Apr

6

Bark

Filed Under Uncategorized | 113 Comments

Riley has always been a sensitive sort of kid. Doesn’t like loud noises, seems particularly overwhelmed by pain, is picky about food to the point where it’s really not even remotely funny and/or something I can just make him deal with.

He gets anxious about things, too. Not, say, the looming specter of death, which you’d think would be a creepy thing for a five-year-old to think about yet he’s the one who’s reminded me on more than one occasion that while I like to think our cat just ran away to a Cat Spa of some kind, SHE PROBABLY GOTS DEAD, MOM.

No, he tends to get spun up about potentially negative scenarios, and can’t let them go. Like, he hates balloons because they’re just floating there…full of the the horrible potential to pop. When will it pop, in a loud and startling fashion? No one knows. It might not, after all. But it might.

With very few exceptions, he can’t watch movies all the way through. If the music starts getting dramatic and it seems something even mildly scary is going to happen—I’m talking rated-G scary—he has to leave the room. He can’t stand the suspense.

There are plenty of examples, but essentially, I feel like I can picture what is happening in his mind: the idea of a bad outcome is lodged there, and he can’t find his way around it. It takes over until it’s nearly all he can think about. The foreign food item I’ve placed on his plate is so overwhelming with the probability that it tastes bad, he not only can’t bring himself to try it, he can’t even handle it sitting there.

I imagine he’ll eventually grow out of some of these quirks in the same way he eventually stopped referring to his thumb as a “shum” (oh! I miss the shum!), but of course I have moments when I am worried he will not. I worry (ironically!) that he will spend too much time worrying. That instead of being open to new experiences, he will be mired in What Ifs.

I read a book called Freeing Your Child from Anxiety that had a decent metaphor for anxiety, and I talked with Riley about it. “Can you imagine a dog,” I told him, “That’s living in a house and when someone knocks at the door it just goes crazy, it barks and barks and barks because it’s all freaked out?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Like that dog across the street.” (He’s terrified of that dog.) (It’s a nasty little Chihuahua that I would dearly love to drop kick.)

“Yeah. And the dog is scared because it thinks there’s a bad guy at the door. But guess who’s really there? It’s just a nice mailman, and he’s bringing the mail.”

“Is there a present in the mail?”

“Uh. Well sure. Maybe. Anyway, so you know how you sometimes get worried about stuff, even when Mommy and Daddy say you don’t need to worry? That’s your brain being like that dog. Barking because it’s imagining something bad happening.”

We talked more about the dog and how he could try telling his own dog (his anxiety dog, oh god, I know, you’re like where is this going) to sit when he starts getting spun up.

And you know, it actually sort of works sometimes. Once when we were watching a kids’ show and the music got all dun dun DUNNNN I saw him get up and pace the room a bit, murmuring sit, dog, sit! under his breath.

Sometimes, though, it doesn’t, and he can’t deal, and instead of being patient or even understanding, I snap at him. My own dog is a snarly asshole who thinks shameful things like don’t be such a chicken and goddamn it why don’t you trust me when I tell you there’s nothing to be scared of.

I want to help him to not be held back by fears, but it’s true I also secretly want him to be brave and adventurous and willing to confront that which intimidates him. It can be very difficult to pick apart where that line is between helping a child overcome a challenge, and wanting to…I don’t know, push them into a different personality, like you’re trying to put them into an ill-sized coat.

It seems to me that some of the most difficult things to help your child with are the things you dislike about yourself. Because raising a kid shouldn’t be about getting another chance at your own life, but sometimes, down deep in the unlit areas, it can feel that way.

We want our kids to be happy and we want to help them not have broken places and we ourselves are broken and not always happy and it feels like an impossibly enormous responsibility, this task of shepherding a child into the person they will grow to be. I am not qualified, my dog barks. I am so fucking bad at this! Sit, I say, with no conviction.

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