Ivy has an unhealthy obsession with our neighbor's child. If it were up to her, they would play together every day for 6 hours. In fact, if she plays with her in the evening and they play for an hour (which I think is a long time) and I tell her to come in, she throws the most ridiculous fit. One time I had to chase her around the neighborhood and she ran and screamed and stomped away because I told her it was dark and we were going in.
The other night she saw the little girl and some of the girl's friends behind our house at the pond and demanded to go out. I said, "No, Ivy, she's playing with her school friends." You can imagine the trauma that caused. Of course, when Ivy is upset, Story has to chime in...she either picks on Ivy for crying or she cries herself. She chose the latter.
So, what does a mom like me do when her kids are both screaming? Divert! When diverting their attention, I must sometimes do things that I would never allow them to do on a regular day. So, I ran to the living room floor, laid down on my back, and shouted, "Who wants to jump on the Mommy??" Story ran right to me and body slammed into my stomach. Ivy was a little harder to convince, but she eventually blew a raspberry on my tummy and that warmed her up.
Twenty minutes later, I was pretty sure that: my cornea was scratched, my stomach was covered in kid drool from raspberries, I had bruises up and down my legs, and a big chunk of my hair was missing. Daddy came in from a round of golf and said, "Hey, Kellie is outside on the swingset!" (Another neighbor with a son a little younger than Story.) The kids rushed off of me and ran to their bedrooms to change into outside clothes. I limped into the kitchen and looked for flip flops.
We went outside. Luckily, the other little girl was inside with her friends. We swang, Kellie and I chatted, the kids played. Then, Ivy spotted the other girl on her back porch and immediately tried to catapult herself into their yard. I grabbed her in mid flight, pulled her back to the swingset and said, "Ivy, Mommy said no!" This caused an explosion of tears, screaming, kicking, and biting. I tried to push her on the swing. No. Convince her to slide. No. She kept trying to sneak out of the yard.
So, I pulled the last straw. "Ivy, if you don't stop crying, you will go back in the house and straight to your room." She didn't even try, so I was forced to follow through. She stomped inside, screaming more and more. Story started too, so I took her inside with a sad wave to my friend.
I tried to talk to Ivy, reason with her.....but nothing was working. I ran a tub of water, took her clothes off by force and made her take a bath.
It made me sad to see her so sad. How do you teach kids to hide their emotions? And is that really what we should teach them?
2 comments:
Coming from a counseling viewpoint, you should not teach her to hide her emotions. And at that age, she truly can't. But what you can do is start teaching her to recognize and understand how her emotions feel to her and what effect they have on others and consequences of her outbursts. I have resources I can photocopy if you would like.
I think it's hard at any age to feel left out and seeing your friend playing without you is hard! Sorry you had a tough day!
Post a Comment