Yesterday DD got scared at bedtime because she heard dada and mumma (seperately) on the baby monitor while we were in and out getting bathtime ready. She doesn't get how there can be 2 voices and is very scared and gets hyterical. Now i KNOW most of the crying is tiredness because it's bedtime and also that even if she is frightened, the baby monitor is not a threat or a danger. So i'm pottering about, getting her milk, laying out pJ's, and soothing her with my voice/trying to distract her. Meanwhile XP is going "She NEEDS you Bec, will you just hold her!?" so i carry her about a bit and he continues to go off about how serious it all is, meanwhile she is TERRIFIED, because now dada is scared too! Something REALLY scary must be happening. I kept telling him to calm down and eventually used the doctor analogy saying "If you cut your finger and go to the doctor, how would you feel if he screamd "GOOD GOD!" and called an ambulance? Even if it looked like a little cut? She's looking to you for comfort, you're scaring her worse". He went quiet for a bit (though still hovering nearby and occasionally picking her up and saying "Oh BABY, you poor thing" etc. and confirming her fears some more). In the bath she wanted my hairbrush. I don't let her play with my hairbrush, she chewed the last one. XP says "just give her it" i decline saying "she has lots of bath toys, she isn't allowed my hairbrush" at which point he yells "Just give her it, it's a special case!". I refuse and, not wanting to get into it right then, while she was screaming even louder at us fighting, take her to her room. I dry her off and put a nappy on her, she goes on crying, he goes on hovering. By then i'm getting really annoyed, she's been screaming hysterically (blue lips, red face, full-on screaming) for 20 minutes and he's making it WORSE! Eventually i tell him i think she needs just one of us to put her to bed so she'll calm down. He says goodbye 4 times, each time resulting in more screaming which, the first 3 times, he comes back to "soothe" by saying goodbye again.
Eventually he goes. I put her PJ's on, wrap her in a fleecey cuddlerug and sing to her a little. The crying stops within a minute of him leaving, she's asleep before the story is half-read.
Afterwards he phoned to ask if she was fine and tell me he thought i went too far with the doctor analogy, and was "mean" about the hairbrush. I reiterated that him being scared when she is FINE makes it worse and that maybe my doctor analogy was sharp but i didn't have time to worry about his feelings, he is a grown man, i was trying to help Smee, who is a baby! I then said "If i give her things she's not allowed just because she's upset, what sort of adult will she grow into? Where does that end? Today she gets a hairbrush she'll wreck because she's upset, what will i do if you die? Buy her a pony? We cant medicate her upsets with treats, life is NOT like that. She'll grow up feeling bitter and that the world owes her something everytime she's upset, but the world won't care." XP went quiet then because he sees that attitude in his own family, it's how they work, and he actually hates it, i think he just didn't see before HOW one gets to be like that.
What a mammoth post, just thought i'd share my resilience story. LOL. I'd have posted it last night right after it happened but i was too exhausted....
Wow, hoobley, thanks for telling your resilience story. I see a bit of DH in your XP - "the just give it to" him because he doesn't like to see DS upset. Must be hard bringing up DD just the way you want when you have an XP. My DS is the same age as your DD, only a few days between them. When mummy screamed because DS was wedged between the furniture and the wall and he became upset and scared. It was more because mummy was upset that DS being squashed, so you are so right that they react to what is going around them.
Bathsheba - I want my DS to grow up to be resilient like your 12 yo DD. I agree with the Dr Philism - that home should be a soft place to fall.
When DS falls over, I always have made light of it because the first thing he does is look to you for your reaction. If he is not hurt, he just gets up and toddles off. When he is hurt - well then there are tears after my initial light-hearted laugh at him telling him he is alright and then it is time for a cuddle. DS is not really the type who is comforted by a cuddle, never has been, distraction actually works best.
At 16 months of age, the worst that has happened so far is the fall and getting stuck behind furniture.
I asked the question because as he grows the difficulties will become more complicated. I feel in many ways that my parents were too protective of us and I am determined not to bring my DS up the same way.
Bathsheba - that is exactly what I am going to do - find the optimism and a positive perspective in each little trial he comes across. At his 12 months injections I was so proud that my little DS didn't even cry, he was shocked, but he didn't cry, he took it so well and I had a new toy for him as a present for dealing with it so well. Not that I think he really understood that much about it but for his 18 month ones coming up soon I am hoping that he will remember that it can be positive and not that bad. I don't know why I grew up with a fear of needles but I suspect my mothers fear somehow rubbed off on me from a young age.
SaraJane - Thanks for the psychology theory. That does make a lot of sense.
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