you wanted gain without pain
Okay, say what you will about Least I Could Do, this is just funny. :)
So, today, kitchen drama. I have to tell this story. One of the kids here is just not getting it. And by 'it', I mean everything. Why chores have to be done. Why brushing his teeth is a good idea. Why not making sexual advances to his mother is a very good thing...
...yeah. He's got issues.
But today, he was stepping on last nerves for all of us. We're running out of creative, non-abusive ways to try to get across the idea that 'punishment' is supposed to be something to avoid.
The roommates have a very nice bokken, and today, that came out of storage in the garage and into this boy's hot little hands. Here's the exercise in brief:
1. Take long object--bokken in this case, but you can also use an arm cane, a broom handle, a stick...whatever. In the military, when they do this exercise, they do it with rifles.
2. Hold said object out in front of you for the time specified--we started him at one minute, worked up to five, now we're at ten minute stretches.
3. Stand there. Feel your arms burn. Feel your arms start to shake. Let every iota of lactic acid build up in your muscles.
That's it. It's simple, and we're hoping effective, but...like we said, today...He whines a lot, f'rinstance. He whines about how it's child abuse. (It is not.) He whines about how cruel we're being. (Oh, we could be crueler.) He whines about how he can't take it anymore, how he's going to just die from the pain. (He won't. He'll just want to.)
Today, I hit my breaking point with the lad. I couldn't take the shifting, constantly having to remind him to hold his arms out, constantly having to remind him to hold his head up and not lean against the door frame...He hit the point of "I can't do this, I can't, I can't, I can't, it's too much"--and I stood up.
I walked over to the boy, braced my legs, inhaled, and gripped the bokken between his two hands. My arms were raised, my fingers curled around the wooden sword with the fingers facing me. Just for anyone who might not know? I have carpal tunnel. So, as opposed to what he was doing, with his arms straight out, so that the maximum burn was along the muscles on his inner upper arms...I was affecting my lower arms specifically, and holding them upraight so that they'd go numb faster.
After a minute my back started to burn. After another, my hips kicked in, registering their complaints. My feet, my arms, my shoulders started to hurt. I stared the boy down. I did not complain. I did not speak, unless it was to point out--quietly--that this was meant to be instructive, as well as punishment.
Three minutes in, I closed my eyes, breathed out, grounded, centered, accepting the pain of my choice, moving through it. He got really nervous. He started asking me to sit down, that he had it, he was fine, really, just go sit down--
"No," I said quietly. "You cannot hold the sword upright anymore. You said. I am helping you."
He began to babble apologies. Four minutes in and I hissed air across my teeth quietly, eyes going wide, and again rode the pain down. I stared at him. He saw in my eyes that this hurt me. He begged me to sit down.
At five minutes, the timer went off and I released my grip on the sword. I bent over, breathing hard, and then stood, smiling softly, leaning against the kitchen counter. Words swirled around me, his apologies, his mother's ranting about how I'd had to step in, and I just stood, listening vaguely, blinking. Finally I looked at his mother.
"Hey," I said. "I'm pretty happy, actually. I took that for five minutes."
"Go you!" his mom said, and I laughed.
We're still trying to get through to the boy. Fourteen years old and fairly convinced that even though he sucks at lying, he sucks at coming up with excuses, he really sucks at doing the task, without complaint, in a reasonable amount of time...whether that task is doing laundry, or picking up three items off the dining room table and putting them away...he's still convinced that he can lie, that we'll buy his excuses, that nothing is ever his fault, that he can take two hours to load the dishwasher...
...I mean, really. These are not life skills that will help him over the rest of his life. These are life skills that will hold him back, that will detract from the life well lived. We're trying to get this through to him, and we're hoping it's going to work...something, anything.
But in the meantime, I stood in crymsin_lilly's kitchen, and held the bokken, and told this lad--mostly silently, by posture and will--that endurance and discipline are necessary, that ability to change and adapt to circumstance goes deeper than just changing his mind, that we can and will match him if we need to make the point, even though we aren't the ones under punishment.
Let's only hope something actually sinks in for once...
So, today, kitchen drama. I have to tell this story. One of the kids here is just not getting it. And by 'it', I mean everything. Why chores have to be done. Why brushing his teeth is a good idea. Why not making sexual advances to his mother is a very good thing...
...yeah. He's got issues.
But today, he was stepping on last nerves for all of us. We're running out of creative, non-abusive ways to try to get across the idea that 'punishment' is supposed to be something to avoid.
The roommates have a very nice bokken, and today, that came out of storage in the garage and into this boy's hot little hands. Here's the exercise in brief:
1. Take long object--bokken in this case, but you can also use an arm cane, a broom handle, a stick...whatever. In the military, when they do this exercise, they do it with rifles.
2. Hold said object out in front of you for the time specified--we started him at one minute, worked up to five, now we're at ten minute stretches.
3. Stand there. Feel your arms burn. Feel your arms start to shake. Let every iota of lactic acid build up in your muscles.
That's it. It's simple, and we're hoping effective, but...like we said, today...He whines a lot, f'rinstance. He whines about how it's child abuse. (It is not.) He whines about how cruel we're being. (Oh, we could be crueler.) He whines about how he can't take it anymore, how he's going to just die from the pain. (He won't. He'll just want to.)
Today, I hit my breaking point with the lad. I couldn't take the shifting, constantly having to remind him to hold his arms out, constantly having to remind him to hold his head up and not lean against the door frame...He hit the point of "I can't do this, I can't, I can't, I can't, it's too much"--and I stood up.
I walked over to the boy, braced my legs, inhaled, and gripped the bokken between his two hands. My arms were raised, my fingers curled around the wooden sword with the fingers facing me. Just for anyone who might not know? I have carpal tunnel. So, as opposed to what he was doing, with his arms straight out, so that the maximum burn was along the muscles on his inner upper arms...I was affecting my lower arms specifically, and holding them upraight so that they'd go numb faster.
After a minute my back started to burn. After another, my hips kicked in, registering their complaints. My feet, my arms, my shoulders started to hurt. I stared the boy down. I did not complain. I did not speak, unless it was to point out--quietly--that this was meant to be instructive, as well as punishment.
Three minutes in, I closed my eyes, breathed out, grounded, centered, accepting the pain of my choice, moving through it. He got really nervous. He started asking me to sit down, that he had it, he was fine, really, just go sit down--
"No," I said quietly. "You cannot hold the sword upright anymore. You said. I am helping you."
He began to babble apologies. Four minutes in and I hissed air across my teeth quietly, eyes going wide, and again rode the pain down. I stared at him. He saw in my eyes that this hurt me. He begged me to sit down.
At five minutes, the timer went off and I released my grip on the sword. I bent over, breathing hard, and then stood, smiling softly, leaning against the kitchen counter. Words swirled around me, his apologies, his mother's ranting about how I'd had to step in, and I just stood, listening vaguely, blinking. Finally I looked at his mother.
"Hey," I said. "I'm pretty happy, actually. I took that for five minutes."
"Go you!" his mom said, and I laughed.
We're still trying to get through to the boy. Fourteen years old and fairly convinced that even though he sucks at lying, he sucks at coming up with excuses, he really sucks at doing the task, without complaint, in a reasonable amount of time...whether that task is doing laundry, or picking up three items off the dining room table and putting them away...he's still convinced that he can lie, that we'll buy his excuses, that nothing is ever his fault, that he can take two hours to load the dishwasher...
...I mean, really. These are not life skills that will help him over the rest of his life. These are life skills that will hold him back, that will detract from the life well lived. We're trying to get this through to him, and we're hoping it's going to work...something, anything.
But in the meantime, I stood in crymsin_lilly's kitchen, and held the bokken, and told this lad--mostly silently, by posture and will--that endurance and discipline are necessary, that ability to change and adapt to circumstance goes deeper than just changing his mind, that we can and will match him if we need to make the point, even though we aren't the ones under punishment.
Let's only hope something actually sinks in for once...