On Sensitivity- TV Phobia Anyone? ~ My Little Poppies

At the risk of appearing pathological, here goes nothing… Leo is afraid of the television [and I may be to blame].

Leo was born busy. He’s spirited. He has spunk. Actually, Leo was a mover and a shaker even before he entered the world, but that can be a story for another day. As an infant, Leo rarely slept. He didn’t follow any of The Books and he never did what They Said. For the longest time, he would sleep for a maximum of two hours, from approximately 6-8 pm (read: before we were even asleep) and then wake up every twenty minutes thereafter. During daytime hours, he could. not. be. put. down. I wore that child everywhere, all the time. And wearing him was only half the battle. Leo screamed almost nonstop for his first ten months on the planet had colic and “silent” acid reflux. He was failure to thrive and was not even on the growth curve, and yet he never stopped moving. That’s yet another story for another day. Anyway, I literally wore that kid from sun up ’til sundown seven days a week. Sundays, *if* Schizz was off, I would hand off the child and quickly wash the sling that I had been wearing for seven days straight before donning it once more. I didn’t say it then but I can say it now: it was really, really hard.

My moms’ group, my sanity, met every Tuesday morning during Leo’s first year, and after group we would head to Panera for lunch. All my other mom friends (except for one and you know who you are, my bustafuss compadre) would enter Panera with baby-in-carseat on their arms. These babies appeared so angelic. They were often sleeping. My friends would plunk those carseats on the floor, toss an Aden and Anais over them, order lunch, and have a conversation. I would enter Panera with my red-faced, hollering-holy-hell-baby-boy, thrashing within his sling and smile like it was no big deal. I got this. This is motherhood, people! The good, the bad, and the ugly. I’ll miss this very moment someday blah blah blah. I really wanted to cry but whatever. I waited in line, bouncing and shushing and still smiling, trying to ignore all the glances from those not in moms’ group, while my moms’ group peeps gave me their universal you got this, mama, don’t you fret looks. Thank GOD for moms’ group. Seriously. Anyway, I would finally make it to the register and this girl who always worked at Panera on Tuesdays would see me and totally light up:

“OH MY GOD!!! HERE YOU ARE AGAIN WITH YOUR CRYING BABY!! HA HA HA!!! I ALWAYS RECOGNIZE YOUR CRYING BABY AND THAT PRETTY LITTLE SLING! HA HA HA!! IT’S SO FUNNY THAT HE IS CRYING EVERY SINGLE TIME I SEE YOU!! HA HA HA!!!”

This was me, my crying baby, my pretty little sling, and the stroller he used to scream in!

Each week, I sort of wanted to kill her. But, I’d force a smile, place my order (shush, bounce, shush, bounce), wait for my order (shush, bounce, shush, bounce), and then meet up with my friends. I couldn’t sit down to eat, because the crying would be sooooo much worse, so I’d shush-bounce-shush-bounce my way through lunch, trying to participate in conversations but never finishing a sentence, dropping bits of food on Leo’s angry little noggin all the while. It all sounds pretty horrible as I type it but it was wonderful to be supported, furious baby and all (EXCEPT for the cashier. I could do without her). I had found my village.

My point is, Leo was A LOT of baby. Then, he was A LOT of toddler. Then, A LOT of preschooler, and then A LOT of Kindergartener. You get the idea. In the early days, weeks, and months, I didn’t realize how different he was from other babies, probably because I was so busy trying to get him to calm down. I think I was afraid to say that motherhood was really, really hard and often sort of crappy.

I only told Schizz, and usually only after snapping at him over something trivial while bouncing and shushing, bouncing and shushing. If I put Leo in a bouncy chair so that I could take a shower, he would scream the entire time. If I put him in the excersaucer so that I could pee, he would scream the entire time. If I put him in the swing so that I could make dinner, he would scream the entire time. If I put him on the floor with toys and books and lullaby music and whatever else They Said I should try, he would scream the entire time. Leo also screamed in the car… as in blood-curdling-run-you-off-the-road-crying… for the first two years of his life. The cliches were true: I loved this baby boy more than I thought I could ever love anyone, but he was a lot of work. It took so much to get him to be calm and then, when he finally was content for a moment, you were so caught off guard that you didn’t actually do anything but be amazed by his momentary silence.

Silence!

Wearing him certainly helped somewhat. But I couldn’t just wear him. That wasn’t enough. Friends and family told me that I should put him in front of the TV so that I could get a little break. I’ve never been a TV person. And I’m an educator and I know babies and toddlers should not be plunked in front of the TV. But I was desperate. I tried television and Leo hated it. He would seem enthralled for, oh, maybe twenty-five seconds, and then he’d start screaming. I had to wear, bounce, shush, sing, vacuum and talk and talk and talk to him to get him to be content (one would expect a new mom to slack on the vacuuming but it was one thing that kept him quiet. We had wall-to-wall carpeting at the time and our house looked like a showroom! Lines, lines, lines). And I would read to Leo. You’re sitting there thinking I read children’s books. You’re correct… I did. But, I also read parenting books because I was desperate to find the answer that would make him happy: Happiest Baby on the Block; Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child; The No-Cry Sleep Solution; Baby 411; The Nursing Mother’s Companion… I also read novels. These were Leo’s first chapter books. Whatever I was reading at the time, I read aloud to Leo for hours, while pacing the freshly vacuumed floors of our home. I didn’t actually tell anyone this because I thought it sounded weird, but those were the quietest (waking) moments that we had together those early months.

And then, when Leo was 10 months old, I got pregnant with T. The desperation to keep this little boy calm and quiet for a few moments increased substantially. I was tired. I had another baby on the way. I was on rest for a stint and was not supposed to be lugging around a baby. I simply could not devote this much time to one child and have the energy left to care for another. I was determined to find something, anything that would keep him happy, for even a little bit, so that I could have some much-needed space. I turned to my moms’ group: What do your kids like when nothing else works? The answer was television. I tried harder, tried more shows. I polled everyone, tried everything, but nothing could hold his attention for more than a couple minutes. Leo didn’t do Sesame Street. He didn’t like Dora. Bob the Builder? Thomas the Train? Wild Kratts? Arthur? Dinosaur Train? Nothing worked. And then, finally, I found The Discovery Channel’s Life series. And then Discovery Channel’s Planet Earth series. Those other shows ain’t got nothin’ on the Discovery Channel. Leo was enthralled with komodo dragons, humbolt squids, cuttlefish, humpback whales, mudskippers, hummingbirds, Japanese macaques, and venus flytraps. For the first time in over a year, I could do something (or nothing) without having him attached to me.

It was glorious.

And then, as quickly and as randomly as it began, it was over. When T was not yet one year old, Leo began to fear the television. It started with a preview for The Wizard of Oz. It was on a DVD that we had used for quite some time and, yes, it did come on suddenly: “I am the great and powerful OZ!!” We had seen it many, many times previously, but on this particular day Leo ran in fear, shrieking, from the room. He began to reject the television. We had never really watched much… maaaaybe 30 minutes a few times a week… but he began refusing to watch any television. He was visibly frightened. Usually he would flee from the room but on the occasions that I could embrace him first, I could feel his little heart racing, his rapid breath on my cheek, and hear the higher pitch of his sweet voice.

He was absolutely terrified.

We let it go. As I said, we aren’t really TV people. It wasn’t an even an adjustment for us, we just didn’t turn it on. We figured it was a phase, one of many. He’d get over it with time. No big deal.

Did you know that TVs are everywhere? I think we all know that our society watches way too much TV but it’s not until you have a TV-phobic child that you realize you can’t get away from the damned things. They are not only on in friends’ homes, but they are also in stores, outside of stores, in sub shops, at events, in my pediatrician’s waiting room! Everywhere. We have had a lot of TV-induced drama over the years. When told that Leo doesn’t like TV, others would always say, “Well aren’t you lucky!” Well, I guess, but not entirely. TVs are ubiquitous in our culture. One simply cannot escape.

They. Are. Everywhere.

When asked what it is about television that makes him afraid, Leo always replies, “It’s just scary!” But, when pressed further, he can sometimes elaborate: he doesn’t like the unknown and lack of control associated with TV. He doesn’t like not knowing what comes next on any given program, and he feels- even with a remote- that it is hard to stop it quickly. He will say that he doesn’t like the sounds. He doesn’t like the words he hears. He will often make the comparison between a scary show and a scary book, like Harry Potter. He likes that you can skim over scary parts of a book or even close it, and feels that you cannot do this with television.

We’ve had years to analyze this fear of Leo’s. We have a few theories. First, he’s a worrier by nature. This is a child who will go to a beach, like we did last week, and look out over the ocean for land in the distance. When he sees it, he’ll emit a sigh of relief and say, “Well, I see land over there. That means there is less chance for tsunamis!” and then carry on with jumping waves, collecting shells, or building sand castles. And this is actually progress!

Parenting sensitive kids can be tricky, folks!

Second, Leo has some sensory processing challenges. This is also a story for another day, but he’s been receiving outside occupational therapy services this year to address things such as: retained primitive reflexes, auditory sensitivity, difficulty crossing the midline with his dominant hand, and movement seeking. The sounds and visual aspect of TV is often just too much for him.

This book can help others understand your child with SPD.

Third, and this is a more recent realization, he’s extremely sensitive to themes. We knew this, but we didn’t know that this sensitivity is very common among the gifted. Now that I have found some gifted circles, I have heard about kids who still cannot watch Disney movies at 10 or 12 years old. It’s not unheard of for these children to avoid shows and movies. These kids are asynchronous: they have the intellect of someone twice their age but with age-appropriate emotional development and this can create a huge divide.

This is THE book on asynchronous development, folks.

Finally, television sort of freaked me out as a kid. No, I didn’t run screaming in fear from it like Leo has been known to do. Yes, I could watch it. I loved The Smurfs, The Cosby Show, The Muppet Show, Family Ties. Still, I can remember wishing -frequently- that it could be turned off. I grew up in a home where the television was on virtually all the time. My parents would keep it on as background noise. My mother had insomnia and would often sit on the couch in our family room, adjacent to my bedroom, and watch it all night. I was also very sensitive to themes. My dad loves to watch the news. Every night, he would watch the local news with reports of car crashes, abductions, murders, and fires. Then he’d watch the next -virtually identical- airing, thirty minutes later. And then he’d watch world news with reports of wars, global warming, natural disasters, world hunger, and heinous crimes.

I didn’t exactly tell them this, but I worried deeply about all of that stuff. I was too young to put all of my feelings into words, so instead I would have insomnia or nightmares. I would emerge from my room in the middle of the night and stand in front of my mother, blocking her view of the TV, crying, unable to sleep. I heard talk of tsunamis and tornadoes and earthquakes and mudslides and killer bees and I thought they could happen to my family, in New England. I heard so much talk of murders and robberies that I was convinced that it was inevitable that it would happen to us at some point soon. I worried about house fires and lightning strikes, as I felt they were commonplace. But most of all, I worried about the planet and it’s inhabitants. I worried about how it seemed that everyone in the entire world was abusing the planet and each other and that the world would just not last. I worried about wars, poverty, hunger, the ozone layer, pollution, and the mistreatment of children and animals worldwide. I worried about the injustice in the world…how people in our country have so much more than people in other countries. I worried about how I could be eating dinner, knowing that we would have leftovers and that we also had a cupboard full of food and snacks, while there were children my age in the next town over who had to visit the soup kitchen. I remember when We are the World came out in 1985. I was six years old. Everyone loved We are the World! I wanted to love the song, too, but each time it came on the TV or radio, I felt so heartbroken and conflicted. Here we all were: watching and celebrating pop stars singing about children dying in Africa while there were children dying in Africa. It was so sad and confusing at six.

This is going to maybe sound crazy, but ever since I was a little girl, I felt like I could feel what others were feeling. If I am around someone who is anxious, even if that anxiety is very subtle, I feel anxious. If someone is excited, I get that vibe from them. If someone is sad, I feel like I’m going to tear up. As a child, I didn’t understand this and would cry very easily. When I watched those sad people on the news, I truly felt some of their pain. Now, at almost thirty-six, I can say that this skill, or sensitivity, or whatever you want to call it, has been helpful in my life. I think sensitivity instills kindness, and kindness attracts kindness. In this life I’ve been blessed with many friendships, many of which can be traced back to early childhood. Also, when I worked as a school psychologist, I was able to very easily connect with children and teens of all ages and from all walks of life. But, this sensitivity has a downside as it can wear you out. I worked in an urban setting with a high rate of poverty and I often felt like I couldn’t help enough and there were many days that I would come home and have a good long cry about, well, everything. Because I pick up on emotions easily in real life, sometimes movies (in which people are acting out emotions and therefore the emotions are less subtle) are just too much. When I watch a movie, I often feel like I am living it. A huge part of me feels like there’s so much sadness in the world already, why watch more of it in a movie? And it’s all right there- in your face. You can’t skim over the tough parts or close it and put it down for a breather like you can with a book. Sometimes it’s just too much. Do I sound like anyone?? When I explain to people that Leo is afraid of television and they seem so surprised that a child can be afraid of TV, I’m… just… not.

The apple doesn’t fall far from its tree.
I get it.

Earlier this week, Leo and I were sitting on the back deck. He was painting poppies for me (for the new blog logo) while T and Seuss were pretending to be Elsa and Kristoff from Frozen. I was drinking my coffee, listening to the kids giggle, while Leo painted quietly. It was peaceful and calm. We’ve come a long way since those Panera days. Suddenly, Leo stopped painting and asked, “Hey Mum…. Do you ever get worried that there are just too many people on the earth building houses and using the planet’s stuff? Do you worry that we’re just going to run out of stuff and space? And that there’s gonna be no room for all the people and the animals? Like we already are seeing it? Like how the coyotes are in our backyard because there’s not enough space for them to just be?“

And there it is… that proverbial apple and it is not far from its tree. He looks exactly like Schizz and, 99.9% of the time he acts just like Schizz, but every now and then there’s a little bit of me thrown in.Yes, bud. Yes, I do. I was unable to articulate it that well at your age, but I totally get it.

***

So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,

go throw your TV set away, and in its place you can install,

a lovely bookcase on the wall.

~Roald Dahl

***

Comments

Anonymous says

November 11, 2014 at 4:01 pm

Dear MLP - You posted recently on the Gifted Homeschooler Blog and so I had to read some of your posts. Gosh your Leo sounds like our oldest (now 11). He used to scream and scream at age 4 when the TV show at his daycare was over and the credits were running (the 20 minutes of Signing Time they showed during lunch-prep; the only TV they had at school). In his mind, the TV should be turned off because they were wasting energy - the show was over! Stop wasting energy; there isn’t enough energy in the whole wide world! So that was one of our real aha moments that our life was going to be really really different. Looking forward to reading more.

- caitie says
  
  November 12, 2014 at 8:13 pm
  
  Oh my goodness!! My guy also complains about turning it off as soon as the movie has ended for the SAME reason. Too funny!!
  
  Thank you so much for reading. I’m glad you could relate to some of it. Please tell me it gets easier
  
Emily says

April 3, 2015 at 9:41 pm

Oh my word, I didn’t know that sensitivity to emotions was a “thing”! I do that and for the longest time I thought I was just bizarre. Eventually (after getting married, and going through marriage counseling) I realized that I was internalizing OTHER PEOPLE’S EMOTIONS. And thought they were mine, only confusing. And until I just read this I honestly had no idea that other people have this sensitivity as well. Wow.
Emily recently posted…Stitch Fix

- Cait Fitz says
  
  April 8, 2015 at 10:33 am
  
  Oh yes. I do that, too! It’s a strength, truly. It took me years to see it that way though!
  
CherKhee says

April 7, 2015 at 2:13 am

Love love love this post so much!

It’s just so hard to explain this TV phobia to other moms without getting that “U-must-be-a-Tiger-Mum” look. And like u said, TV is everywhere. It’s a little heartbreaking when TV breaks out at playdates & u see your child realise that she’s not able to join the rest of her friends, Well, not yet anyways.

My little one used to guzzle down sippy cups of water in a state of panic whenever we put her in front of the TV!! It wasn’t until she drank till she puked it all out one day that she finally found her voice to tell us she was frightened The only thing we could get her to watch was, as u mentioned, Discovery Channel or National Geographic. She’s almost 6 now and she’s still frightened but it gets a teeny weeny bit better each year.

And oh yes, she was that fussy, cannot-be-put-down baby in her earlier days

- Cait Fitz says
  
  April 8, 2015 at 10:31 am
  
  Oh, wow! What a smart kid to figure out a way to get out of it when the words weren’t working. Of course, perhaps the grossest way but it certainly sends a clear message
  
  I love hearing about other kids like mine. Too bad we all didn’t know each other during those can’t-put-them-down days