Lilly_of the_ Fields
10-27-2005, 07:16 PM
Hi. Just looked after a 20 month old bubs for the morning and had the most horrible time of it. He's familiar with me and my son, but whenever seperated form his mother he goes into hysterics - deep sobbing where he can hardly breathe...even if she walks out of the room; or sees or hears a door close. I've looked after him in church creche and he's been the same - sobbing uncontrollably (sometimes long after the tears have dried up) for up to an hour. The only thing that seems to work is holding him against me in semi feotal position and rocking him. :cry If any of the other kids come near him (as will often happen, they try to bring him toys to cheer him up the little dears), he will scream and flinch away from their touch. :bheart
I've talked to the mum on several occasions and she can't get past the idea that her child is manipulating her :banghead and that only tough love will bring him about ('if I bring him into church with me once, he'll always want to..' etc). In the last few weeks, I've arranged to be there in the creche so I can be with him, and teach the other women how to calm him. It's just so heartbreaking, as the times when we've brought the mum in from church, she's behaved so rejectingly - called him a sook, disobedient, pushed him away, even threatened him that it's been a better choice NOT to bring her in. In 5 *minutes* of being here this morning, she put the kid down 5 times; that's in public, in front of me, my child and her other children! I told her directly that rejecting him will only make him more needy, but she turned it around - 'He has to learn *not* to be needy' :doh
Finally after 3 hours of being here this morning, on my lap most of the time - he looked me in the eye and smiled. But when mum came in, he was miserable again - she didn't even say hello or acknowledge him :bheart I've said explicitly to this mum that rejecting her child when he's so genuinely upset will only make him more desperate for her attention. I've voiced my concerns about Ezzo very directly, but her 'other children are fine' (actually they're not - the son is impulsive, aggresive and lacks empathy towards other children, the daughter is sneaky, flirtatious with men, at the same time neurotic and fearful - and *both* are excepionally disobedient when their parents are not around) and she believes that as her children are older than mine, that she is the 'older (wise) woman' in the situation.
After being brushed off, or having my advice backfire by her reacting punitively towards her little boy as 'it's his fault' (and I suspect such rejecting repercussions for days) I tried the indirect approach - offering to look after him (hence him being here this morning), praising him up, talking about how 'sweet' it is that he loves cuddles so much etc. (she's commented that a lot of people have said this to her recently :/ ), so her I lent her the '5 Love Languages for Children' in the hopes she might identify his having a physical touch love language - and it states explicitly that rejecting a child's advances for affection are detrimental (and can cause sexual ambivalence later in life when it's a mother rejecting her son). My dh is beginning to catch up with her husband before Bible studies, I really need your prayers :pray to help press home to my dh how urgent this is; I don't want to "tell" my husband to talk to hers, iykwim, but I know that if my dh was here today he would have been as heartbroken as I am. I just don't know what to do, because the more people tell them something's wrong, the more reactive they get - and undoubtedly they're getting more punitive advice from their Ezzo circle. I just can't see it getting any better unless some seriously dramatic change happens in the way they view their child, iykwim. :pray
Anyhow, thanks for listening to me :hugheart
I've talked to the mum on several occasions and she can't get past the idea that her child is manipulating her :banghead and that only tough love will bring him about ('if I bring him into church with me once, he'll always want to..' etc). In the last few weeks, I've arranged to be there in the creche so I can be with him, and teach the other women how to calm him. It's just so heartbreaking, as the times when we've brought the mum in from church, she's behaved so rejectingly - called him a sook, disobedient, pushed him away, even threatened him that it's been a better choice NOT to bring her in. In 5 *minutes* of being here this morning, she put the kid down 5 times; that's in public, in front of me, my child and her other children! I told her directly that rejecting him will only make him more needy, but she turned it around - 'He has to learn *not* to be needy' :doh
Finally after 3 hours of being here this morning, on my lap most of the time - he looked me in the eye and smiled. But when mum came in, he was miserable again - she didn't even say hello or acknowledge him :bheart I've said explicitly to this mum that rejecting her child when he's so genuinely upset will only make him more desperate for her attention. I've voiced my concerns about Ezzo very directly, but her 'other children are fine' (actually they're not - the son is impulsive, aggresive and lacks empathy towards other children, the daughter is sneaky, flirtatious with men, at the same time neurotic and fearful - and *both* are excepionally disobedient when their parents are not around) and she believes that as her children are older than mine, that she is the 'older (wise) woman' in the situation.
After being brushed off, or having my advice backfire by her reacting punitively towards her little boy as 'it's his fault' (and I suspect such rejecting repercussions for days) I tried the indirect approach - offering to look after him (hence him being here this morning), praising him up, talking about how 'sweet' it is that he loves cuddles so much etc. (she's commented that a lot of people have said this to her recently :/ ), so her I lent her the '5 Love Languages for Children' in the hopes she might identify his having a physical touch love language - and it states explicitly that rejecting a child's advances for affection are detrimental (and can cause sexual ambivalence later in life when it's a mother rejecting her son). My dh is beginning to catch up with her husband before Bible studies, I really need your prayers :pray to help press home to my dh how urgent this is; I don't want to "tell" my husband to talk to hers, iykwim, but I know that if my dh was here today he would have been as heartbroken as I am. I just don't know what to do, because the more people tell them something's wrong, the more reactive they get - and undoubtedly they're getting more punitive advice from their Ezzo circle. I just can't see it getting any better unless some seriously dramatic change happens in the way they view their child, iykwim. :pray
Anyhow, thanks for listening to me :hugheart