0 comment Thursday, July 3, 2014 | admin
You'll remember the avalanche of chocolate eggs my kids received for Easter?
Well, due to replacing their normal healthy yogurt puddings after tea with those eggs and contents, we finally finished them all yesterday! Hurrah!
Then I was at my mum's today and picked up two more! Courtesy of a friend of my dad's called Betty, whom I do not know and have never heard of.
I also picked up four more bags of Maltesers from my another friend of my dad's from his dog walking.
So, you know. Scream.
Well, due to replacing their normal healthy yogurt puddings after tea with those eggs and contents, we finally finished them all yesterday! Hurrah!
Then I was at my mum's today and picked up two more! Courtesy of a friend of my dad's called Betty, whom I do not know and have never heard of.
I also picked up four more bags of Maltesers from my another friend of my dad's from his dog walking.
So, you know. Scream.
Labels: Food, Friends And Family
0 comment Thursday, June 19, 2014 | admin
We've just had Easter, did you notice? I can tell by the fact that one of my kitchen cupboards is groaning from the weight of the many Easter eggs kind people have given my kids.
I am humbled sometimes by just how these two children have been welcomed by my family. It's harder to introduce older adopted children to people you know because their stress levels remain very high for the first few months and meeting new people had a sort of rocket-fuel-on-bonfire effect. But slowly, over the last 18 months, they've got to know my close family and meet all the extended family that were part of my life growing up. Not one of them has been as nosy or judgmental as I feared they would, and for that I am grateful.
Anyway, one of the ways that people have expressed their welcome of the children is to send them gifts of chocolate. Christmas and Easter are obviously peak times, but random packets of Aeros and Maltesers have also trickled our way throughout the year. A friend of my dad, one of his dog-walking friends whom I've never met, was at one time sending regular dispatches of chocolate like you would to front line troops during the war.
Grandparents have, of course, been the worse offenders. Only with them it's sweets too. You know, sweets, those awful chemical concoctions packed full of E numbers and sugar, that stain the inside of your children's mouth. And cakes. Cakes that fill bellies that haven't yet had their lunch.
Now, let me say before I get any further that I am not a health-freak mother who feeds my kids hummus and home made ciabata. My kids eat jam sandwiches and packets of Monster Munch when the occasion arises, and a trip to the park in summer is never complete without a flake 99. If we go to a friend's house or to a party, they can eat what they like. And sometimes, when I want a break from cooking and washing-up, we go to McDonalds.
But, on the whole, this family eats healthily. On a daily basis we eat our fresh veg, salad and fruit, and our puddings are relatively healthy too. No unhealthy snacks are allowed in their lunchboxes by the school; after school they have a wholemeal chocolate pancake for their blood sugar levels; and after tea they have either fruit of a yoghurt. At weekends we have fruit and yoghurt too, though on Saturdays we have ice cream in the evening for a treat, with attendant sprinkles sauces and wafers.
All of which begs the question just where do I shoe-horn in all the chocolate we've been given? And it is a lot of chocolate. Well, my first answer was to eat a lot of it myself. When the kids were in bed I'd stuff my face with maltesers meant for them, and so would my husband. It was an attempt to eat away the problem. But I got a bit fat and decided to cut it out and so a new way had to found.
My next proposed solution was to complain to people when they gave us chocolate. As a lot of chocolate arrived via my mother, I often had to complain to her. I asked her if she could please please please ask her family and friends to stop sending us chocolate as we didn't eat much of it and we were going to have to start storing it all in the shed.
Big mistake.
Don't you know that depriving your children of tons of fat and sugar products with zero nutritional value makes you a meanie? What kid of mother are you, that you want to stop kind, loving, caring people buying up half of Cadburys for them? They just want to buy a treats for the children to demonstrate that they care.
It was then that I realised that the giving of chocolate was as much for the benefit of the giver than it was for the receiver. These people wanted to show their generosity and giving chocolate was the easiest, cheapest, least offensive way they could think of.
So we get lots of chocolate. It is dispensed in modest portions at weekends or during holidays. In desperation, annoyance and sometimes jealousy, some of it is redirected towards me and husband. I thought the full quota of chocolate eggs for Easter had been received by Sunday, but then my brother dropped by with two more and a friend came around with a cookie making kit. I smiled sweetly, but secretly vowed my revenge.
Still, there are worse things in life than having too much chocolate. It would be awful if nobody bought them any Easter eggs. That would feel very lonely for us all.
AddendumTook my mother shopping today and there waiting for me were two more Easter eggs for the children from a kind aunt, massive great big Mars motherfuckers. I accidentally left them behind.
Addendum #2Two more from the next door neighbour!
I am humbled sometimes by just how these two children have been welcomed by my family. It's harder to introduce older adopted children to people you know because their stress levels remain very high for the first few months and meeting new people had a sort of rocket-fuel-on-bonfire effect. But slowly, over the last 18 months, they've got to know my close family and meet all the extended family that were part of my life growing up. Not one of them has been as nosy or judgmental as I feared they would, and for that I am grateful.
Anyway, one of the ways that people have expressed their welcome of the children is to send them gifts of chocolate. Christmas and Easter are obviously peak times, but random packets of Aeros and Maltesers have also trickled our way throughout the year. A friend of my dad, one of his dog-walking friends whom I've never met, was at one time sending regular dispatches of chocolate like you would to front line troops during the war.
Grandparents have, of course, been the worse offenders. Only with them it's sweets too. You know, sweets, those awful chemical concoctions packed full of E numbers and sugar, that stain the inside of your children's mouth. And cakes. Cakes that fill bellies that haven't yet had their lunch.
Now, let me say before I get any further that I am not a health-freak mother who feeds my kids hummus and home made ciabata. My kids eat jam sandwiches and packets of Monster Munch when the occasion arises, and a trip to the park in summer is never complete without a flake 99. If we go to a friend's house or to a party, they can eat what they like. And sometimes, when I want a break from cooking and washing-up, we go to McDonalds.
But, on the whole, this family eats healthily. On a daily basis we eat our fresh veg, salad and fruit, and our puddings are relatively healthy too. No unhealthy snacks are allowed in their lunchboxes by the school; after school they have a wholemeal chocolate pancake for their blood sugar levels; and after tea they have either fruit of a yoghurt. At weekends we have fruit and yoghurt too, though on Saturdays we have ice cream in the evening for a treat, with attendant sprinkles sauces and wafers.
All of which begs the question just where do I shoe-horn in all the chocolate we've been given? And it is a lot of chocolate. Well, my first answer was to eat a lot of it myself. When the kids were in bed I'd stuff my face with maltesers meant for them, and so would my husband. It was an attempt to eat away the problem. But I got a bit fat and decided to cut it out and so a new way had to found.
My next proposed solution was to complain to people when they gave us chocolate. As a lot of chocolate arrived via my mother, I often had to complain to her. I asked her if she could please please please ask her family and friends to stop sending us chocolate as we didn't eat much of it and we were going to have to start storing it all in the shed.
Big mistake.
Don't you know that depriving your children of tons of fat and sugar products with zero nutritional value makes you a meanie? What kid of mother are you, that you want to stop kind, loving, caring people buying up half of Cadburys for them? They just want to buy a treats for the children to demonstrate that they care.
It was then that I realised that the giving of chocolate was as much for the benefit of the giver than it was for the receiver. These people wanted to show their generosity and giving chocolate was the easiest, cheapest, least offensive way they could think of.
So we get lots of chocolate. It is dispensed in modest portions at weekends or during holidays. In desperation, annoyance and sometimes jealousy, some of it is redirected towards me and husband. I thought the full quota of chocolate eggs for Easter had been received by Sunday, but then my brother dropped by with two more and a friend came around with a cookie making kit. I smiled sweetly, but secretly vowed my revenge.
Still, there are worse things in life than having too much chocolate. It would be awful if nobody bought them any Easter eggs. That would feel very lonely for us all.
AddendumTook my mother shopping today and there waiting for me were two more Easter eggs for the children from a kind aunt, massive great big Mars motherfuckers. I accidentally left them behind.
Addendum #2Two more from the next door neighbour!
Labels: Food, Friends And Family
0 comment Saturday, June 7, 2014 | admin
I am very proud of the progress our kids have made with their relationship with food, with not a little help from husband and I, although I do say it myself.
Before we adopted them, the Foster Care placement of our two children almost broke down because of our daughter's relationship with food. I think she went through various stages whilst she was in care, but mostly our daughter would drag out how long it took her to eat food beyond all believability. Everyone else would have shovelled the meal down, consumed puddings, and be outside playing, whilst our daughters was just onto taking her eighth mouthful. She would take so long at her meal that despite an hour or so spent at the dining room table, she would hardly have eaten a thing.
For a Foster Carer to have a child that hardly eats is not only worrying, it is potentially incriminating. Everyone can see when a child is underfed and the fingers of blame point squarely at the parent/guardian. Social Services dragged their feet with providing any help, and so eventually the Foster Carers told Social Services that if they did not refer her to CAMHS for her eating disorder, they would stop fostering her. Social Services don't like sending their Looked After Children for professional mental health care, because it costs them money. But finding another Foster Care placement would have been extremely difficult and cost them even more money, and so they relented. As it happened, we were found as adoptive parents for them not long after.
I decided from the outset that I was going to feed the children only food that they actually liked. Their Fosters Carers could not afford this luxury, as they had two children of their own, and so mealtimes could not be individualised. But I was a on a year's Adoption Leave and could afford to take the time and effort to do this. I would even take them shopping to the supermarket with me and they could choose for themselves what they wanted to eat!
Ha!
I was on the right track, but little did I know what a steep learning curve I had embarked upon. Firstly, the kids didn't seem to know what they actually liked to eat. Stuff that the Foster Carers said were personal favourites of theirs, the kids would now weep inconsolably at if I presented it to them on a plate. Secondly, my son would have a screaming rage if I tried to get him out of the house to a supermarket (or anywhere else for that matter) and then when I could get them both shopping with me, he would want anything and everything and come out of the experience so hyper he was in danger of lifting off and leaving the Earth's atmosphere.
At some point it occurred to me that the problem was that they wanted to eat what their birth parents had fed them. The difficulty was, however, that they were both under seven when they were taken into care and nearly two years had passed. Therefore, they wanted me to feed them what their birth dad had fed them, but couldn't remember what it was that they had been fed.
Their eating habits became ever more regressive until at one point, during that crushing arctic winter two years ago, they were down to eating just plain pasta. And even then, they could never remember what type of pasta they liked. I'd serve them a bowl of bow pasta which they had been happily devouring for a week, and they'd sit there wailing, acting as if I'd served them dog poo.
I hated tea time. Son would tantrum because he was expected to wash his hands before eating, and then daughter would tantrum because she was asked to come to the dining table. Then I would try to make jolly conversation whilst son often sat there wailing and daughter made face shapes with her food and played with her cup. True to form, it would take daughter an hour to get through a small plate of pasta, during which I would stay at the table with her. Son would have eaten pudding and be sitting wriggling annoyingly on my lap for the last thirty minutes or so before she would finish and I could finally be excused.
The breakthrough came when one of our electric heaters packed up and I could no longer keep the dining room warm. I gave them trays to eat their tea on in the living room and let them watch telly. It was A MAZ ING. My daughters silliness instantly disappeared and though she didn't eat quickly, she did eat well. And - the best thing - I wasn't needed. If I left that dining table even for a minute, something would get knocked over or a fight would break out or something, because they wanted me there. But when they got a telly to watch, well, I could get a newspaper out, or, incredibly, just go off and do something else entirely!
Daughter's eating habits improved from there. Food and food times had become such a source of stress to her that her anxiety levels made her act silly. Now there was no one 'watching' her, she could relax. And eat. Simple.
It was around the following summer that I noticed that my son was actually exhibiting controlling eating habits too. Previously, he would take his lead from his sister. If she ate it, he would. But then he started to get inconsistent. Again, we were back to him swearing he hated stuff when he had eaten it happily last week, and insisting that he liked stuff that I had taken off his food list because it induced a screaming fit of hatred from him. It took the long summer holidays of me making two meals a day for them both that made me see what was happening. He now wanted the opposite to what his sister wanted. If she liked sweet corn, he liked peas, if she liked baked beans, he liked alphabet spaghetti, if she liked bow pasta, he liked penne. Except maybe he didn't really like peas or alphabet spaghetti or penne pasta and so he would scream about the food, even though I had given him what he 'liked'.
And maybe it wasn't always about the food. Maybe he hadn't done well at his game on the wii, or been given an ice cream when he wanted one earlier, or knew he had to have a shower that night. Pretending that I was giving him food he hated gave him an excellent excuse to kick off and get all his rage out there.
I put up with this for a long time before one day just scraping his dinner in the bin, telling him that if he hated it so much I couldn't possibly give it to him. Nothing makes my children explode like having control taken off them. I cannot even begin to describe the rage attack that followed this action. And then again when he realised that now he was getting no food AT ALL until supper time. And then again when he realised that a teary eyed pleading for food was going to get him NO WHERE. That had to happen twice (in a period of about two months) before he would stop using food as an excuse to vent his anger.
Have I put you off adoption, yet?
For the last six months, things have been much easier as they've reset their default position on food. Now, generally, food is to be eaten and enjoyed without much comment, whilst using food to control the adult or as a rage release is the exception. Although that dysfunctional relationship with food is still there and resurfaces from time to time. This week we've had uneaten lunch box food hidden in coat pockets, entire meals surreptitiously scraped in the bin, and food left that I know they love, which I suspect has something to do with those bloody Easter Eggs I've been factoring into their otherwise consistent snack routine.
See how small a thing it takes to tip the balance and send the reeling back down to how they were?
No wonder I tense up when grandma sits at the table with them and tells them 'how well' they are doing at eating and 'how beautifully' they are doing it. At home, we try hard not to put a spotlight on food and reduce the anxiety around eating. Therefore getting them to see food as something you have to 'do well' at is not helpful. It also makes my daughter feel self conscious to be judged in such a way - back to feeling 'watched' - and she can't eat when that happens.
The food issue is a field of emotional mines with adoptive children. Food should bring infants and children comfort and relieve the distress of hunger, and should therefore be a bonding experience between child and primary care giver. Very likely however the adopted child was not fed appropriately, consistently and/or enough in the birth home, and so the child's relationship with food is already a fraught one, with high emotions of distress, mistrust and neglect already in the mix.
On top of this is the fact that children who have no control over their lives being turned upside down often gain a sense of control through food. Certainly mine had me jumping through hoops of fire to meet their emotional and nutritional food needs. Took me too long to figure out that I would never get it right whilst it suited them better for me to get it wrong.
Before we adopted them, the Foster Care placement of our two children almost broke down because of our daughter's relationship with food. I think she went through various stages whilst she was in care, but mostly our daughter would drag out how long it took her to eat food beyond all believability. Everyone else would have shovelled the meal down, consumed puddings, and be outside playing, whilst our daughters was just onto taking her eighth mouthful. She would take so long at her meal that despite an hour or so spent at the dining room table, she would hardly have eaten a thing.
For a Foster Carer to have a child that hardly eats is not only worrying, it is potentially incriminating. Everyone can see when a child is underfed and the fingers of blame point squarely at the parent/guardian. Social Services dragged their feet with providing any help, and so eventually the Foster Carers told Social Services that if they did not refer her to CAMHS for her eating disorder, they would stop fostering her. Social Services don't like sending their Looked After Children for professional mental health care, because it costs them money. But finding another Foster Care placement would have been extremely difficult and cost them even more money, and so they relented. As it happened, we were found as adoptive parents for them not long after.
I decided from the outset that I was going to feed the children only food that they actually liked. Their Fosters Carers could not afford this luxury, as they had two children of their own, and so mealtimes could not be individualised. But I was a on a year's Adoption Leave and could afford to take the time and effort to do this. I would even take them shopping to the supermarket with me and they could choose for themselves what they wanted to eat!
Ha!
I was on the right track, but little did I know what a steep learning curve I had embarked upon. Firstly, the kids didn't seem to know what they actually liked to eat. Stuff that the Foster Carers said were personal favourites of theirs, the kids would now weep inconsolably at if I presented it to them on a plate. Secondly, my son would have a screaming rage if I tried to get him out of the house to a supermarket (or anywhere else for that matter) and then when I could get them both shopping with me, he would want anything and everything and come out of the experience so hyper he was in danger of lifting off and leaving the Earth's atmosphere.
At some point it occurred to me that the problem was that they wanted to eat what their birth parents had fed them. The difficulty was, however, that they were both under seven when they were taken into care and nearly two years had passed. Therefore, they wanted me to feed them what their birth dad had fed them, but couldn't remember what it was that they had been fed.
Their eating habits became ever more regressive until at one point, during that crushing arctic winter two years ago, they were down to eating just plain pasta. And even then, they could never remember what type of pasta they liked. I'd serve them a bowl of bow pasta which they had been happily devouring for a week, and they'd sit there wailing, acting as if I'd served them dog poo.
I hated tea time. Son would tantrum because he was expected to wash his hands before eating, and then daughter would tantrum because she was asked to come to the dining table. Then I would try to make jolly conversation whilst son often sat there wailing and daughter made face shapes with her food and played with her cup. True to form, it would take daughter an hour to get through a small plate of pasta, during which I would stay at the table with her. Son would have eaten pudding and be sitting wriggling annoyingly on my lap for the last thirty minutes or so before she would finish and I could finally be excused.
The breakthrough came when one of our electric heaters packed up and I could no longer keep the dining room warm. I gave them trays to eat their tea on in the living room and let them watch telly. It was A MAZ ING. My daughters silliness instantly disappeared and though she didn't eat quickly, she did eat well. And - the best thing - I wasn't needed. If I left that dining table even for a minute, something would get knocked over or a fight would break out or something, because they wanted me there. But when they got a telly to watch, well, I could get a newspaper out, or, incredibly, just go off and do something else entirely!
Daughter's eating habits improved from there. Food and food times had become such a source of stress to her that her anxiety levels made her act silly. Now there was no one 'watching' her, she could relax. And eat. Simple.
It was around the following summer that I noticed that my son was actually exhibiting controlling eating habits too. Previously, he would take his lead from his sister. If she ate it, he would. But then he started to get inconsistent. Again, we were back to him swearing he hated stuff when he had eaten it happily last week, and insisting that he liked stuff that I had taken off his food list because it induced a screaming fit of hatred from him. It took the long summer holidays of me making two meals a day for them both that made me see what was happening. He now wanted the opposite to what his sister wanted. If she liked sweet corn, he liked peas, if she liked baked beans, he liked alphabet spaghetti, if she liked bow pasta, he liked penne. Except maybe he didn't really like peas or alphabet spaghetti or penne pasta and so he would scream about the food, even though I had given him what he 'liked'.
And maybe it wasn't always about the food. Maybe he hadn't done well at his game on the wii, or been given an ice cream when he wanted one earlier, or knew he had to have a shower that night. Pretending that I was giving him food he hated gave him an excellent excuse to kick off and get all his rage out there.
I put up with this for a long time before one day just scraping his dinner in the bin, telling him that if he hated it so much I couldn't possibly give it to him. Nothing makes my children explode like having control taken off them. I cannot even begin to describe the rage attack that followed this action. And then again when he realised that now he was getting no food AT ALL until supper time. And then again when he realised that a teary eyed pleading for food was going to get him NO WHERE. That had to happen twice (in a period of about two months) before he would stop using food as an excuse to vent his anger.
Have I put you off adoption, yet?
For the last six months, things have been much easier as they've reset their default position on food. Now, generally, food is to be eaten and enjoyed without much comment, whilst using food to control the adult or as a rage release is the exception. Although that dysfunctional relationship with food is still there and resurfaces from time to time. This week we've had uneaten lunch box food hidden in coat pockets, entire meals surreptitiously scraped in the bin, and food left that I know they love, which I suspect has something to do with those bloody Easter Eggs I've been factoring into their otherwise consistent snack routine.
See how small a thing it takes to tip the balance and send the reeling back down to how they were?
No wonder I tense up when grandma sits at the table with them and tells them 'how well' they are doing at eating and 'how beautifully' they are doing it. At home, we try hard not to put a spotlight on food and reduce the anxiety around eating. Therefore getting them to see food as something you have to 'do well' at is not helpful. It also makes my daughter feel self conscious to be judged in such a way - back to feeling 'watched' - and she can't eat when that happens.
The food issue is a field of emotional mines with adoptive children. Food should bring infants and children comfort and relieve the distress of hunger, and should therefore be a bonding experience between child and primary care giver. Very likely however the adopted child was not fed appropriately, consistently and/or enough in the birth home, and so the child's relationship with food is already a fraught one, with high emotions of distress, mistrust and neglect already in the mix.
On top of this is the fact that children who have no control over their lives being turned upside down often gain a sense of control through food. Certainly mine had me jumping through hoops of fire to meet their emotional and nutritional food needs. Took me too long to figure out that I would never get it right whilst it suited them better for me to get it wrong.
0 comment Tuesday, May 6, 2014 | admin
I'm shoveling crap down my children's throats, thought you should know. Not literally, mind. What I mean is that I'm feeding my children those highly packaged, shockingly expensive lunchbox food assimilation stuffs.
I'm lucky in that my children like fruit and vegetables and so they get plenty of fresh, nutritious stuff. The problem comes with carbohydrates and protein. They like this, then they don't. They like that then they don't. They like this just what the other one doesn't like at any given moment, but then they won't eat that when they loved it last week.
I used to bend over backwards to give them what they liked, until I realised that they didn't know what they liked, they just liked to be in charge of what went on their plate. Even if they then didn't eat it.
We now have a policy of you'll have what you're given and they are not allowed to make any comment about the food they have to me unless it's a compliment. Anything less than that is not polite, I tell them. This has reduced my irritation levels, but it hasn't made them eat much more.
And they need to eat, get the calories in, because they are small for their ages. Both are the smallest child in their year. My Daughter who is 10 years old and two forms higher than her brother, is smaller than him. Nutrition is important, but they need their calories to grow. They love their puddings and chocolate, but there is definitely a tipping point, where too much of the sugary stuff and their appetite for normal food goes.
And also they need to keep their blood sugar levels up. I am convinced that not eating enough at school during the day contributes to Son's after school moodiness in particular.
And so I'm buying crap like Dairylea Dunkers, Kraft food lunchables and Nestle's Munch Bunch yogurt drinks, and I'm shovelling it at 'em in their school lunchboxes and at weekends. I'm not giving them a chance to settle on a favourite which they can then reject, I'm just getting loads of that type of crap and giving it to them randomly.
It's painful to do because I'm a free-from-cruelty, organic, free trade type purchaser myself, and it's expensive, and the packaging is very bad for the environment, but the thing is the kids are actually eating more. They're getting the carbs and the salts and the calories they need to get through the day, as they are actually eating this stuff because they see them as treats rather than obligatory food stuffs their parents make them eat.
At this stage, I'm willing to give anything a go. Anyway, in my school lunch box I used to have jam sandwiches and a Wagon Wheel and I survived into adulthood.
AddendumHusband went to do the lunchboxes last night and discovered that for lunch on Friday Daughter had opened all the food packets but eaten nothing. The mind boggles. Today she will find a note in her lunchbox saying that she is not to open anything unless she intends to eat it, because we cannot waste such expensive food. I do hope that note doesn't embarrass her in front of her friends.
I'm lucky in that my children like fruit and vegetables and so they get plenty of fresh, nutritious stuff. The problem comes with carbohydrates and protein. They like this, then they don't. They like that then they don't. They like this just what the other one doesn't like at any given moment, but then they won't eat that when they loved it last week.
I used to bend over backwards to give them what they liked, until I realised that they didn't know what they liked, they just liked to be in charge of what went on their plate. Even if they then didn't eat it.
We now have a policy of you'll have what you're given and they are not allowed to make any comment about the food they have to me unless it's a compliment. Anything less than that is not polite, I tell them. This has reduced my irritation levels, but it hasn't made them eat much more.
And they need to eat, get the calories in, because they are small for their ages. Both are the smallest child in their year. My Daughter who is 10 years old and two forms higher than her brother, is smaller than him. Nutrition is important, but they need their calories to grow. They love their puddings and chocolate, but there is definitely a tipping point, where too much of the sugary stuff and their appetite for normal food goes.
And also they need to keep their blood sugar levels up. I am convinced that not eating enough at school during the day contributes to Son's after school moodiness in particular.
And so I'm buying crap like Dairylea Dunkers, Kraft food lunchables and Nestle's Munch Bunch yogurt drinks, and I'm shovelling it at 'em in their school lunchboxes and at weekends. I'm not giving them a chance to settle on a favourite which they can then reject, I'm just getting loads of that type of crap and giving it to them randomly.
It's painful to do because I'm a free-from-cruelty, organic, free trade type purchaser myself, and it's expensive, and the packaging is very bad for the environment, but the thing is the kids are actually eating more. They're getting the carbs and the salts and the calories they need to get through the day, as they are actually eating this stuff because they see them as treats rather than obligatory food stuffs their parents make them eat.
At this stage, I'm willing to give anything a go. Anyway, in my school lunch box I used to have jam sandwiches and a Wagon Wheel and I survived into adulthood.
AddendumHusband went to do the lunchboxes last night and discovered that for lunch on Friday Daughter had opened all the food packets but eaten nothing. The mind boggles. Today she will find a note in her lunchbox saying that she is not to open anything unless she intends to eat it, because we cannot waste such expensive food. I do hope that note doesn't embarrass her in front of her friends.
Labels: Food
0 comment Sunday, April 27, 2014 | admin
Many years ago there was a fascinating programme that followed British teenagers nominated by their parents to go to an American bootcamp for delinquents. I'm not sure that was the exact name of the place, but That's what it was. A big fat boot camp in the deserts of America, where - as I recognise now - highly trained staff tried to help the kids become functional beings through a therapeutic parenting style.
I remember one particularly dysfunctional teenage girl, who used, amongst other things, drool and snot to try and get her way.
When the teenagers entered the camp, they went through a building where they had to surrender certain artifacts, take things out their hair and remove all jewelry. This particular girl did not want to remove her piercings. She cried, and wailed, and let snot hang from her nose in long, thin lines. She threatened to be sick. She dribbled saliva all over the floor. She was like a snotty, grizzly toddler in a teenage body.
She kept it up for hours.
And all the time a member of staff stood quietly by gently telling her every now and again that she just had to remove her piercings and she could move through to the next room.
Eventually, half a day later, she realised she couldn't win and she did what she was asked.
I think of this sometimes, with my kids behaviour. I remember the meltdowns over very small things. And at first, a little stress did send them into meltdown and I had to be very careful not to overstretch them. But then, time went by, I started to get to know them better, I started to see a change, and I started to see that they were like the snot/drool girl. They would trip themselves into a state of trauma in order to try get out of doing the smallest of required tasks.
Less so these days, but my kids will expand 100 times more energy trying not to do something than it would have taken just to do it.
If I am sure I am being reasonable and polite - tidy room, wash hands before food, pick up your lego - then I have to take the view that any traumatic overreaction is their problem. Otherwise they would be able to recognise what an effective weapon self-induced trauma can be and use it all the more.
We cannot have that. That way dysfunction lies.
So, take last night, for instance.
The rule in this house is that supper is fruit, yoghurt or cheese, unless anything is left in their lunchbox, in which case that becomes supper
Last night, daughter ate a plum for supper knowing she had not eaten her lunchbox sandwich. Husband found the sandwich and told her she could finish the plum, but afterwards she then had to eat her sandwich.
Daughter finished the plum and then picked at the small jam sandwich like it was something despicable.
The sandwich. One piece of bread with jam and butter. She eats it every day. She chooses it for her lunchbox. She could have finished it in eight bites.
But she didn't want to.
And so it started.
She didn't like butter! She felt sick! She didn't liiiiiiiike it! She had tummy ache!! There was too much butter!!!!!! She couldn't eeeeeeeat it!!!!!!! Mummy! There's butter on iiiiit!!!! She doesn't like butttterrrr!!!
Daughter has been doing this A LOT lately. Subtly setting up situations of conflict. The crazy lying and stealing, the pushing boundaries, the attempts at manipulation. All a reaction, I think, to the stress of that residential course she went on. She's not feeling safe. She's looking for boundaries.
So I gave her one.
I told her that she could go get ready for bed as soon as she finished her sandwich, and I sat her on the sofa and settled myself into the big old comfy armchair and watched. Just me, her and the sandwich. Cozy.
Sensing that outright defiance was not going to get her anywhere tonight, she tried a different tack. The eating-as-slowly-as-any-human-being-could-ever-possibly-eat tack. She picked off the tiniest amount of bread, in a sort-of slow motion fashion, she rolled it around her fingers for a few minutes until it was barely there anymore, then she placed it on her tongue like it was rat poison and chewed it like it was a piece of gum.
Clearly at that rate, she'd be finishing the sandwich around about the time of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.
Whilst she did this, husband had a humorous conversation about all the things we could do really slowly, like buy Christmas presents reeeaaalllyy sloooowly, so that no one got them for two years, or drive to McDonalds reeeeaaaalllly sloooowly so that we were really old before we got there.
The we concluded that that would be madness, and how sorry we felt for people who did things slowly because it must not be any fun at all.
At some point during all this, we put Son to bed, taking it in turns to watch Daughter, who would shove the sandwich somewhere if we didn't watch her. This we know.
Then, with nothing else to do, both Husband and I settled down in the same room as Daughter and her sandwich. I spent the time composing lymerics of the situation in my head, some of which I might just have text to a friend for amusement purposes.
Much later, lounging idly now, watching Daughter still not eat her sandwich, I reflected on how calm I felt. I knew that if I needed to, I would be there all night. I felt it was something I needed to do. I wasn't the least bit angry or frustrated. In fact, the image in my head was of me offering my cold and lonely daughter a big snuggly blanket to be wrapped up in and of my Daughter rejecting that blanket, wanting to stay out in the cold, feeling comfortable with being uncomfortable. I couldn't take away the offer a blanket, I had to sit it out.
As the hours went by, I felt sorrier and sorrier for her.
Then, as she realised she was not going to bore me into submission, another change of tack. The feel-sorry-for-me ploy.
She was cold. She had tummy ache. She wanted the toilet. She wanted a drink. She felt sick. The container the sandwich was in was dirty. She was going to be siiiiiick. She was being bullied at school. She was cold. She was tired. She wanted to be siiiiiiiiiick.
The answer was always the same. Well, finish your sandwich and ...
Wail, snot, false puke, cry.
Then she put the sandwich down and announced she was not eating anymore.
I said nothing.
Silence descended for a long while.
She said she was going to throw up.
I said OK, but do it on the wooden floor so it would be easier for her to clean up.
I could see she was getting very tired and knew it wouldn't be long.
Then, two and a half hours in, she announced she would be eating the last three bites of her sandwich at 9.30pm.
So I took the sandwich away and gave it back to her at 9.33pm. With permission to eat it.
And finally she did. Wolfing it down, with a big smile on her face. She seemed immensely relieved all of a sudden, like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She took a shower and I put her to bed and she was very affectionate towards me.
Kids might think they want to be able to control their parents, get their own way, but they don't. What they really want is for the parent to be bigger and stronger than them, to keep them safe.
That snot/drool girl off the telly? She came through boot camp a functional, matured teen. I don't know how long she stayed that way when she got back to the UK though. That would depend on whether her parents were the sort to stop up all night to make a child eat a sandwich if That's what it took.
I remember one particularly dysfunctional teenage girl, who used, amongst other things, drool and snot to try and get her way.
When the teenagers entered the camp, they went through a building where they had to surrender certain artifacts, take things out their hair and remove all jewelry. This particular girl did not want to remove her piercings. She cried, and wailed, and let snot hang from her nose in long, thin lines. She threatened to be sick. She dribbled saliva all over the floor. She was like a snotty, grizzly toddler in a teenage body.
She kept it up for hours.
And all the time a member of staff stood quietly by gently telling her every now and again that she just had to remove her piercings and she could move through to the next room.
Eventually, half a day later, she realised she couldn't win and she did what she was asked.
I think of this sometimes, with my kids behaviour. I remember the meltdowns over very small things. And at first, a little stress did send them into meltdown and I had to be very careful not to overstretch them. But then, time went by, I started to get to know them better, I started to see a change, and I started to see that they were like the snot/drool girl. They would trip themselves into a state of trauma in order to try get out of doing the smallest of required tasks.
Less so these days, but my kids will expand 100 times more energy trying not to do something than it would have taken just to do it.
If I am sure I am being reasonable and polite - tidy room, wash hands before food, pick up your lego - then I have to take the view that any traumatic overreaction is their problem. Otherwise they would be able to recognise what an effective weapon self-induced trauma can be and use it all the more.
We cannot have that. That way dysfunction lies.
So, take last night, for instance.
The rule in this house is that supper is fruit, yoghurt or cheese, unless anything is left in their lunchbox, in which case that becomes supper
Last night, daughter ate a plum for supper knowing she had not eaten her lunchbox sandwich. Husband found the sandwich and told her she could finish the plum, but afterwards she then had to eat her sandwich.
Daughter finished the plum and then picked at the small jam sandwich like it was something despicable.
The sandwich. One piece of bread with jam and butter. She eats it every day. She chooses it for her lunchbox. She could have finished it in eight bites.
But she didn't want to.
And so it started.
She didn't like butter! She felt sick! She didn't liiiiiiiike it! She had tummy ache!! There was too much butter!!!!!! She couldn't eeeeeeeat it!!!!!!! Mummy! There's butter on iiiiit!!!! She doesn't like butttterrrr!!!
Daughter has been doing this A LOT lately. Subtly setting up situations of conflict. The crazy lying and stealing, the pushing boundaries, the attempts at manipulation. All a reaction, I think, to the stress of that residential course she went on. She's not feeling safe. She's looking for boundaries.
So I gave her one.
I told her that she could go get ready for bed as soon as she finished her sandwich, and I sat her on the sofa and settled myself into the big old comfy armchair and watched. Just me, her and the sandwich. Cozy.
Sensing that outright defiance was not going to get her anywhere tonight, she tried a different tack. The eating-as-slowly-as-any-human-being-could-ever-possibly-eat tack. She picked off the tiniest amount of bread, in a sort-of slow motion fashion, she rolled it around her fingers for a few minutes until it was barely there anymore, then she placed it on her tongue like it was rat poison and chewed it like it was a piece of gum.
Clearly at that rate, she'd be finishing the sandwich around about the time of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.
Whilst she did this, husband had a humorous conversation about all the things we could do really slowly, like buy Christmas presents reeeaaalllyy sloooowly, so that no one got them for two years, or drive to McDonalds reeeeaaaalllly sloooowly so that we were really old before we got there.
The we concluded that that would be madness, and how sorry we felt for people who did things slowly because it must not be any fun at all.
At some point during all this, we put Son to bed, taking it in turns to watch Daughter, who would shove the sandwich somewhere if we didn't watch her. This we know.
Then, with nothing else to do, both Husband and I settled down in the same room as Daughter and her sandwich. I spent the time composing lymerics of the situation in my head, some of which I might just have text to a friend for amusement purposes.
Much later, lounging idly now, watching Daughter still not eat her sandwich, I reflected on how calm I felt. I knew that if I needed to, I would be there all night. I felt it was something I needed to do. I wasn't the least bit angry or frustrated. In fact, the image in my head was of me offering my cold and lonely daughter a big snuggly blanket to be wrapped up in and of my Daughter rejecting that blanket, wanting to stay out in the cold, feeling comfortable with being uncomfortable. I couldn't take away the offer a blanket, I had to sit it out.
As the hours went by, I felt sorrier and sorrier for her.
Then, as she realised she was not going to bore me into submission, another change of tack. The feel-sorry-for-me ploy.
She was cold. She had tummy ache. She wanted the toilet. She wanted a drink. She felt sick. The container the sandwich was in was dirty. She was going to be siiiiiick. She was being bullied at school. She was cold. She was tired. She wanted to be siiiiiiiiiick.
The answer was always the same. Well, finish your sandwich and ...
Wail, snot, false puke, cry.
Then she put the sandwich down and announced she was not eating anymore.
I said nothing.
Silence descended for a long while.
She said she was going to throw up.
I said OK, but do it on the wooden floor so it would be easier for her to clean up.
I could see she was getting very tired and knew it wouldn't be long.
Then, two and a half hours in, she announced she would be eating the last three bites of her sandwich at 9.30pm.
So I took the sandwich away and gave it back to her at 9.33pm. With permission to eat it.
And finally she did. Wolfing it down, with a big smile on her face. She seemed immensely relieved all of a sudden, like a huge weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She took a shower and I put her to bed and she was very affectionate towards me.
Kids might think they want to be able to control their parents, get their own way, but they don't. What they really want is for the parent to be bigger and stronger than them, to keep them safe.
That snot/drool girl off the telly? She came through boot camp a functional, matured teen. I don't know how long she stayed that way when she got back to the UK though. That would depend on whether her parents were the sort to stop up all night to make a child eat a sandwich if That's what it took.
0 comment Sunday, April 20, 2014 | admin
And just as I was really loving my Daughter, having spent an enjoyable weekend with her getting all her stuff together for her week long residential trip, that too goes belly-up.
At a friend's house recently she and friend's Daughter raided the sweet cupboard and helped themselves to five bags of Haribo. A lot of talking to Daughter ensued. What did she think her friend's Mother thought of her now she had done this? How did that feel? Why did she think it was it OK to steal sweets at a friend's house when she knows she shouldn't do it here? What should she have done instead? What would she do if her friend's wanted her to steal someone's sweets when she went away with the school?
Lots of talking, reflecting, and discussion have followed that Haribo stealing episode.
After I had waved Daughter off for the week on the coach, I went home and did some housework and I found an empty box of jaffa cakes hidden under the coffee table. This made me very unhappy.
We had an incident at the end of last week when I went to fetch Daughter her jaffa cakes for her pudding, when all I found in the treat box was an orange jaffa cake wrapper. I keep the treat box on top of the kitchen cupboard so high that even I have to stand on a stool to reach it, so I knew the kids couldn't have taken it. I concluded that Husband must have eaten them all. He does that. Stuffs his face with the kids' things when I'm not looking. It's VERY annoying.
But Husband denied having them, reminding me that he doesn't like them. I was puzzled. I totally know what the kids have to eat because I am in charge of it, and no one had eaten the jaffa cakes that week because we had been eating the cakes and cookies we'd made for Halloween. And yet, I could also have sworn I'd bought toilet roll that week too, and I couldn't find that either and we were having to wipe our bottoms on tissues, and so I concluded that I must be misremembering and had not bought jaffa cakes at all.
And That's what I've thought all week. Right up until I found that badly hidden jaffa cake box. To get those jaffa cakes Daughter must have climbed up onto the kitchen work surface and then STOOD ON TOP OF THE MICROWAVE.
And she did it in a week that she was getting a cookie or cake after school, a chocolate mousse for pudding, and fruit, Froob or Cheese String for supper, so she was not exactly going without.
And she did it in a week that she and I were having chats about trust and honesty, and not stealing things, and the difference between right and wrong, and most specifically NOT STEALING SWEETS.
After this find I went into her bedroom. I had told her I would be thoroughly going through her room when she was away and so to make sure everything was just as t should be. And That's what I did this morning. Where I found chocolate bar wrappers (not of any chocolate bars I have ever bought her, so where did they come from?), money (I keep all her money for her, so where did that come from?) and felt pens (not allowed in room and not seen before, so where did they come from?) as well as a few assorted things carelessly hidden in bags instead of put away properly, now placed loving in the kitchen bin.
When I was putting the felt tip pens away in the felt tip pen box kept downstairs under the coffee table, guess what I found hidden in there? Why, I do believe it was a mouldy jam sandwich.
Daughter's the one who eats jam sandwiches in this house.
And so, the stealing and lying continues unabated.
It is probably a very good thing that I won't be seeing Daughter for a few days. Gives me time to calm down and think up something really enjoyable to dish out for a consequence.
At a friend's house recently she and friend's Daughter raided the sweet cupboard and helped themselves to five bags of Haribo. A lot of talking to Daughter ensued. What did she think her friend's Mother thought of her now she had done this? How did that feel? Why did she think it was it OK to steal sweets at a friend's house when she knows she shouldn't do it here? What should she have done instead? What would she do if her friend's wanted her to steal someone's sweets when she went away with the school?
Lots of talking, reflecting, and discussion have followed that Haribo stealing episode.
After I had waved Daughter off for the week on the coach, I went home and did some housework and I found an empty box of jaffa cakes hidden under the coffee table. This made me very unhappy.
We had an incident at the end of last week when I went to fetch Daughter her jaffa cakes for her pudding, when all I found in the treat box was an orange jaffa cake wrapper. I keep the treat box on top of the kitchen cupboard so high that even I have to stand on a stool to reach it, so I knew the kids couldn't have taken it. I concluded that Husband must have eaten them all. He does that. Stuffs his face with the kids' things when I'm not looking. It's VERY annoying.
But Husband denied having them, reminding me that he doesn't like them. I was puzzled. I totally know what the kids have to eat because I am in charge of it, and no one had eaten the jaffa cakes that week because we had been eating the cakes and cookies we'd made for Halloween. And yet, I could also have sworn I'd bought toilet roll that week too, and I couldn't find that either and we were having to wipe our bottoms on tissues, and so I concluded that I must be misremembering and had not bought jaffa cakes at all.
And That's what I've thought all week. Right up until I found that badly hidden jaffa cake box. To get those jaffa cakes Daughter must have climbed up onto the kitchen work surface and then STOOD ON TOP OF THE MICROWAVE.
And she did it in a week that she was getting a cookie or cake after school, a chocolate mousse for pudding, and fruit, Froob or Cheese String for supper, so she was not exactly going without.
And she did it in a week that she and I were having chats about trust and honesty, and not stealing things, and the difference between right and wrong, and most specifically NOT STEALING SWEETS.
After this find I went into her bedroom. I had told her I would be thoroughly going through her room when she was away and so to make sure everything was just as t should be. And That's what I did this morning. Where I found chocolate bar wrappers (not of any chocolate bars I have ever bought her, so where did they come from?), money (I keep all her money for her, so where did that come from?) and felt pens (not allowed in room and not seen before, so where did they come from?) as well as a few assorted things carelessly hidden in bags instead of put away properly, now placed loving in the kitchen bin.
When I was putting the felt tip pens away in the felt tip pen box kept downstairs under the coffee table, guess what I found hidden in there? Why, I do believe it was a mouldy jam sandwich.
Daughter's the one who eats jam sandwiches in this house.
And so, the stealing and lying continues unabated.
It is probably a very good thing that I won't be seeing Daughter for a few days. Gives me time to calm down and think up something really enjoyable to dish out for a consequence.
0 comment Thursday, April 17, 2014 | admin
Adopted children can be big on control. They have learnt that adults aren't trustworthy and are therefore damn sure that they can do a better job than you. At anything and everything. There are lots of ways that their need for control can manifest itself and most of them are pretty annoying. Let's take a look how the need for control, however subtle, can be part of a simple trip out ...
It's a warm and sun-drenched, if windy, Sunday of a Bank Holiday weekend. Husband and I are going with the kids to a Cotswold village called Broadway, for a bit of an outing. The plan is to wander around a bit looking in shop windows and buy an ice cream or cake or something, and if that goes well then drive up to Snow Hill Lavender Farm for a drink, before heading back home. Keep it simple. Don't expect too much.
It takes us just under an hour to get there and all seems well. Then we get out of the car. My son, a bit of an adrenalin junky, wants his ice cream now, right away, this minute. It is explained to him that we are looking around the shops first, then doing ice cream after that. But he can't leave it alone. Explaining doesn't work, distracting doesn't work, and so in the end it's the old failsafe - 'if you say the word ice cream once more you will not get one.'
We have wandered by this time into our first shop, a kind of Past Times meets National Trust gift shop. Daughter and I are cooing over all the pretty purses and trinkets and stuff. Son's mood has gone from excited to destructive. He keeps saying everything is rubbish or stupid, keeps touching things, looking at me, subtly threatening to damage stuff. He flops his feet loudly on the floor when he walks and he blows raspberries. He is not getting what he wants and so he wants to spoil things for the rest of us. I say to my husband something along the lines of 'can you please get this vile boy away from me.'
We leave the shop, wander along the High Street. The coffee shops and pubs are doing good trade today and along the pavement there's an ice cream paddler and an Italian market, selling olives and cheeses and such. We enter another shop, one that sells fancy stuff for the kitchen, and I tell daughter she can let go of my hand here. She lets go of my hand, but she will not let go of my attention. She wants my attention on every thing her eyes fall upon. If I wander on to look at something she calls me back to look at what she's looking at. She asks me what things are. She asks if she can buy things. It's not possible for me just to browse because that would mean, for my daughter, that my attention was elsewhere. That cannot be allowed.
We leave, cross the road, and start wandering up the other side of the High Street. Horror of Horrors, there's a toy shop! Husband and I say that we don't know anyone who would want to go in there and the kids giggle and get all excited. We go inside with them and they start to go a little crazy with this sudden abundance of fun items before them. They want this, no, they want that, no, they want that instead, or maybe, they want this, or that. Or this and that. They're both quite lovely to watch, abandoning all self-consciousness to happiness.
But! No buying things until after the ice cream, and no ice cream until after we've wandered all the High Street! So, we leave and wander on.
I keep passing shops that I would love to browse inside, but I know that would be a hiding to nothing. So, now, we go for an ice cream. Except daughter wants a cake, suddenly. All the coffee shops and such are busy, but the ice cream vendors out on the High Street are not. I tell daughter we're having ice cream from the vendors and I explain to her why. Daughter's mood darkens. She doesn't want stupid ice cream from the stupid ice cream vendor. Why can't we go into a shop and get an ice cream. She starts pulling on my hand and dragging her feet. I tell her it's ice cream from the vendor or nothing. She continues to pull down on my arm, trying to assert some physical control over me.
We buy the ice creams (for two children who have suddenly gone very quiet) and hang around on the sunny, breezy High Street that is exceptionally pretty, lined with its honeycomb coloured buildings and its trees in blossom.
Inspirations strikes! The children know that they cannot go into a shop whilst they are eating their ice creams! And so I leave them with their dad and go browsing in one of my favourite shops. Alone. It feels so indulgent and I happily buy a large fat white cathedral candle. I would have bought a couple more 'nice things' but I know the kids will find that hard to handle as they are only allowed to buy one item.
Meanwhile, daughter is still eating her ice cream. As punishment, I presume, for not getting her way over where the ice cream was purchased, daughter is eating her raspberry ripple in an exceptionally slow manner. She knows we can't do much whilst she's still eating and she's so happy to keep us hanging around. Control over all of us! Awesome!
Except, not. I tell son he can go buy the thing he wants to buy with his dad whilst I stand and wait with daughter. She really doesn't like that and her ice cream disappears in seconds.
It's been a success, relatively speaking, and so we head off to the lavender farm on Snow Hill. Daughter's mood is still a little dark. The surprise of entering a cafe and being told she can choose any drink she likes momentarily throws her. Perhaps she'll just relax and enjoy herself for a bit. But then son chooses the same drink as daughter, a strawberry milkshake, and now daughter wants to keep hold of the particular carton that she picked up. Literally. I am carrying a tray with a hot drink and a glass bottle on it and she is trying to keep her hand on the milkshake carton, also on the tray. It's silly and it's not safe. I order her to go and get a table with her dad, she has a little tantrum. I insist, and she goes.
By the time I have paid for these items and join my family at the table, her mood has got even darker. Nobody would sit where she wanted them to sit.
We're done with our drinks long before daughter is, but again, she soon finishes up when she sees me take son to go and have a look in the gift shop.
We start the drive back home along the long flat top of the lavender covered hill, with spectacular views of the Vale of Evesham far beyond it. Husband puts the radio on and starts searching for some good tunes to play as we race along the bright country lanes. But daughter cannot have this! Heart FM is what we usually listen to and Heart FM is what she wants on now! Husband picks up a station playing a Eurythmics track and he tells the kids that this was one of his favourite bands when he was a teenager. But it's not Heart FM! So daughter starts to complain loudly over the track that husband is singing along to. I turn the music up.
That does it! TANTRUM! She has been continually thwarted in her attempts to control things and this is the last straw! She cries, she wails, she shouts. We ignore, ignore, ignore. She keeps it up for several more songs and when she finally gets it that this isn't going to get her what she wants, she shuts up and puts her coat over her head.
We'd kept all stress to a minimum. The kids weren't tired and they weren't hungry and the place wasn't especially busy. Excusing the drive there and back, we were only out for about an hour and a half. But still they couldn't relax. With daughter I get the impression that her mind is always racing, trying to figure out what her options are and how to get what she wants. With son, I suspect he's ruled by a fear of boredom and gets anxious when no adrenalin hit is in sight.
This is a fairly typical day out for our family. In fact, it's pretty much one of the better days out we've had. It's sad really, that they can't just enjoy a sunny afternoon out with mum and dad, lap up the ice cream, enjoy the drinks and the drive. I used to love it when our family had daytrips like this when I was growing up, although it didn't happen very often. I don't ever remember causing a fuss when an ice cream was bought for me, I just remember being very pleased about it.
It's a warm and sun-drenched, if windy, Sunday of a Bank Holiday weekend. Husband and I are going with the kids to a Cotswold village called Broadway, for a bit of an outing. The plan is to wander around a bit looking in shop windows and buy an ice cream or cake or something, and if that goes well then drive up to Snow Hill Lavender Farm for a drink, before heading back home. Keep it simple. Don't expect too much.
It takes us just under an hour to get there and all seems well. Then we get out of the car. My son, a bit of an adrenalin junky, wants his ice cream now, right away, this minute. It is explained to him that we are looking around the shops first, then doing ice cream after that. But he can't leave it alone. Explaining doesn't work, distracting doesn't work, and so in the end it's the old failsafe - 'if you say the word ice cream once more you will not get one.'
We have wandered by this time into our first shop, a kind of Past Times meets National Trust gift shop. Daughter and I are cooing over all the pretty purses and trinkets and stuff. Son's mood has gone from excited to destructive. He keeps saying everything is rubbish or stupid, keeps touching things, looking at me, subtly threatening to damage stuff. He flops his feet loudly on the floor when he walks and he blows raspberries. He is not getting what he wants and so he wants to spoil things for the rest of us. I say to my husband something along the lines of 'can you please get this vile boy away from me.'
We leave the shop, wander along the High Street. The coffee shops and pubs are doing good trade today and along the pavement there's an ice cream paddler and an Italian market, selling olives and cheeses and such. We enter another shop, one that sells fancy stuff for the kitchen, and I tell daughter she can let go of my hand here. She lets go of my hand, but she will not let go of my attention. She wants my attention on every thing her eyes fall upon. If I wander on to look at something she calls me back to look at what she's looking at. She asks me what things are. She asks if she can buy things. It's not possible for me just to browse because that would mean, for my daughter, that my attention was elsewhere. That cannot be allowed.
We leave, cross the road, and start wandering up the other side of the High Street. Horror of Horrors, there's a toy shop! Husband and I say that we don't know anyone who would want to go in there and the kids giggle and get all excited. We go inside with them and they start to go a little crazy with this sudden abundance of fun items before them. They want this, no, they want that, no, they want that instead, or maybe, they want this, or that. Or this and that. They're both quite lovely to watch, abandoning all self-consciousness to happiness.
But! No buying things until after the ice cream, and no ice cream until after we've wandered all the High Street! So, we leave and wander on.
I keep passing shops that I would love to browse inside, but I know that would be a hiding to nothing. So, now, we go for an ice cream. Except daughter wants a cake, suddenly. All the coffee shops and such are busy, but the ice cream vendors out on the High Street are not. I tell daughter we're having ice cream from the vendors and I explain to her why. Daughter's mood darkens. She doesn't want stupid ice cream from the stupid ice cream vendor. Why can't we go into a shop and get an ice cream. She starts pulling on my hand and dragging her feet. I tell her it's ice cream from the vendor or nothing. She continues to pull down on my arm, trying to assert some physical control over me.
We buy the ice creams (for two children who have suddenly gone very quiet) and hang around on the sunny, breezy High Street that is exceptionally pretty, lined with its honeycomb coloured buildings and its trees in blossom.
Inspirations strikes! The children know that they cannot go into a shop whilst they are eating their ice creams! And so I leave them with their dad and go browsing in one of my favourite shops. Alone. It feels so indulgent and I happily buy a large fat white cathedral candle. I would have bought a couple more 'nice things' but I know the kids will find that hard to handle as they are only allowed to buy one item.
Meanwhile, daughter is still eating her ice cream. As punishment, I presume, for not getting her way over where the ice cream was purchased, daughter is eating her raspberry ripple in an exceptionally slow manner. She knows we can't do much whilst she's still eating and she's so happy to keep us hanging around. Control over all of us! Awesome!
Except, not. I tell son he can go buy the thing he wants to buy with his dad whilst I stand and wait with daughter. She really doesn't like that and her ice cream disappears in seconds.
It's been a success, relatively speaking, and so we head off to the lavender farm on Snow Hill. Daughter's mood is still a little dark. The surprise of entering a cafe and being told she can choose any drink she likes momentarily throws her. Perhaps she'll just relax and enjoy herself for a bit. But then son chooses the same drink as daughter, a strawberry milkshake, and now daughter wants to keep hold of the particular carton that she picked up. Literally. I am carrying a tray with a hot drink and a glass bottle on it and she is trying to keep her hand on the milkshake carton, also on the tray. It's silly and it's not safe. I order her to go and get a table with her dad, she has a little tantrum. I insist, and she goes.
By the time I have paid for these items and join my family at the table, her mood has got even darker. Nobody would sit where she wanted them to sit.
We're done with our drinks long before daughter is, but again, she soon finishes up when she sees me take son to go and have a look in the gift shop.
We start the drive back home along the long flat top of the lavender covered hill, with spectacular views of the Vale of Evesham far beyond it. Husband puts the radio on and starts searching for some good tunes to play as we race along the bright country lanes. But daughter cannot have this! Heart FM is what we usually listen to and Heart FM is what she wants on now! Husband picks up a station playing a Eurythmics track and he tells the kids that this was one of his favourite bands when he was a teenager. But it's not Heart FM! So daughter starts to complain loudly over the track that husband is singing along to. I turn the music up.
That does it! TANTRUM! She has been continually thwarted in her attempts to control things and this is the last straw! She cries, she wails, she shouts. We ignore, ignore, ignore. She keeps it up for several more songs and when she finally gets it that this isn't going to get her what she wants, she shuts up and puts her coat over her head.
We'd kept all stress to a minimum. The kids weren't tired and they weren't hungry and the place wasn't especially busy. Excusing the drive there and back, we were only out for about an hour and a half. But still they couldn't relax. With daughter I get the impression that her mind is always racing, trying to figure out what her options are and how to get what she wants. With son, I suspect he's ruled by a fear of boredom and gets anxious when no adrenalin hit is in sight.
This is a fairly typical day out for our family. In fact, it's pretty much one of the better days out we've had. It's sad really, that they can't just enjoy a sunny afternoon out with mum and dad, lap up the ice cream, enjoy the drinks and the drive. I used to love it when our family had daytrips like this when I was growing up, although it didn't happen very often. I don't ever remember causing a fuss when an ice cream was bought for me, I just remember being very pleased about it.