Many people have been referenced as saying that nugget of life wisdom.  Albert Einstein, Tony Robbins and Henry Ford to name a few.  I don’t much care to be honest, it is there to start a theory, not prove one so I don’t need all my citations in order.

For more than a year The Boy did what he had been doing. To the untrained eye it looked like he…

• Didn’t leave the house if he didn’t want to.
• Didn’t do household chores if he didn’t want to.
• Didn’t go to school if he didn’t want to.

Of course now I see…

• Didn’t leave the house because the stressor stopping him was not solved, or felt too huge to overrcome.
• Didn’t do household chores because he didn’t feel enough connection to the family unit to contribute on a practical level.
• Didn’t go to school because  the stressor stopping him was not solved, or felt too huge to overrcome.

What changed for me was seeing that he was having a hard time, not giving me a hard time.  That he didn’t want to feel bad.  Let’s be honest here, who would choose to feel bad ALL DAY EVERY DAY?  Who would choose headaches?  Or the resultant pain in your own body after you have made contact with another solid object?  Why would you choose that?

Consider the idea that it was simply a case of he had no idea what the alternative was and no one had come up with something that made sense for him.  Bribery works, but only if he is interested in the topic, because bribery really only takes you over the last few strides of the race.  It enables you to tip yourself from “almost there” to “there”, but you have to be almost there and that takes some work.  Screaming and shouting doesn’t work, other than to hurt your throat, raise your blood pressure, upset you and your child and break down trust that you have established with your child.

We are very fortunate that we have reached a position in our relationship where The Boy is open to ideas.  The screaming and shouting is not happening, on either side.  The name calling is not happening, on either side.  We are both safe in our home.

But what about that final hurdle.  What about the dentist?  He can see the logic of going but just can’t make the transition to attending an appointment.  What about the fact that his school jumper is too small?  He mentioned it to me once, I did a “we must do something about that” and then it didn’t present again until just before school and seemed out of the blue.  What about all of the things that I know he will benefit from the excursion but he can’t see past the threshold and really can’t make the leap from safe to unknown so he opts for safe.

I started telling them about my own experiences.  I often do things that wouldn’t be my first preference but I do them because they have to be done.  The space between not wanting to, and doing, is filled with a plate of “Sucking It Up”.  It is not a long term solution.  It is 2oz of imaginary/borrowed brave that can take you from sitting at home watching a video on YouTube to a pleasant outing with your mother.

Often the event is the long term solution.  Seeing what is actually on the other side of “Sucking It Up” allows you to better decide that SIU is worth it, which of course makes it easier to do the next time.

Sometimes SIU is something physical.  We wearing a non school uniform sweatshirt is better than not going to school.  Agreeing a (subject to change) timetable for an outing is better than having no idea how long the event will take.  Discussing what he is consenting to before the outing, but also discussing that things may come up in the moment and that one of the option for them will be SIU with future long term planning.

So this week he has been mixing it up.  He went to school in a non uniform sweatshirt.  He went to the dentist.  He went into the grocery store with me.  He visited relatives.

The events themselves proved to be worth the leap of faith he made, and were the long term solutions in and of themselves.  I know this won’t always be the case but for now we are working on sucking up the small things and making small changes in the process.