He never crawled. He went straight from a lightning fast, efficient inchworm to suddenly standing and walking before age 1.
‘A Behavior Problem’
It started with book recommendations like “The Strong-Willed Child” and gentle (but firm) suggestions by a preschool teacher to have him seen by a doctor. He was my first born, and I had no meter by which to gage his energy force. All that I knew was that he was exceptional. Well, that and the fact that I was exhausted every day being his mom. Oh, and that people were talking.
We cut processed sugar and food dyes.
We adjusted bedtime.
We diffused lavender.
We did sticker charts.
We did time-out.
We read the books and went to groups and took [bad] advice, and yes, we spanked our son. We spanked, near daily for a season, to address his “willful defiance” and so as not to spare the rod. We even talked with him about what he did to warrant the spanking, and gave him a hug afterward. [puke]
In my American-bible-belt-midwestern-young-mom view of human behavior, all that was needed was some good old-fashioned discipline and we would, by God, nip this in the bud.
LOL.
As a mother x4 now, I am ashamed of the previous paragraph and do not want to publish it. But what is a confession without the whole story?
I recognize that there are at least two camps when spanking is mentioned:
1. Spanking worked for me. Insert: You did it wrong.
2. You traumatized him. Insert: You did it wrong.
Either way, it is not lost on me that we, the parents whom he depended on and trusted, piled on him at only age 3. We modeled…in real time…to an impressionable brain…and a tiny body…how to hit and manipulate a person when you want something from them.
He did not break in the way that we anticipated.
My son and I have processed his early punishments, as adults, in the wake of his addiction and incarceration. He has offered forgiveness to me, sincerely, but I still cannot forgive myself. I can only offer my soul the time-tested mom pardon: There was no manual.
He was the kid who was blamed for every mess, every missing thing, every other crying child. I do not know how he stood up with the size of the target on his back during those years. Everything was always his fault. Even extended family members yanked him by the arm and yelled at him, “Look what you did, you little jerk.”
In my fear, I parented to avoid the worst-case-scenario. And guess what? We got here anyway.