My kid and notes from Year 5.1
May 18, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1551.58; Rural libraries, $321.62.
“Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” G.K. Chesterton
Unless you’re JB. In which case, every story with a villain is an infomercial for that villain and their scariness. Every morning and evening, I hear a shriek:
Mommy, I’m scared, (evil villain) is going to get me!
I always intended to put JB in self defense classes but I haven’t gotten around to it yet. And now, of course, it’s not possible to start for a while.
The fear bothered me because I realized JB is a freeze on fear kid. As far back as I can remember, I have been a fight on fear kid, which may or may not have been trained into me by a mean older sibling, but this served me well.
I was bullied at every single school I attended. I always had to put some bully in their place when they tried me and things were much better when I was able to do so quickly and decisively. I only ever had to deal with each bully once, they weren’t used to being shut down effectively and violently.
We have now implemented Monster Training. After reading age appropriate books about kids fighting monsters, I proposed that we take turns scaring each other and learning to fight back. The whole goal for me is to teach them to get scared and then act, not just freezing.
They started off just freezing, then running away after screaming. The secondary reaction was nice, I was glad they developed the flight option!
After a few weeks, they started screaming and fighting back by punching me! Which isn’t normally a thing you cheer as a parent but in context, yay! 😁
Normally I’d give them some warning that we were starting to make sure they were ready but one day I decided to actually surprise them just a little so they’d have just a touch of actual fear. They screamed for real and then came at me punching! Laughing and punching because it’s still a game but they broke out of their fear screaming to come at me on their own without me prodding them! That was pretty great. We’ll start working on punching form next but I’m really pleased at this progress so that eventually they can (minimally) defend themselves.
That green-eyed monster
“Mommy,” they said, with tears in their reddened eyes. “Mommy, I don’t like that Cousins had that THING that I really liked, and I only had a THING that I like less than their thing.”
JB has this weird habit of denigrating whatever they do have that they LOVE if someone else has a thing they would also really like. It’s like Kid Highlander: THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE.
We sat down to have a talk about jealousy.
We’d just watched Inside Out again recently, and I reminded JB of that scene where Riley was in bed talking to her friend back home. Her friend was talking excitedly about playing hockey with a new kid and Riley was mad and sad and … jealous! I mean, she wanted to play hockey back home with her friends, she didn’t want to be stuck in San Francisco with no friends. So we talked about how that was ok to feel. It’s ok to wish we had something that someone else has, we all feel that at one time or another.
I also reminded them of an incident with their cousin over the holidays where That Cousin had been super jealous of a gift that JB had. That Cousin pitched a fit and a half and demanded that JB give up the gift, accusing JB of making them feel “sad”. Of course, this fuss made JB feel terrible in the process. First we talked about how it was ok and normal for people to feel jealousy and that we should be honest about our feelings. But it’s absolutely not ok to lash out and hurt people over our feelings when no one was doing anything to hurt us. JB didn’t receive that gift to hurt That Cousin, they were simply enjoying the gift. If was a single user item, so it wasn’t something they could have shared, but they would have if it was possible.
Likewise, when Cousins had that THING, they weren’t having that thing AT JB. They were simply enjoying their thing. We worked through all of that, and then we talked about the practicality of being jealous that “they will keep it forever”. Unlikely, I reminded them. We all outgrow our things, don’t we? JB brightened up – and maybe when Cousins outgrow that thing, they will give it me? Maybe. JB then started hatching plans to pass down some things they are outgrowing too, so they were happy being part of a working ecosystem again.
Precious Moments
Turns out this is the perfect age for tucking my child under my chin for a sofa cuddle to watch an age appropriate show or movie.
Just imagine!
Speaking of imagination, JB has been obsessed with the salmon episode on Wild Kratts. They have watched it a dozen times and love telling people about the salmon’s many predators. They’ve also gotten in the habit of positing scenarios: just imagine! If you went to the doctor, and they gave you a shot in the eye!
Me: Ew, no…thank you.
JB: No no JUST IMAGINE. Ok just imagine they gave you a shot in the ear!
Me: No I don’t think I will thank you very much.
Proclamations
- This is the best day. But not the very best day.
- Knocks over a crayon: oh no no way Jose this is the worstest day of my life!
Depends on the situation – and I haven’t been overtly attacked – but I can often speak up for myself when pressed. I have a niece a bit younger than JB and it looks like she’ll be on a school bus next year. She pretty much takes no crap so hopefully there won’t be problems! But I think real world vs family setting is very different. She too has been very interested in monsters (though not actually scared of them) and I love the Monster Training you’re doing! (You did leave in a gendered pronoun btw.)
I’m always happy when younguns take no crap!
JB is now having a lot of imagination playtime that includes monsters but not in a scared way so I am glad that it seems to be taking hold?
*thanks for the note!
Definitely freeze. When I am confronted by an uncomfortable situation, I was taught to ignore it. When bullies don’t get the reaction they want, they tend to stop (this does double duty when men are harassing me on the street–it is safer in that situation, too). Plus, my brain can’t immediately comprehend that someone wants to harm me or is insulting me. It is hours later when I realize what was really happening and by then it is too late.
I’m jealous that you have the ability to a) recognize when someone is trying to hurt your feelings and b) shut down bullies decisively. Can you teach me how??
Honestly, in street harassment, ignoring it IS the safest thing to do. Because as an adult, responding GENERALLY escalates the situation, vs as a younger person where you can kind of make them back down. I know this from experience.
I would HAPPILY teach you if I could! I do think the recognition stuff is the first step. But I also really like the perfectly professional super icy (almost cutting) language I read from Ask A Manager too, for adulthood.
I’ve been both at times, though the initial gut reaction seems to be: freeze rather than lashing out fighting. It’s a very interesting question because I can clearly in my memory remember both types of reaction Freezing and Fighting. Does it ever change for you?
Love what you did with JB and the monsters. My daughter seems to have developed a fear of spiders – not really sure how to tackle it.
It does change! It changes with the circumstances (school where it’s “safe” to stand up for yourself, the street where it’s very NOT stafe to stand up for yourself, work where it can be a gamble).
If she’s still pretty young, I’m sure there are ways to help her be a little less afraid of them but I try not to lean hard on fears in the young set because I don’t want to inadvertently reinforce a fleeting fear.
Freeze for sure. But I’ve learned that the pause is actually better than reacting, in a heated emotional moment, at least. Wait, breathe, regroup, respond.
As a kid, reacting immediately was spot on for escaping being grabbed but as an adult, the pause IS good.