Category: Beth

A mother by any other name

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Cheryl and Beth have a unique mother-daughter relationship. At any given time, any one of these labels may seem appropriate for Cheryl’s relationship with Beth: friend, rival, taskmaster, pseudo-sibling, mentor, nurse, maid, and cook. Of all these titles, the most surprising one was added yesterday afternoon, secretary. I would have sooner expected Beth to be doing aerial acrobatics from the arm of the living room couch than what I saw yesterday: Beth dictating a letter to Cheryl.

You just haven’t lived until you’ve heard your six year old daughter dictating an email message for her aunt to her mother, like some kind of corporate executive: “, ‘feeling much much better’ PERIOD – NEW SENTENCE – ‘I’m having a lot of ,'”

Beth, accidents, and a dispenser of liquid soap

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The third law of child rearing states: if your child can hurt themselves playing with something, they will hurt themselves playing with something.

Now picture my daughter announcing that we were out of soap in her bathroom. I tell her to get a fresh liquid soap dispenser from the kitchen. She walks past me, gets a new soap dispenser, and walks back past me on her way back to the bathroom. A few moments go by, after which I hear…

“AHHH, MY EYE, MY EYE!”

My first instinct is to rush to see what is wrong.

“Beth, what’s wrong with your eye?”

“MY EYE, MY EYE. IT HURTS. THERE’S SOAP IN MY EYE.”

Mind you, she’s somehow managed to detour through her bedroom on her way to the bathroom, and the soap dispenser is sitting on her bed. My second instinct is to try something to grant her some relief from her pain. We rush into the bathroom, place her in the shower, and run the shower over her head. She rubs her eye with a washcloth and after a few minutes decides she’s had enough. My third instinct is to try and determine how she managed to get soap in her eyes. However, this time I decide not to follow up on my instincts. The circumstances which led to this episode are probably so unlikely we’ve got a pretty good shot that they won’t come up again, so I drop it. After drying off and changing clothes, Beth does the cuddle thing for a few minutes as she slowly calms down. She asks how long it will hurt and I tell her it will probably be no more than thirty minutes. She asks me how long that is and I tell her it’s about how long one program lasts on TV. Beth disappears into the family room and settles down in front of the TV for a little distraction.

Thirty minutes later Beth reappears. She tells me that her program is over and her eye doesn’t feel any better.

“But Beth, you look like you are feeling better. You’re not crying anymore.”

Like magic, Beth’s eye’s start to tear up and she starts to sniffle.

“Beth, do you think I’m that easy to fool?” The tears vanish as quickly as they appeared and she replies, “no.”

Beth went back to the family room. It was the last we heard about the soap incident.

As time goes by

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On this, the last day of school, I wonder what tomorrow will bring. No, I’m not talking about the next school year. I’m really talking about tomorrow. My daughter is the kind of child where you can’t take any day for granted.

Yesterday evening after school Beth was excused to go to her friend’s house. Like a good parent I watched her walk down the street, presumably to make sure she got there safely. Why the act of watching her will make her safer, I have no idea. While she was walking down the sidewalk I was struck by the image before me. The whole situation seemed like the perfect metaphor for childhood. Beth walking further and further from her parent’s influence, the further she got, the less I could do to help, the joyful bounce in her step as she struck off on her own,.

Clearly, I am not at all ready for this.

A change in circumstances does the trick.

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Beth was sitting in the bathroom requesting assistance. We told her that she was too old for that kind of assistance and that she needed to do it herself. She spent the next twenty minutes not doing it herself, asking repeatedly for the assistance that would never come.

“MOM, ARE YOU IGNORING ME?”

Mommy answers with more silence.

“MOM, YOU CAN’T IGNORE ME!”

Mommy answers with more silence.

Two minutes later…
… the door bell rings.

“Can Beth come out and play?”
“I don’t know, Beth is kind of busy right now.”

FLUSH

“MOM, I’M ALMOST DONE!”

No.

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Recently my daughter told me I say “no” too much.

I told her there was a simple solution to her problem: she should ask questions she thinks might have a different answer.

Labels.

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Last year our daughter’s school suggested testing for intelligence. They offered to test her to determine if it would be appropriate to place her in the Gifted Program. Cheryl was all for it. I wasn’t so sure.

How much harm does it do a child to be labeled? Does it matter if the label is good or bad? Is the end result the same? Are expectations placed on someone that may not be appropriate or to the child’s benefit?

Well, Beth was tested and apparently she tests REALLY well. Now she’s in the Gifted Program. In fact she’s gifted among the gifted. Based on her test results her teachers claim to have one explanation for some of her odd behavior. Before, her behavior was a distraction and a cause for concern. Now it’s still a distraction, but rather than a cause for concern it’s just an eccentricity of an intelligent child.

In the meantime, the behavior continues.

We visited her teacher today for a conference before school. Her teacher was concerned, but not about her academics. She was concerned about how she related to the other kids. She is worried her behavior has isolated her from the other kids. They notice she is different and treat her differently, and not in a good way. She’s not making friends. She tries to interact, but she tends to be avoided.

I worry because it fits. I see Beth taking with other kids in church, and I see the same indifference in the other children’s faces. Although Beth sometimes talks about “all of the friends I have,” I see her compensating. She does have a couple friends around the neighborhood. But, I also see her after school… in tears because she wants to go somewhere else where she can make new friends. What do I tell her, that it may not be any different somewhere else? Do I try to tell her she’ll get past it all, even if I know from my own experience it may not be true?

She excels in school academically so they will not help with the behavior. Insurance concedes it’s a real problem but insists that it’s a “long term” problem, making it ineligible for coverage. Lest you scoff in disbelief, let me reassure you this is really the reason for non-coverage. To paraphrase their denial letter… “coverage for therapy shall only be approved if the condition will show significant improvement within the first eight weeks of treatment.” Translation… if it is a short term problem that you probably could have paid for on your own anyway we’ll cover it, if not you’re on your own.

In the meantime the behavior continues.

I don’t feel like a “victim of the system.” I don’t feel an overwhelming sense of entitlement to services we’re not getting. I’m just a frustrated parent who doesn’t have all of the answers. I’m just a saddened parent who can’t always take away my child’s pain.

No Beth, daddy doesn’t know everything. I’m so sorry.

Any minute now I’ll find this funny.

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There was a time when I told Beth to leave the T.V. on. We were listening to a digital cable music channel, so Beth felt that the T.V. was unnecessary (the sound was going through our stereo at the time). Our discussion went something like this…

“Beth, what are you doing?”
“I’m just going to turn the T.V. off.”
“Beth, I don’t want you to turn the T.V. off.”

Beth reaches to turn the T.V. off once again.

“Beth, leave the T.V. on.”

Beth reaches to turn the T.V. off once again.

“BETH STOP!”
“Why?”
“Because I want to see the song title when a new one comes on.”

Our discussion ends and we continue to do our respective “things”: me, lobbing shots at our indoor basketball hoop and Beth dancing to the music. The current song ends and a new one begins.

“Daddy, what is the name of this song.”
“It’s Muckety Muck by the Blah Blahs.” (Actual song and band not committed to memory.)

CLICK (The sound of Beth turning the T.V. off.)

“Beth, please go to your room.”

Does anyone else’s six year old do this kind of thing?

I can’t argue with that.

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Cheryl broke the bad news to Beth gently. “I’m sorry Beth, it looks like your pants shrank.” Well, Beth was not having any of that. “No mommy, my clothes are not shrinking. I’m growing.”