We are “babysitting” children who live down the road – it’s a swap thing, they go out we take their kids, we go out…well you get it. It’s an attempt to make “going out” somewhat affordable. It works, most of the time, but not so much tonight.
Thor had a, hmmm, what shall we call it? A bad moment? A lapse in judgment? A meltdown of fairly epic proportions? The Perfect Storm? OK, so I’m being dramatic, but I think after the last 2 plus hours, I think I’m allowed.
Here’s what I saw: Thor picked up a kid size hoe (insert inappropriate comment here) and chucked it at the 6 year old girl who we are babysitting. In my head I KNEW that he had been provoked. Didn’t know how, but obviously knew by whom. Here’s the clincher, and my mistake; even though I knew he had been provoked, I focused on what he had just done and made him feel bad for it.
Sh-t.
Then I called him over, but he ran. While in my head I just wanted to talk, my body clearly told him a different story (later he told me he ran because he thought I wanted to hurt him – oh the tears, from us both). From there it continued to escalate. He ran down the road, came back with sticks which he chucked at his Dad, who then picked him up to take him to his room so we didn’t send the child we were looking after back with bruises. His Dad got kicked all the way up the stairs. Then things got chucked down the stairs, repetitively.
Oh, I don’t what to talk about the scene anymore. Suffice it to say it kept going for a while longer.
After he calmed down we talked. It was tough, really tough. He said things that no one wants their child to say. I tried to focus on what lead to him feeling like running was the thing to do – which was when he told me he thought we wanted to hurt him. At the end he so very simply said to me “when you want to talk to me, can you just say ‘Thor, can we talk’?”; sheesh, way to simplify life dude. And I responded with “absolutely, especially if you promise to come talk”.
This scene happened one other time I was looking after a couple of children after school. I’m still not sure what lead to it but he went ape-sh-t and headed down the road. I was stuck – 3 other kids at home – the youngest was 3, not someone I felt comfortable leaving alone, obviously. And I knew that if I piled the 3 of them in the car, there was no way Thor was going to get in the car. So I had to actually called my husband home and I left the house long enough to make sure he didn’t do anything stupid. He was pretty much at the big road when his Dad showed up. Scary.
I did touch on his response to what ever had happened. He didn’t really have much to say, other than to tell me what the child had done. We talked about “walking away” when things go bad with someone else.
I struggle with how else I could have handled this (other than saying “Thor can we talk” instead of giving him an “I want to hurt you” vibe). When he gets aggressive like this it’s truly more than a bit scary, and the two times it’s happened in the last year there have been other children around, and I become more concerned about making sure he doesn’t lash out at them.
Ugh. I haven’t written in this thing forever, and here I am writing about a completely out of the ordinary event. I guess I thought it might give me some insight. Not so far. But I do know that I need to write more, and I need to write about some celebrations!
Where are my dvd’s?