explain anything to him. Just BE with his anger. Understand. Be a calm pool. I’m not always good at it still….but better.:)
I like the way a doctor we saw this week explained it…that sometimes very intelligent people have nerve endings (both literally and figuratively) that are RAW. Sort of out there where everything can affect them. They feel things very intensely. When these people are very young they don’t have the tools to even understand themselves yet. They just FEEL so much.
Changes in their environment really throw them….transitions are terrifically difficult. I try to picture myself like a tree or rock, and the intensity is just flowing right over me like a river. I hear his screams and connect to his anger, but it isn’t aimed AT me…it’s flowing OVER me. I’m supposed to be IN the river and just let it wash around until it dissipates.
His anger is a form of communication…but rarely about the issue that is right in front of me. It’s always deeper than that. I’m glad you can be her rock. Anger is often a mask for fear….if you can see her as a scared, small person trying to figure out a big confusing world that might help in rough moments.
Just know you’re not alone!