Responding to my own post

My phone pinged with a notification as I grabbed my keys and was heading out the door. I took a quick look and saw the beginning of a somewhat irritated parent: “What about when he comes into my face and growls or hisses….”

This isn’t uncommon. Running a large Facebook group promoting a radical parenting style can often trigger this response in stressed, overwhelmed parents. I didn’t have the time to respond right then, so I shut down the phone and carried on with the task in hand, with it niggling away in the back of my head.

Later, when I had time, I sat down to respond to the post. It was somewhat confusing and took me a second to figure out what it was. This was an old post from years ago that someone had commented on. It wasn’t on my group, it was on the Bryan Post Parenting Matrix group. The closed group that I used to go to when I needed support. The original post was my own post. These were my own words from five years ago.

“What about when he comes into my face and growls or hisses when I ask him to do something he doesn’t like. Surely this is a behaviour and not just an attitude? This won’t serve him well as an adult.”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I cannot even remember him doing these behaviours. I remember it was hard. I know the behaviours were intense. But this was a post I had written when struggling to get my head around this new approach. My own resistance to this was clear here. That same resistance that I see so often in other parents.

As I looked through more of my own past posts, I was reminded of just how far we have come and how much things have changed.

Here are a few more…

“Update…… My wee guy has gone to bed with not one problem for the past two nights. Even when he came in after athletics club tonight high as a kite. I’ve been moving away for a few minutes to make sure I’m calm before starting the bedtime routine and he is now even going up there to bed by himself. 😀 What a difference.

Also today, on the way to a play therapy session, he was acting up. He actually managed to say to me that he was scared. And again going to athletics he told me how nervous he was. This was a boy that wouldn’t, and couldn’t, express his feelings verbally.”

“Had to share this with you. My wee guy’s teacher had spoken to him yesterday at school about some problems he was having with other kids. He said he couldn’t remember what she had said to him because his head was too full of the bad memories. Wow. How insightful of him to be able to put into words that because of his distress he couldn’t think clearly.

He also could sense me and my 18-year-old daughter were about to get into an argument the other day. He calmly got in between us and said ‘right, stop it’, then gave me a hug. It actually did calm me down. Was so amazing to be on the other side of it and feel the difference it makes. But also such a proud moment to see how much he has learned. ❤️”

“It was a tough one today. My daughter had been in a FaceTime group chat with five other girls from her college for the last few nights. She has been so happy and really enjoying the interaction. So was I, as I could hear the chat and it seemed lovely and natural.

I’m often wary of these things, as a group of kids with learning issues and high stress sensitivity can be so loaded and end in miscommunication. Today, for some reason, they decided to put her off the chat and she received some really unkind messages without any idea why. She was so upset. It was like a punch in the stomach.

I had to work really hard to recognise how much of my own emotion around this was my own upset from my experiences as a child of being bullied, and what I could be adding to the situation. I had to really do my breathing and calm the part of my brain that wanted to fix it and stop her feeling upset.

Allowing her to feel the feelings she had and bringing as much of my own calm as possible. I had to wait until she was ready to accept my comfort and avoid telling her it would be OK, because those friendships are broken and maybe won’t be OK.

She was sad to have lost the group she had so enjoyed, and I had to recognise that I was sad too. I had enjoyed hearing her voice chatting and laughing with other girls, something I’ve longed for her to have and have to accept might just be something she can’t manage.

But I can’t let my own emotions about it overwhelm me. Especially the ones where I want to hunt these kids’ parents down and make them know how much pain my child is in, lol. Breathe, Suzanne, breathe!!!

I’m choosing to tell myself that they didn’t do this on purpose and that they themselves could be struggling. We don’t ever know what’s going on in other people’s lives. It’s at times like these that I’m so thankful for the stress model and all that I have learned.

Today I managed to stop, breathe and choose to act from a place of love instead of a place of fear, not just once but many times. ❤️”

“Had had such a big breakthrough with our guy after days of him really struggling. Afterwards we were all so happy and felt a huge weight had been lifted. He was his wee happy self again. But the next day it all started again. I couldn’t believe it. So soon. Not even 24 hours later.

Have to admit, I fell straight into the Matrix rabbit hole. I heard myself saying, ‘Seriously? This again? Really?’ and noticed how afraid I felt at having to go through it again after having made such progress. I’m wondering, is this something that I should expect more of? Now he is getting in touch with his feelings. A bit like a Pandora’s box.

We did get into what the problem was a lot quicker this time. We went straight to the paper and pens and got drawing our feelings and fears. Had to share one of his pictures as it says it all really. It’s a picture of how he feels, with a bubble for each of the different things that are stressing and frightening him.”

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It’s important to look back at where we have been and acknowledge how far we have come. Often, in the midst of the work, it can feel like we aren’t making progress. But even tiny baby steps and small shifts move us forward.

Sometimes the greatest evidence of change isn’t found in how calm things feel now, but in how differently we respond when things are hard again. Looking back at these words reminded me that growth doesn’t always feel dramatic in the moment. It often only becomes visible when we pause, reflect, and allow ourselves to see just how far we’ve already travelled.