Clouds in the Forecast

A couple of crazy storms moved through Calgary yesterday. There's something about a surprise summer storm, complete with wind, rain, hail, lightning, and a 12 degree drop in temperature, that reminds me of how quickly and dramatically my 3-year-old's mood can change. She can go from happy to miserable in milliseconds, and the resulting destruction might make you think a tornado had touched down!

I've been following Annie McClellan's blog posts on Tapestry's website this summer, and I really appreciate the insights I've gotten into my children's brains. In "Name It To Tame It", we are reminded that a child's feelings are often overwhelming and confusing for them, and that by teaching them how to put into words what they are feeling they can learn to manage intense emotional states much more successfully. In "Let the Clouds of Emotion Roll By", we learn that children may need help recognizing that emotional states come and go, and that we can do this by acknowledging their current feelings while reminding them of a time when they felt differently.

I love the idea of acknowledging a child's emotional reality. It seems so respectful, and honouring of them as people. It's how I want to be treated when I'm having an irrational overreaction to something. And I think it's important to treat our children this way as well. As with most good parenting ideas, though, it's easier said than done. The last thing I want to do when dealing with a meltdown is get down on one knee and communicate to my child that I get where they're coming from. Especially if we're in the grocery store! I'd much prefer to tell them to snap out of it, get over it, and generally move on. Sometimes I feel like laughing at how ridiculous they're being. What I'm trying to learn to do, though, is teach them to communicate respectfully, even when they're really upset. And the only way they're going to be able to do that is if I can show them how.

As I was thinking about emotions and how God invites us to share all of ourselves with Him, I was reminded of the conversation between God and Moses at the burning bush in Exodus 3 and 4. God wants Moses to go back to Egypt and lead the Israelites to freedom, but Moses is reluctant. He is afraid that he'll be rejected and unsuccessful, and he tries to convince God that he's not the one for the job. God goes to great lengths to assure Moses that he'll be given everything he needs, that the plan will work, and that God is good, strong, and trustworthy. He does not dismiss Moses's fears, and He certainly doesn't ridicule them. I like that. A lot. I like that we can share our fears with our Father and He will not brush our fears aside. Even though our fears (or whatever emotional state is overtaking us in that moment) must seem ridiculous to Him, He invites us to trust and assures us that He will be with us (Exodus 4:12).

Much of my parenting journey has involved learning about God's great love for me, and then striving to show that love to my children. One way I can do that is by seeking to understand how they're feeling, which will teach them to trust me with their feelings, which will enable us to move forward together.

The Early Riser

It's 5 am. I hear the familiar footfall - feet frantic to find out if Dad's still home.

"Mom!" (It's funny - I always called my mom first, too.)
"Yes, Kolbie?"
"Is Dad still home?"
"Yes."
"Oh, good." And his feet carry him back to bed. He'll get up every 15 minutes or so, just to make sure he hasn't missed Brian's departure for work. But, for the most part, he'll be quiet and everyone except me continues sleeping.

I am often annoyed by this interchange. Nine hours of sleep is not quite enough for a growing 5-year-old boy who frequently has difficulty controlling his impulses when he's angry. I have to remind myself of a couple things, though. First of all, we've come a long way. This is the same boy who used to wake up in the middle of the night and stay awake for a couple hours, doing his best to wake the entire household. When it first started happening, we didn't know everything we know now, and we didn't respond with compassion. Once we realized that anxiety might be driving his sleeplessness, we simply made a bed for him on our bedroom floor and calmly welcomed him into our room when he woke up too soon. It took some time, but we finally got him sleeping through the night again. We experience little setbacks now and then. Currently, he seems to be reacting to Brian's summer hours. In the past two months he has slept through Brian's 6 am departure a handful of times, and he seems determined not to let it happen again.

The other thing I have to remind myself of is that it's a deep-seated fear that is bullying him into waking up so early every morning. It's not really his fault. He seems to have an extremely strong sensitivity to loss and separations. The stuff we've learned since adopting leads us to believe that it is the loss of his first family that impacted him so deeply. He was 13 months old when he came to live with us, and already securely attached to his foster family. The loss of his family would have registered as a significant trauma in his young brain. You'd think that the fact that he can't remember any of this would make it easier to get over. I wonder if the opposite is true: his lack of conscious memory of this event actually makes it more difficult for him to recover.

In Anatomy of the Soul, Curt Thomson describes memory as being composed of 2 kinds: explicit and implicit. Explicit memory consists of facts and experiences - stuff we are consciously aware of knowing. Our brains start forming and storing explicit memories between the ages of 18 and 24 months. (p. 73) Implicit memory is the earliest form of memory in the brain. Thomson asserts that it is present at birth, and may begin to develop as early as the third trimester of pregnancy. It is largely unconscious, and involves the more primitively developed regions of the brain. (p. 67) Implicit memory is at work every time we walk across a room - we don't usually consciously pay attention to the act of walking, and most of us have no memory of learning how to walk. Implicit memory can also come in the "form of perceptions, behaviors, emotions, and bodily experiences." (p. 68) This has enormous implications for children who experience loss/trauma before their brains are capable of storing explicit memories. The memories that are stored are unconscious, and may be highly emotional and stored in or close to the regions of the brain largely responsible for survival.

For Kolbie, this means that waking up in time to see Brian before he leaves for work may feel like a matter of life and death. He may genuinely (and unconsciously) believe that his survival depends on waking up early enough. Despite the fact that he has experienced Brian coming home at the end of the work day at least a thousand times since his brain became capable of storing explicit memory, it's not enough to override his more primitive, implicit memory of losing his parents. As his parents now, it is our job to figure out how we can help him heal. I've been learning a lot from Annie McLellan's blog posts on Tapestry's website. She's been writing about what she's been learning from her reading of The Whole-Brain Child by Siegel and Bryson. Our brains were created with incredible resiliency and potential for healing, and I'm so grateful that we have the privilege of being the agents of that healing for our children. We will continue to do our best to respond with sensitivity and compassion when Kolbie wakes up ridiculously early. We will also continue to take advantage of opportunities to learn how we can help him recover from his early losses. Here's hoping his healing includes the ability to sleep in once in a while!!

(Here's a little cuteness from WAAAY back when he was 2!)