It's summer; we live next to a farm; there are flies. By this time of year I'm well into the habit of tossing a towel or cloth napkin over any food sitting out for more than a second or two.
Today everyone ate dinner at a different time--just one of those days. I called Jane into the house last, told her to wash her hands, and then said, "Your food is on the table. Go eat when you're done washing your hands."
Five minutes later I'm walking through with a laundry basket of clothes to fold and there she is, in her usual spot at the table, looking lost and hungry. Sitting directly in front of her where her plate and drink always go, is a plate and drink...but covered with a cloth napkin. Same old cloth napkins we always use and that she's seen tossed over other food dishes.
There is not one other thing on the table top. It is otherwise 100% empty. Her food is 2 inches from her hands. She can't find it.
I kinda lose it. There's something about a child sitting helplessly and utterly refusing to apply any reasoning skills whatsoever that pushes my buttons in a huge way. (Flashback--extremely hard-working, old German stock farmer grandfather and father who had no patience for kids messing around and not getting the job done. So you weren't given a tool? Go find one. There's work to be done so you better figure out how to get it done and get it done right, or else.) And the more we hear about kids today lacking a basic work ethic, let alone risk-taking or problem-solving skills, the more I'm inclined to agree with my grandparents.
I drop the basket angrily onto the table and bark at her to start eating. It's a mistake. In a split second she's launched herself into panic mode and is utterly unable to think. I don't think she knew her own name at that moment.
I take a breath and try to walk her through a line of reasoning.
"I said it was on the table? Did you go to the table?" (She gazes around the room frantically trying to find some other table maybe she was supposed to have sat at. There is an organ, a piano, and a dining room table in our dining room. Same furniture that's always been there. Yes, she's sitting at the one and only table.)
"I said your food was on the table. What is on the table?" (She looks right at the napkin but then turns and looks way up and down the table as if food might magically appear elsewhere.)
"If I said your food was on the table and there's something on the table, could that thing be your food?" (Looks at the napkin again, gives me a deer-in-headlights stare, tentatively nods her head but doesn't touch the napkin.)
"What should you do to see if that's your food, Jane?" (No response. No comprehension. Frozen in panic. I've asked for an action but haven't specified exactly what the action should be; this is her worst fear. Doing something wrong and being caught doing it. She'll lie like the dickens about anything because those are just words. But she won't move an inch if there's risk of a wrong move. The rabbit is frozen hoping the hawk glides on by.)
"Lift the napkin, Jane." (She lifts it and is utterly shocked and delighted and relieved to see a plate with a sandwich and a glass full of milk. A napkin draped in the shape of a plate and drinking glass, located at her place setting, after she's told to go there to eat--could not possibly have been food. It was only a napkin because that is all she saw. It's like I'm a magician and my words are a magic spell turning a wand into a bouquet.)
"I said food was on the table and it was on the table wasn't it, Jane," I said.
She beamed at me and, in her sing-song, I've-learned-a-rule-and-I'm-auditorily-memorizing-it-right-now tone of voice she says, "Remember! If the napkin is over the food you have to lift the napkin to find it!"
The weird thing is that I know her well enough to know she really truly did just learn that lesson and furthermore, she will never need to be taught it again. If, tomorrow, I put her food under a napkin and told her it was on the table I'm confident she'd immediately lift the napkin while crowing out the new rule she learned with great pride.
Frustratingly, she already knew that sometimes she has to lift her blankets off the floor to find her shoes because we've done that a gazillion times but somehow, in her mind, those were different objects in a whole other room of the house so clearly it couldn't be applied here. So, the ultimate test, what if she were faced with a towel covering food on the kitchen counter? Could she begin to apply this new rule first learned in her bedroom and then relearned in the dining room to a novel situation in the kitchen? I dunno.
I walk away a) annoyed at myself for barking at her because it was a lost opportunity for her to practice the logic of applying old rules to novel situations, but also, b) wondering yet again what the root problem is.
Today everyone ate dinner at a different time--just one of those days. I called Jane into the house last, told her to wash her hands, and then said, "Your food is on the table. Go eat when you're done washing your hands."
Five minutes later I'm walking through with a laundry basket of clothes to fold and there she is, in her usual spot at the table, looking lost and hungry. Sitting directly in front of her where her plate and drink always go, is a plate and drink...but covered with a cloth napkin. Same old cloth napkins we always use and that she's seen tossed over other food dishes.
There is not one other thing on the table top. It is otherwise 100% empty. Her food is 2 inches from her hands. She can't find it.
I kinda lose it. There's something about a child sitting helplessly and utterly refusing to apply any reasoning skills whatsoever that pushes my buttons in a huge way. (Flashback--extremely hard-working, old German stock farmer grandfather and father who had no patience for kids messing around and not getting the job done. So you weren't given a tool? Go find one. There's work to be done so you better figure out how to get it done and get it done right, or else.) And the more we hear about kids today lacking a basic work ethic, let alone risk-taking or problem-solving skills, the more I'm inclined to agree with my grandparents.
I drop the basket angrily onto the table and bark at her to start eating. It's a mistake. In a split second she's launched herself into panic mode and is utterly unable to think. I don't think she knew her own name at that moment.
I take a breath and try to walk her through a line of reasoning.
"I said it was on the table? Did you go to the table?" (She gazes around the room frantically trying to find some other table maybe she was supposed to have sat at. There is an organ, a piano, and a dining room table in our dining room. Same furniture that's always been there. Yes, she's sitting at the one and only table.)
"I said your food was on the table. What is on the table?" (She looks right at the napkin but then turns and looks way up and down the table as if food might magically appear elsewhere.)
"If I said your food was on the table and there's something on the table, could that thing be your food?" (Looks at the napkin again, gives me a deer-in-headlights stare, tentatively nods her head but doesn't touch the napkin.)
"What should you do to see if that's your food, Jane?" (No response. No comprehension. Frozen in panic. I've asked for an action but haven't specified exactly what the action should be; this is her worst fear. Doing something wrong and being caught doing it. She'll lie like the dickens about anything because those are just words. But she won't move an inch if there's risk of a wrong move. The rabbit is frozen hoping the hawk glides on by.)
"Lift the napkin, Jane." (She lifts it and is utterly shocked and delighted and relieved to see a plate with a sandwich and a glass full of milk. A napkin draped in the shape of a plate and drinking glass, located at her place setting, after she's told to go there to eat--could not possibly have been food. It was only a napkin because that is all she saw. It's like I'm a magician and my words are a magic spell turning a wand into a bouquet.)
"I said food was on the table and it was on the table wasn't it, Jane," I said.
She beamed at me and, in her sing-song, I've-learned-a-rule-and-I'm-auditorily-memorizing-it-right-now tone of voice she says, "Remember! If the napkin is over the food you have to lift the napkin to find it!"
The weird thing is that I know her well enough to know she really truly did just learn that lesson and furthermore, she will never need to be taught it again. If, tomorrow, I put her food under a napkin and told her it was on the table I'm confident she'd immediately lift the napkin while crowing out the new rule she learned with great pride.
Frustratingly, she already knew that sometimes she has to lift her blankets off the floor to find her shoes because we've done that a gazillion times but somehow, in her mind, those were different objects in a whole other room of the house so clearly it couldn't be applied here. So, the ultimate test, what if she were faced with a towel covering food on the kitchen counter? Could she begin to apply this new rule first learned in her bedroom and then relearned in the dining room to a novel situation in the kitchen? I dunno.
I walk away a) annoyed at myself for barking at her because it was a lost opportunity for her to practice the logic of applying old rules to novel situations, but also, b) wondering yet again what the root problem is.
- Is this a brain issue? Is it the ridiculously poor reasoning skills of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome made worse by high anxiety due to past trauma?
- Or, is this a nurture issue? Is she just a child of neglect with an incredibly immature brain who never played peek-a-boo? Is she still developing object permanence like a 1-yr-old? Now that I think of it I really do see her playing out this behavior pretty often: cover a toy up, whip away the cover, delight at discovery, repeat.
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