Oh No, We'll Never Let Go - Part Two

Here we go then...back to the chair, and our "one minute" task... 

If you remember right, we were at home, and I had just assigned our Jitterbug the task of sitting on a chair for one minute, with his hands on his knees.  I was using this task to help me see if he was ready to listen and follow - and to see if it was "safe" to venture out in public today...

...So there he is at 7:30 in the morning, sitting on the chair, with his hands... on the back of the chair.  He is looking at me with mischievous eyes, daring me to see that his hands are not where I asked them to be.

"I can wait a long time, darlin'... no worries about hurrying this along, okay?" I say with tenderness.  Those eyes tell me quickly that this is not going to be an errand day after all.  I quickly resolve to conceal my disappointment at the calls I won't be making, the laundry that will never be rotated, and the milk that will remain in the dairy section of the neighborhood Winco. 

8:00 has him with his hands on his knees, but no kidding, he's actually on his knees (not his bottom), and he's demanding "this is too what you told me to do!", and could I please "honor the agreement and let me move on with this day?"
 
He is sizing me up, testing me to see if I've got what it takes.  Am I strong enough to be trusted?  (No worries, small son... I've got this.  I'll take us both to a place of healing by not giving in to anger). 

8:30 and he's under the chair playing with a toy car. I chose to ignore this at this time, as I had four children to get ready for school.  (That's okay, I'm not looking to force him to obey at all, I'm looking to provide him with an opportunity to simply surrender on his own to a small, one minute project.) 

At 8:45 I inform him we will take a break to eat.  He eats breakfast, and we drop the girls off at school.

9:15 has us back to the "one minute" project.  He has now thrown the chair across the room, broken someone else's toy, hit the couch, and stomped on the floor.  We talked briefly about how he will need to put this energy back into the home when he's done by doing a small task for the person's toy he broke, wiping the couch down, and pushing all the chairs in to the table.  He asserts I will never see him doing these things.  I raise my eyebrows and smile.  I have never lost yet.

9:30 he's on the chair screaming at me, and he's sitting backwards.

10:15 another break.  We take the big kids to the retirement home.

10:40 back again we go.  He's now sitting on the floor with the chair on top of him.  "Will this work, Momma?"  he asks.  I do not respond audibly, but my eyes twinkle and my head shakes, "No, son."  I am now reading a magazine while sitting on a chair in front of him.  His real goal is to get me to join in the raging, his secondary goal... to disrupt and frustrate me... if either were accomplished, he would succeed at breaking the attachment.  He asks why I am smiling at him, with that "gentle face"!!!???  He does not like my gentle face.  I tell him cuz I've got the "Joy, joy, joy, joy, down in my heart.... WHERE?.... down in my heart!...."  This does not please my small angry son.  The singing does, however, help me keep my cool and remain in a position of being unflappable.  I was rockin' unflappable today.

11:00 I tell him he can take a break, as I am going to the kitchen to start dinner.  "Please let me know when you'd like to try again - and I'll fit you in to my schedule", I say.  11:10 he's bored, and I have not reacted at all to the screaming... (did I not tell you I was rockin' unflappable?) -he'd like to try again.  I returned to witness the "one minute" moment.

11:20 Still no success.  Finally, he pulls the trump card out and begins to attempt to dismantle the living room, throwing things here and there.  I bend down quickly, call him to me... no success.  I remember how I learned at this point to lower my voice a bit, slow my words down and give clear directions... no success. 
After realizing I'm going to have to catch this quick, angry rabbit to help him calm down and keep us both safe, I wait for my moment and when he is close enough, I swoop in, scoop him up, pull him to me, tell him of my love for him, and begin to rock... he, wrapped in a soft blanket, me rocking back and forth and whispering my love.

I've decided to call these days "fussy days" as I would have if he had been eighteen months old, instead of 6 1/2.  (The temptation is to label him as "out of control", or "defiant", but now that I've been studying, I know that this is F-E-A-R, fear so hot it sears him on the inside.  If my eighteen month old were this scared, I'd hold him, I'd rock him, I'd speak soothing things to his soul.  We'd say he was "fussy" but we weren't sure why - and we'd love, love, love.)

(See "Oh NO, We'll Never Let Go - Part Three)