When it hits you in the HEART....

When it breaks your heart. When your children’s emotional disabilities hit you so hard in the stomach you cry and ache with them… you want to throw up. I have been there with many of my children. The blank look they give you when you try to help them understand, relate, and they can’t. They are emotionally blind. They don’t “get it”..and they WANT TO!!!

Tonight the darling little blonde girl (think goldie-locks) stopped by with her big brother. She had lent Scoobs a ball last week. I did not know that she had loaned the ball, I did not remember the ball, and therefor I was positive the ball had already been lost, destroyed or both.

I called Scoobs down, and with the kids waiting in the Foyer, asked him where the ball was. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “I didn’t play with it that long, then it rolled down the hill, got stuck under a car and got popped.”
Goldie-locks eyes got sad.

My heart sunk, I did not want to, but here came the hard part, the object lesson, that he was not going to get, but still had to learn.
“Scooby, remember the ball we bought at the yard sale last weekend?” (the one he has been taking so proudly to school for recess everyday)

“Yeah Mom.”

“You lost and knew the ball you borrowed from Goldie was ruined, you did not take care of it, or return it, sooo….you need to give her your ball.”

I watched as his little gray eyes filled with RAGE, his hands clutched in fists, his chin jutted out and his little bottom lip stuck out.

“NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOOO!”

There was no use trying to explain, I went and found the ball, tried to give him the opportunity to hand it to Goldie…instead he ran up the stairs with the ball…screaming.

I calmly asked the siblings to “wait.”

As I tried to retrieve the ball,he tried to scratch , pinch, kick and bite me.
I brought it down to the kids, their eyes HUGE.

I calmly told them “He is sorry, he didn’t think to bring it back, please wait before you loan him anything else.”
They nodded and were happy to get out of my now sound breaking home.

Scoobs slammed the door, over and over again, SCREAMMING “I HATE YOU, I HATE YOU…and worse.”

I calmly picked up my hurt, sad, angry, boy. I walked into our music room holding him, so he couldn’t hurt me, or himself and sang his lullaby until he calmed.
Then he sobbed.
“Why did you give them my ball, it was mine.”

I used what we call the “you’s”, helping our kids relate to others feelings by only talking about them.

Scooby, If you had let Goldie play with your ball, would you want it back?”

“Yeah., but I wouldn’t let her, cause she’s a girl and it’s my ball.”

“O.K. but lets say that you did, would you want her to play with it and bring it back?”

“Yes”

“Well what if she didn’t bring it back?”

“Then I would go to her house and say , HEY , give me my ball back you dumb girl.”

“Not real nice, but O.K.”

“Bud, what if you went to her house, and she said, I don’t know where your ball is , I was done playing with it, and I saw it go down the hill and get popped.”

“I would get MAD and want to hit her, and tell her she better get me a new ball.”

“I soo understand those feelings you would have, do you think maybe that is how Goldie felt?”….


MORE SOBBING…and I hugged and cuddled and cried with my little boy…next came the bullet right between my eyes, because though I am parenting this everyday, there are times I FORGET to “get” my own kids.

I snuggled him as he calmed and softly said, “and buddy, being Goldie’s friend and doing the right thing, is more important than a ball, a friendship is more important.”

And he started crying again:
“But Mama, I don’t know what it means to have a friendship.”

…..and that is when your heart bleeds and tears leak out of your eyes….as you snuggle in deeper and promise your child, “but you will know sweet boy, you will.”