fear and loathing
More on The Bun's Phase of Fears: I think (I hope!) we hit the apex of it over the last week or so, when he became so anxious about almost everything around him that he needed to be persuaded to leave the flat. Which does not bode well. It got to the point where he would refuse to enter shops and/or restaurants because there were strangers (i.e. salespeople or waitstaff) inside. Department stores and supermarkets are fine because their layouts are more open and he doesn't feel so trapped, I think. J and I have been trying to set a good example by keeping calm and carrying on, but there were occasions when it was difficult for us to even get through a quick meal in a food court because The Bun would say he was 'scared' of a particular man and would wail and demand to leave.
At playgroup he has been crying upon arrival and putting up a fight while I remove his shoes. No one has any idea what is setting him off since nothing and no one has changed in the last couple of weeks. He cries for about ten minutes while I sit in a corner with him and wait it out; thankfully everyone else around us is very understanding about this. Then once he gets into the swing of things, it's like he forgets about crying altogether and resumes being his normal, cheeky self, enjoying the rest of class and even announcing 'I'm not scared!' while gleefully running around.
The other strange thing at playgroup is his sudden disinterest in snack time. It used to be The Bun's favourite part of the session and he would often stay on at the snack table eating second helpings. Now he needs to be persuaded to the table and in fact would rather pass on the snacks entirely. I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the fact that a kid in class celebrated his second birthday in school a few weeks ago and his father, a big burly man who had never appeared before this occasion, came to the snack table to snap photos and help his kid cut the cake. The Bun, who normally loves birthdays and cake, refused his slice of cake and since then has been anti-snack.
I think that while stranger anxiety is at an all-time high for him, it is men in particular who scare The Bun. I don't know what specifically triggered this, but as one can imagine it doesn't help us get out and about easily with him. We wasted our tickets to the SSO Babies' Proms last week because The Bun didn't last five minutes inside the concert hall. He was anxious but was actually calmed down watching the pre-show entertainment and the musicians tuning their instruments, but the moment the conductor Peter Moore walked on and greeted the audience in his booming, cheery voice, there was no turning back. It didn't help that the usher standing near us (we had, thankfully, an aisle seat) was a slightly stern-looking middle-aged lady who kept putting her face very close to The Bun and asking him to shush, which of course made it worse.
When The Bun is frightened, he doesn't just cry. He literally bolts - given a choice between fight and flight, he chooses the latter, and he will run and hide as though his life depends on it. If he's in a high-chair, he attempts to climb out of it. If I hold on to him and he can't escape, he sometimes resorts to hitting his eyes or his forehead with his fists.
It's heartbreaking to see your child live in such a fearful manner; at one point I seriously contemplated professional therapy. But then I googled around and came across other parents discussing their older toddlers' stranger anxiety and just reading about kids in similar situations helped me get some much-needed perspective. I think part of the reason behind all this is The Bun's growing and overactive imagination and his increasing sense of self and vulnerability in the world. And since all this started after his bad illness a few weeks ago, it's likely that his traumatic experiences with the doctors have also resulted in this. He has always been afraid of the doctor and will kick up a huge fuss in the office, so much so he needs to be restrained just to be examined. If you were The Bun, how would you know other strange adults may not try to do the same thing to you? Incidentally, the regular doctors that he sees are female. In fact, he doesn't usually encounter many male adults in his daily life - which may be a factor as well.
Anyway, after reading around on the web a bit, J and I now have a better sense of how we can help him through this phase. Firstly, we try our best not to let him escape from the scene if it is not actually frightening. This is a stance we have to take especially when The Bun looks over a crowded food court and decides that some man is scary, sometimes a stranger seated so far away that I don't even know which man he is referring to. If necessary, The Bun sits on my lap and cries, but we don't leave (this is why we've been avoiding restaurants for a while) and I try to reassure him and explain that it is okay to feel nervous around people he doesn't know, but we're here and we'll make sure everything will be okay. By allowing him to escape, I think we would be reinforcing the idea that a particular situation is frightening and that he shouldn't confront it. After we finish our hurried (and harried) meal, we leave and congratulate him on being a good boy, etc. This from the child who used to be able to sit happily for almost 1.5hrs at restaurants as long as the food kept coming.
The other thing I've also started doing is to cuddle The Bun on my lap each night right before he goes to sleep and we talk about the nice things that happened that day. I also use it as an opportunity to praise him again for being 'brave' during certain anxious moments that day, and to reinforce the fact that everything is/will be okay. After stories, milk, toothbrushing and general horsing around in bed, these few moments are a good way for him to calm down, feel good about himself, and look forward to sleeping and doing more fun things the next day. I can't imagine why it took me so long to start on this, but it's a lovely wind-down ritual and I think we'll be doing this for a long long time.
Once he's in bed and I say goodnight to him, I tell him that he is loved and list down all the family members who love him. Sometimes I include adult friends of the family, neighbours, and other assorted 'aunties and uncles'. It's a bit of a list but it doesn't take that long, and I figure it can't hurt right now for him to start feeling more secure around other people.
Very slowly there are signs of improvement: last weekend, for instance, we managed to have a sit-down dinner at a restaurant with J's parents. The Bun initially was afraid of one of the male waitstaff, but I explained that the man was 'nice' and was going to bring him his high-chair, our food, etc. He relaxed enough to eat a good meal and even managed to thank the waiter on our way out. As we walked around the mall he was definitely cheerier and less anxious, perhaps because the mall wasn't particularly crowded and he was fairly familiar with the place.
It's such a tiny thing, getting through a restaurant meal without frightened tears but I'll take whatever progress I can get. J and I are still going about our regular activities but obviously we don't force him into situations like crowded malls on Orchard Road a week before Christmas - that would fray my nerves, not just The Bun's. I've temporarily shelved plans for any family travel until we all get a better grip on things.
If it sounds like The Bun is affecting the way we're living our lives, yes, yes of course he is. The way our lives are right now, he is the central focus and there is little alternative. In the midst of all this, I keep asking myself - am I too soft, too indulgent, too much of a molly-coddler? Am I not socialising him enough or what? (Really?) And I also wonder why I keep trying to fit The Bun and what emerging personality he has into a preset frame, expecting him to be extroverted or a 'typical' boy, when in reality that is something no one should be saddled with. He is who he will be. Que sera sera.
This phase may end in a few months and The Bun will move on to other things for me to worry about. Perhaps the real lesson here is not in managing his fears, but how to cope with my own.
At playgroup he has been crying upon arrival and putting up a fight while I remove his shoes. No one has any idea what is setting him off since nothing and no one has changed in the last couple of weeks. He cries for about ten minutes while I sit in a corner with him and wait it out; thankfully everyone else around us is very understanding about this. Then once he gets into the swing of things, it's like he forgets about crying altogether and resumes being his normal, cheeky self, enjoying the rest of class and even announcing 'I'm not scared!' while gleefully running around.
The other strange thing at playgroup is his sudden disinterest in snack time. It used to be The Bun's favourite part of the session and he would often stay on at the snack table eating second helpings. Now he needs to be persuaded to the table and in fact would rather pass on the snacks entirely. I'm wondering if this has anything to do with the fact that a kid in class celebrated his second birthday in school a few weeks ago and his father, a big burly man who had never appeared before this occasion, came to the snack table to snap photos and help his kid cut the cake. The Bun, who normally loves birthdays and cake, refused his slice of cake and since then has been anti-snack.
I think that while stranger anxiety is at an all-time high for him, it is men in particular who scare The Bun. I don't know what specifically triggered this, but as one can imagine it doesn't help us get out and about easily with him. We wasted our tickets to the SSO Babies' Proms last week because The Bun didn't last five minutes inside the concert hall. He was anxious but was actually calmed down watching the pre-show entertainment and the musicians tuning their instruments, but the moment the conductor Peter Moore walked on and greeted the audience in his booming, cheery voice, there was no turning back. It didn't help that the usher standing near us (we had, thankfully, an aisle seat) was a slightly stern-looking middle-aged lady who kept putting her face very close to The Bun and asking him to shush, which of course made it worse.
When The Bun is frightened, he doesn't just cry. He literally bolts - given a choice between fight and flight, he chooses the latter, and he will run and hide as though his life depends on it. If he's in a high-chair, he attempts to climb out of it. If I hold on to him and he can't escape, he sometimes resorts to hitting his eyes or his forehead with his fists.
It's heartbreaking to see your child live in such a fearful manner; at one point I seriously contemplated professional therapy. But then I googled around and came across other parents discussing their older toddlers' stranger anxiety and just reading about kids in similar situations helped me get some much-needed perspective. I think part of the reason behind all this is The Bun's growing and overactive imagination and his increasing sense of self and vulnerability in the world. And since all this started after his bad illness a few weeks ago, it's likely that his traumatic experiences with the doctors have also resulted in this. He has always been afraid of the doctor and will kick up a huge fuss in the office, so much so he needs to be restrained just to be examined. If you were The Bun, how would you know other strange adults may not try to do the same thing to you? Incidentally, the regular doctors that he sees are female. In fact, he doesn't usually encounter many male adults in his daily life - which may be a factor as well.
Anyway, after reading around on the web a bit, J and I now have a better sense of how we can help him through this phase. Firstly, we try our best not to let him escape from the scene if it is not actually frightening. This is a stance we have to take especially when The Bun looks over a crowded food court and decides that some man is scary, sometimes a stranger seated so far away that I don't even know which man he is referring to. If necessary, The Bun sits on my lap and cries, but we don't leave (this is why we've been avoiding restaurants for a while) and I try to reassure him and explain that it is okay to feel nervous around people he doesn't know, but we're here and we'll make sure everything will be okay. By allowing him to escape, I think we would be reinforcing the idea that a particular situation is frightening and that he shouldn't confront it. After we finish our hurried (and harried) meal, we leave and congratulate him on being a good boy, etc. This from the child who used to be able to sit happily for almost 1.5hrs at restaurants as long as the food kept coming.
The other thing I've also started doing is to cuddle The Bun on my lap each night right before he goes to sleep and we talk about the nice things that happened that day. I also use it as an opportunity to praise him again for being 'brave' during certain anxious moments that day, and to reinforce the fact that everything is/will be okay. After stories, milk, toothbrushing and general horsing around in bed, these few moments are a good way for him to calm down, feel good about himself, and look forward to sleeping and doing more fun things the next day. I can't imagine why it took me so long to start on this, but it's a lovely wind-down ritual and I think we'll be doing this for a long long time.
Once he's in bed and I say goodnight to him, I tell him that he is loved and list down all the family members who love him. Sometimes I include adult friends of the family, neighbours, and other assorted 'aunties and uncles'. It's a bit of a list but it doesn't take that long, and I figure it can't hurt right now for him to start feeling more secure around other people.
Very slowly there are signs of improvement: last weekend, for instance, we managed to have a sit-down dinner at a restaurant with J's parents. The Bun initially was afraid of one of the male waitstaff, but I explained that the man was 'nice' and was going to bring him his high-chair, our food, etc. He relaxed enough to eat a good meal and even managed to thank the waiter on our way out. As we walked around the mall he was definitely cheerier and less anxious, perhaps because the mall wasn't particularly crowded and he was fairly familiar with the place.
It's such a tiny thing, getting through a restaurant meal without frightened tears but I'll take whatever progress I can get. J and I are still going about our regular activities but obviously we don't force him into situations like crowded malls on Orchard Road a week before Christmas - that would fray my nerves, not just The Bun's. I've temporarily shelved plans for any family travel until we all get a better grip on things.
If it sounds like The Bun is affecting the way we're living our lives, yes, yes of course he is. The way our lives are right now, he is the central focus and there is little alternative. In the midst of all this, I keep asking myself - am I too soft, too indulgent, too much of a molly-coddler? Am I not socialising him enough or what? (Really?) And I also wonder why I keep trying to fit The Bun and what emerging personality he has into a preset frame, expecting him to be extroverted or a 'typical' boy, when in reality that is something no one should be saddled with. He is who he will be. Que sera sera.
This phase may end in a few months and The Bun will move on to other things for me to worry about. Perhaps the real lesson here is not in managing his fears, but how to cope with my own.