Friday, September 9, 2011

Passing the blame

My younger son Fudge is still working on the very hard journey of attachment, on a daily basis he pushes me away because he is afraid that I will leave him like all the other people that he has loved and lost. On an intellectual level I understand what is happening but it is harder to make my heart understand. It hurts to be rejected by a child who you pour all your energy into loving and helping to heal, a child who is wanted, a child who is loved. 

Some days I do not think that I can handle one more minute of being pushed away and that I am going to explode, I often do, at him, which gets us no where. He has the ability to fixate on an issue and drive me crazy by talking about the issue non stop. In my calm and patient moments though I am able to respond to him in a way that is helpful, a way that will help him learn to trust and occasionally a way that totally passes the blame to his father and gets me out of the loop altogether which was the case the at breakfast the other day. 

Fudge was nattering at me about his desire for a screen to play video games on, any screen would do, pick any video game platform and give it Fudge and he is happy. The problem is he is also an addict and given the choice he will only play video games and do nothing else. Our solution is no videao games in the house, at all, period. My partner and I both agree that this is the best choice for our kids right now and neither of us is really willing to bend on the subject even though he frequently tries to convinve us that he is a poor deprived child because he lacks a Wii or his own IPad. 

So at breakfast he awas going on about his need for games and I looked at him and said with a completley straight face and zero sympathy, "you do know that Dad is the one who says no video games and since he feels that way I support him because we are your parents and we work together."

Fudge stared at me open mouthed for a minute, while I enjoyed the fact that he was speechless and that for once something was not my fault, therefore we would not need to fight about it. Then he started to talk and I continued to place the blame for the video game ban squarely all on his fathers shoulders. 

As soon as P walked into the room Fudge started in on him about how he knew it was all Dad's fault and luckily for me P totally accepted all the blame. It was a bit of brilliance on my part, fight avoided, Mom is not the bad parent this time and Dad handled it all with grace. 

Perhaps I should pass the blame on to someone else a little more often...

J. blogs at Stellar Parenting 101 where she is occasionally aware that the 8th day and the 9th day of the month are not interchangeable although she sometimes wishes that they were. 

 

 

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