When I collected my daughter from After School Club, they said she’d been a bit upset after her and Bethany had mixed up their mummies. I didn’t quite understand: Bethany’s mum is about four inches taller and four stone lighter than me. It was only when I was handed a bandaged-up Pringle tube that I twigged it was Halloween decorations they were talking about.
My girl had dried her eyes, but they were still a little red. There was an almost audible buzz of anxiety around her. It was electrical. It hummed and fizzled throughout tea, and then it short-circuited at bedtime.
“I don’t know if that’s my mummy!” was the first wire to go kaput. A second strand came loose: “I don’t want to walk to secondary site, I’m too tired.” Another wire pinged: “I think it’s my sleeping mask, I don’t think I’m sleeping so well when I wear it.”
I could see what was going to happen and I could do nothing to stop it. The delicate cable ties holding the bulging bundle of worry wires running through her head had snapped, and that whooshing sound was her hot tears hissing on the escaping sparks of anxiety. I hopped into bed with her, squidged in tight, and wrapped my arms around her as she sobbed into my shoulder.
“I don’t want to be Catherine’s friend she says wants to be mine but I’m not her best friend she wants to go to a different school next year will I go to a different school I want to go with her but I don’t want to my back hurts Mummy I get tired when it’s PE and swimming I want you to put the sleep mask in the bin cut it up but I want to keep it in my drawer I want to wear it I don’t want to wear it I’m not sure about the sleepover next week I don’t know whether I’ll be too tired to go but I want to go I haven't done my thank you letters yet can I do trampolining we’re going to do trampolining but what about my back I really don’t think that’s my mummy I want to wear the mask Bethany does can you ask her mum to tell her not to wear it because I don’t want to wear it that my mummy I can’t remember who bought me the till for Christmas was it the year before last why is it broken can you find out about Sportszone I want to go on the bus to After School Club on a Monday not walk did I sleep well I’m not tired I am a bit tired I’m hungry Mummy.”
I made soothing noises, tried to address each jumbled up worry, and then gave up. Nothing was registering. She needed to cry. I had to let her. I had to wait. Half an hour later she had cried herself to sleep. I felt like doing the same.
This morning, I walked into her bedroom and pulled back the curtains. She sat up, swung her legs round and planted her feet on the floor, rubbing her eyes, sleepily. “Good morning, Mummy!” We smiled at eachother. There was no sound of humming, or buzzing, or crackling. A good night’s sleep had reset her trip switch. And mine.
Oh, I thought I was the bees knees, today. I was quite insufferably smug. You’d have wanted to slap me. You will, I’m sure, be pleased to learn I got my comeuppance.
We were at Nanna & Grandad’s house. My daughter was very talkative, but tired from a long walk yesterday that had left her absolutely cream-crackered. The domino effect of which was a bout of loud, repetitive sentences from her today, and a steamroller approach to talking over everyone else.
Not for the first time, I posed myself the question: how can I get my girl to understand why it’s better not to interrupt other people?
And it was then I had a light bulb moment, or actually, an Alan Partridge moment, as the phrase “Ah-ha!” did pop into my brain. This was my chance. I was dying to put into practice something I’d learned this week - and here was my ideal opportunity.
I’ve been on a course, you see, on Communicating With A Child Who Has Social Communication Difficulties. It was part of a series of Parent Training sessions for people caring for children with an ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder). And this week’s module had included a section on Comic Strip Conversations. I thought these were very clever: in simple terms, you draw stick people, and use speech bubbles and thought bubbles, to help the person make sense of conversations and interactions.
Out came the biro, background smugness levels were engaged and set to overdrive, and in the white space on the bottom of the Sunday paper I scrawled my matchstick men masterpiece.
I followed all the rules: sit next to your child so you’re working together on understanding and making the drawing (rather than facing them, where you’re in a dictatorial position); make it personal and involve them in the details (“Should your hair be long? Shall I draw glasses on you?); and keep it simple.
I explained to my girl that she needed to wait until Nanny had finished talking before she started a new conversation. I used the picture to show what happened when she interrupted, and how all their words ‘bumped together’ so nobody could hear what anybody was saying.
She stared at the scrawled drawing intently, and looked at me closely. I shot my husband a knowing, raised eyebrow, mildly triumphant, ‘aren’t I brilliant’ kind of look. I’d done him an example comic strip conversation earlier in the week to show him what I’d learned on the course and explain the principles behind the idea. “It’s called Theory of Mind,” I’d lectured. “People with Prader-Willi and autism and other disorders can’t grasp the Theory of Mind - how other people might have beliefs, desires, intentions, etc that are different from theirs; how other people don’t see things in exactly the same way they do.”
This was a Comic Strip Conversation. This was me, putting it into action. This was me, showing my daughter how even though she wanted people to listen to her, they couldn’t because they couldn’t hear her when she talked over them. This was me, being awesome.
My daughter raised an eyebrow of her own. “Why did you draw this picture, Mummy?” she asked, smiling slyly at her dad, having clocked my earlier looks to him. “Is it that course you went on where people draw things for their children? Why are you drawing them for me?” She giggled.
She hadn’t heard a word. She hadn’t been listening to my pleased-with-myself explanation of how interrupting someone makes it hard for everyone to be heard. She’d been completely, utterly, single-mindedly, focused on my motives.
Which kind of punctured the Theory of Mind theory. She struggles with putting herself in someone else’s shoes so often. Just not today, when I decided to show off my shiny, new, technique. __ Oh, I probably should point this out: the top drawing was the one I did for my daughter. The one at the top of the page.
Song is Sir Lord Comic - Wha'ppen. Everything is copacetic, man.
When I collected my daughter from After School Club, they said she’d been a bit upset after her and Bethany had mixed up their mummies. I didn’t quite understand: Bethany’s mum is about four inches taller and four stone lighter than me. It was only when I was handed a bandaged-up Pringle tube that I twigged it was Halloween decorations they were talking about.
