Peppers and Mustard Sandwiches

This post is also available at my new website Trauma Mama Drama.  If you enjoy reading my blog, remember to update your feeds, emails and bookmarks with the new link, because eventually I will only post updates on the new site's blog.

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All young kids have trouble with big concepts like empathy and the true meaning of love. They're abstract concepts you learn in infancy and toddler-hood through reciprocal relationships with human beings (especially parents). When the relationships are good, when Mommy manages to treat Baby with kindness and empathy most of the time, kids develop an understanding that families and friends treat each other kindly. By the time they reach kindergarten, they start to think about how their actions impact the lives of others, but this skill isn't fully developed until much later... And even when the concepts of empathy and love reach their full development, occasionally even the most well-adjusted among us will act in purely selfish manner.

But what happens when early-childhood relationships are not good? What happens when Mommy treats Baby with disdain and disgust and doesn't meet Baby's needs, or the parents scream and fight with each other, or CPS comes in and removes Baby from the home?

When there is no secure attachment for Baby, Baby doesn't learn empathy and the meaning of love. Baby can develop a skewed meaning of what love and empathy mean, or not understand the concepts at all. And a lack of understanding the meaning of love along with an underdeveloped sense of empathy can lay the foundation for Baby developing attachment issues or even attachment disorders.

Love and empathy are not usually explicitly taught to children because they develop it naturally. There might be gentle corrections of children when they are acting unloving or acting without empathy (who hasn't had the "When you say you hate me it hurts my feelings" conversation with their children?), but by the time kids are in kindergarten most of them have at least a modicum of empathetic behavior... at least in the self-serving manner ("If I am nice to this person he will be nice to me" type thinking).

My step-children are five and seven years old, and they really have a skewed concept of what it means to love and have essentially no understanding of empathy. Now that we have custody of them, Husband and I have to teach them these things.

And it is so so so so so so so so so friggin' hard to teach an older kid empathy and love.

So we have to be creative.

It's been rough around here lately and I've lost it several times over the last two weeks. Yelling a lot. Hiding in my room. Sending the kids to their rooms, which is a HUGE therapeutic parenting no-no. But I have been so angry over so many things that I haven't been trusting myself to parent the kids in a normal way, let alone a therapeutic way.

Yesterday, I had a moment of calm, and decided to use a story I've titled "Peppers and Mustard Sandwhiches" to explain to them how I feel when they do the things they aren't supposed to do over and over and over and over and over and over and over and OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER again!


"You don't like mustard (said to Little) and you don't like peppers (said to Middle). Right?"
"Right."
"Okay. So imagine if you came out for lunch and I made Little a mustard sandwich and Middle a plate of peppers. What would you do?"
"I'd say, 'Eeeeeew! I don't LIKE that!'"
"Right. And I'd probably say, 'Oh... I'm sorry! I won't make you that for snack, then.' Would you believe me?"
"Yes."
"Okay, good! So what would happen if you came out for snack and I had a plate full of peppers and a mustard sandwich?"
::no answer::
"Would you be mad?"
"... A little."
"Right. And you'd say you didn't like it. So I would tell you that I was sorry and not make it again for dinner."
"Yeah, because we have to eat!"
"Right. But... When you came out for dinner, I had a plate of peppers and a mustard sandwich again!"
::Middle and Little groan::
"And the next day, I made you the same thing for breakfast. And lunch. And snack. And every time I would tell you that I was sorry and promise not to make them again. But... I make you the same thing for dinner."
"Why?!"
"I don't know... but what would you think?"
"I'd think that you don't love us anymore and you want us to starve!"
"Right. Do you think you would want to do anything fun with me, like play a board game?"
::silent pause:: "No... Because you hurt our feelings!"
"Yes." I took a deep breath. "I feel that way right now. I have to tell you to quit yelling, running in the house, fighting, putting holes in your clothes, trying to hurt the cat, interrupting, hurting yourself with your food... Every day, more than once a day. You know Dad and I don't like it when you do these things, but you do them. A lot. Every day.  And we feel like you have been feeding us mustard sandwiches and peppers."
"Oh."
"So, when you are doing something I don't like, I'm going to try to start saying, 'Peppers! Mustard sandwiches!' Those will be our secret words. Okay?"
::laughter:: "Okay!"


Today was better. Not great... Middle was trying to get Little in trouble and when I asked her what was going on she said, "Because I only want ME and OLDEST to have a good day and I want LITTLE to have a bad day!"  (ahem... WTF?!?!?!) But better. I forgot to use the secret words mostly, but remembered a few times and used them. It stopped the behavior for a moment or two, but wasn't effective for a long period of time.

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe... Maybe over time, this will be something that works, and that sticks with them when they're older. I'd much rather them remember me saying, "Peppers and mustard sandwiches!" than remember me yelling at them with a red, scrunched up face.

Maybe I can be silly with them after all.