#2

Our second child, a son is 4, almost 5.  Beginning last February (2007) we started down a rough road with him.  He was violent.  The first question people always ask me is, "What does he watch on TV."  To which I responded, "Sesame Street, Cyber Chase, BackYardigans, The UpsideDown Show," basically PBS and Noggin, nothing violent.  That is the time my husband relocated to our current location and we finished the school year and tried to sell our house, so I figured it was our son's way of dealing with Dad being gone for two weeks at a time, and the general turmoil in our lives.  I thought the violence would pass when we got back together again.  It didn't.  We made a big move, so I excused it again because it was a fairly traumatic event in the life of a 4 year old.

It got to a point where I felt like I was taking a pit bull to the playground.  I never knew what would set him off, so I was constantly on edge, afraid he would hurt someone badly.  One day, he pushed down an 18 month old neighbor, hitting her head on the corner of our flagstone step and had a giant goose egg on her forehead.  I was mortified.  The next day I made an appointment with two places to have him evaluated by a behaviorist and child psychologist.  

A few weeks later, I heard a piece on NPR about children and their play, and thought, "my kids rely too much on others to entertain them."  That happened to be the same day when I spoke with my dad and he mentioned how kids these days are severely lacking in interpersonal skills because they rely too heavily on video games and TV.  So I turned off the TV.  From then on, they watch maybe 2 hours a week.  

It was a night and day difference with #2.  He no longer lashed out at other kids.  He was no longer irritated by the tags in his shirts or underwear.  He didn't freak out if his socks had a wrinkle in them.  He did whine for the TV every so often, but now he rarely asks.  One of the professionals said that the way images on TV are made these days, sometimes children have a tough time integrating the brain activity while they're watching a show into their body and it causes them to become irritable and hyper-sensitive to things.  When I picked him up at camp today, he and some other kids were playing Candyland, so I waited while they finished.  He didn't win and was really disappointed, and went off and cried.  I know he's just tired from a full day of activities like he's never had before, and he likes to win, but the crying was nothing like a tantrum he might have thrown six months ago, and I'm so glad.  

I just checked on him, asleep, and just had to smile for the way things have turned out.  It seemed like a really rough spell with him, but now we get to enjoy each other.  He always asks me why words are what they are, so for his birthday I found a few etymology books for him, and he's excited about it.  Today he asked me if we could make strawberry jam again, and I am so excited to do that with him.   

My husband and I have struggled over sending him to kindergarten in the fall, and decided to keep him in preschool for one more year, and I am thrilled about that.  This week he's in summer camp.  When I pick him up after 3:30, I realized that we don't really have much time to do the fun things we like to do, like make jam, so I'm extra excited that we get another year to explore together.   

He's such a cool kid, I'm so glad he's mine.