Theraplay: Post Assessment review

I met with our therapist this afternoon to review the videotaped baseline session we made a couple weeks ago. It was every bit as enlightening as I expected. I was encouraged by the evidence of our attachment and bonding to each other. I knew it was there but there is something powerful seeing it from an outsider's perspective

What I also expected was evidence of his emotional immaturity. You may recall that one of the activities involved me leaving the room for about a minute to observe what it was like for him to be alone and to see how the two of us reconnected when I returned. When I walked out of the room, my child freaked . . . quietly. No sooner than the door closed behind me that he curled up into a fetal position on the table and started talking to himself. The banging I heard was him rocking himself in the chair, deliberately hitting the table with the chair. The good news is that after awhile, he started his own attempt at soothing himself, and was in the middle of making up a song when I returned. As soon as he saw me, all fear and anxiety disappeared and we continued with our assignment.

Here's the part about me that was unexpected. I seem to have difficulties allowing myself to be free and to express soft emotions with my son. I observed myself having fun with him or sharing an intimate memory with him, and as soon as my emotions elevate, I shut down. Then I became this logical, structured being, "just the facts, ma'am" kinda mama. This is so NOT the perception I have of myself, that I asked the therapist to rewind the tape just so I could see it again. Is this the person my son sees? Is this the person I show to the world each day? Wow!! They say a picture is worth a thousand words and boy, I've got a lot to chew on.

So, our assignment this week: the goal is to focus on soothing those aspects of my son's psyche that needs more nurturance. I wish I could show you his response to me feeding him pretzels and encouraging him to crawl into my lap last when during the exercise. I expected resistance, he is after all, 'a big boy now,' and instead, I got needy acceptance. My assignment is to take some time each night, no distractions, to either put lotion on him or feed him something light. I took those directions a step farther tonight and gave him a bath and then put lotion over his body, like I used to when he was a baby. He was so accepting of this attention that it made my heart weep. I've got a feeling that I'm going to be doing quite a bit of weeping in the coming weeks and it's probably going to be the best thing for each of us.