Allowing Him to Feel, Part 2

  This is a story about an ordinary day that took a turn for the worse. Summer is winding down and school will start soon, for all of us. We went to a splashpad in the morning and then to a movie. We pushed the limit on naptime, but the girls made it. I thought we would all rest when we got home, but the boys saw their friend, our neighbor, outside and asked to play. I said yes and put the girls down. After an hour, I called the boys inside. I wanted them to rest but I also wanted them to make their own choice, so I said they could help with a clean up job or read a book on their beds. They chose to clean up.

  The day before, Gavin's puzzle that he had been working on with Keith got torn to pieces. All 500 of them. Gavin had been really sad and I had comforted him while he cried about it. We weren't really sure what happened. Henry denied it and  blamed Everly. I think Henry did it and lied. 

  But the puzzle pieces couldn't stay on the floor because we have a crawling baby who would love to have a drooley feast on them. I asked the boys to clean up the puzzle and I went to the kitchen to make dinner. The baby played on the floor while I worked but she was on edge. She wasn't going to be happy for long. So I chopped vegetables and measured spices as fast as could and wondered why I had chosen such a complicated recipe.

  As I worked in the kitchen, Genevieve was getting fussy and I could hear Gavin crying. I knew he was getting frustrated with the clean up job and probably that Henry wasn't helping as much as he should. It wasn't fair. I didn't think about the day before and how disappointed Gavin must still have felt about all of his hard work on the puzzle destroyed. He cried and wailed and I didn't have much sympathy. I called him to come talk to me in the kitchen but he didn't come. I was at a critical point in the recipe and couldn't leave. Besides, the baby was getting fussy and I was going to attend to her before my 6 year old anyway. 

  This went on for several minutes. Gavin cried, I called him to come to me. He wouldn't come. I thought how ridiculous the whole thing was. Finally, the recipe was ready to simmer. I picked up the baby and went to Gavin. He was sitting in a pile of puzzle pieces crying. He said it was too hard. I told him that the work he  had done was good and we could finish later. He went upstairs. I fed the baby. 

  Twenty minutes later, I found him asleep in my bed. At dinner time, I woke him up to come to the table and he just cried. I tried unsuccessfully to cheer him up. I thought he would get over it soon but he didn't. He said he wanted to be alone so we left him and went to the table. His cries were distressing to me and I knew I couldn't just leave him like that so I went back and deliberately put my hands on him, I rubbed his back and stroked his hair and kissed his cheeks. 

 

  I asked him if he was hungry, he acknowledged that he was hungry but insisted that he didn't want to be around us. He took me up on my offer to eat at our other table but he kept crying. I checked on him periodically but he was not eating. Each time I checked on him I placed my hands on him to comfort him as much as possible. 

  Then he started saying he was cold. I wrapped him in a blanket and held him like a baby. At this point I decided that I needed to stay with him until he stopped crying. So I held him and rocked him and also fed him his dinner, just like I do for the baby. He was quiet while he ate so I was hopeful that he was winding down. But he kept crying. We eventually moved to the couch and I continued to hold him, wrapped in a blanket, just like a baby.

  The whole time this was going on, I had to resist the urge to just give up and leave him alone to cry or to actually punish him, spanking did cross my mind. I had to resolve not to allow myself to think that I was a failure for not stopping the crying. I realized that the frustration over the puzzle had probably joined some other frustrations and hurts and had become too much for him to bear. I held him and rocked him and fed him dinner. 

  I wish I could say that this ended with a wonderful breakthrough and a moment of standout parenting but that is not the case. After an hour, dinner was finished and I was holding Gavin on the couch. Keith turned on the tv for Henry and pretty soon Gavin stole a glance, quieted down, and became absorbed in the show. I slipped away as soon as I could.

  I made a huge mental list of all of the things I had done wrong leading up to this meltdown. I placed a heap of blame on myself for over exhausting him, for skipping an afternoon snack, for giving attention to the babies more, and on and on. If we had just had a nap, if I had just given him a snack, if I had just picked up the puzzle, etc. But the fact is that we are a big family. We are a busy family. Changing the situation may not have prevented this meltdown.

  The next day, Gavin woke up and was noticeably happier and more confident than usual. I was wearing some super soft orange sweatpants that I have owned for ten years and he came up for snuggles all day long. It was hilarious, I would walk across the room and he would run up and give me a hug around the legs and say how snuggley my pants were. Hilarious and sweet. 

  I am still working through some of this but the main thing is that this was hard. It was inconvenient. But we got through it because we took the time to accept his feelings and sit with him while he wept. So many times, I have brushed him to the side because other family members need me more urgently. So many times, I have minimized his hurt saying "That's nothing to cry about." I am learning that while he is my biggest boy, he's still a little boy. A little boy who doesn't have a lot of practice with dealing with big emotions. Besides that, he is more sensitive to tactile feelings so I suspect that he is more sensitive to emotional feelings. He feels physical pain more, so he very well may feel emotional sadness, disappointments, injustice, and frustration more than others. 

  I will continue to be very observant and reflective in my parenting as well as rely on God for guidance as I mother this little boy's heart.