Friday, December 2, 2011

D is for...

Dam.

I’ve lived near flood prone areas of the Pacific Northwest all my adult life.  Folks here know the areas most likely to have high water, they know when they’ll have to use alternate routes, they know where to get sandbags and where to put them, and they know when they've done all they can.  They know when to get out of the way.  The water will crest, begin to recede, and clean-up efforts can start.

In the family emotional dam we try to keep a balance; a stability so there is no undue pressure going in any one direction.  When the barriers begin to break down the damage control starts immediately, but sometimes emotions escalate, behavior gets out of control, and pretty soon we’re surrounded by the wreckage.  It’s ugly and exhausting.

It’s hard work to identify weak areas and the influences most likely to start the leaks trickling.  Do we always see it coming?  No; in fact, although sometimes one can recognize a pattern, and learn to avoid situations and events that are consistently problematic, other times it feels like a flash flood.

Eventually we discovered ‘sandbags’ we could use if it seemed the water was rising: a change of scenery or activity (we used to put Girlie in a warm bath and it was like pushing a reset button!), a drink or snack.  Sometimes it becomes clear we’ve done all we can – time to get out of the way and let the dam burst and the flood happen.  It’ll be over, and then we can talk while we clean up.  The damage is limited to the kids’ bedrooms nowadays, and physical violence (one kid was more likely to have done self-harm and one was more likely to turn on me) has become rare.

As the kids get older, they become more self aware and able to articulate their feelings.  That takes work, and energy, and effort, for all concerned.  It isn’t quite a job for the Army Corps of Engineers, but we’ve had a lot of help shoring up the dikes and levees, learning the best methods to plug the holes.  We talk, one-to-one and as a family, about what might have caused a ‘trickle’, and what we could do next time to stop it.  Both kids are starting to understand their need for de-escalation, if things haven’t degraded too much, and can initiate an activity, sometimes even preceded by verbalizing the need!  Coloring or drawing, reading, or listening to audio books are some of the ways they calm themselves.  Video games work pretty well for Girlie; she tends not to become over stimulated like Boyo does (in his case, too much screen time is a guarantee of problems for everyone in the very near future).  Our family relies heavily on LEGOs and the sound of little bricks being sorted and scraped across the floor in piles is a familiar noise from both their rooms.

You may not associate knitting with dams, but you can sure tell when one bursts in my craft room.  There could be half a dozen projects on the needles, and in a particularly stressful time I might start two or three in one sitting, until I find the right combination of needles, yarn, and pattern that will knit some calm back into my cloudy skies.  Knit one, purl one… ahhhh…

Scrappy Shawl - Weaver's Wool Mini Shawl Pattern



1 comment:

  1. love this post... couldn't wait to get home to see if you'd posted...

    ReplyDelete