In the last year we have noticed that Samuel likes to "explore" various emotional feelings. During Easter last year he was focused on death and dying, and it seemed natural that he would explore this through the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Later in the year he explored this through Walt Disney. I do not know exactly how this came to be, but he would ask me and one of his helpers in particular about what would have happened when Walt Disney got old and died.
I am not quite sure what to make about the feeling that he is exploring now. It might be "things forbidden" or it could just be that he is curious about things that ultimately lead to him getting in trouble. I don't know. I do know that if he does something that gets him in trouble he wants us to narrate the story back to him.
One recent event occurred one morning while he was playing Wii. This was a "break" time for Samuel so his helper was organizing some things in the kitchen while Samuel was playing in the family room. I was working in the kitchen. All of a sudden Samuel screamed, started crying, and ran upstairs to hide. I went over to the television screen and the Wii system was asking questions like, "what language do you want?..." I realized that Samuel had been exploring the menus, had come across some kind of "clear system" button and had selected it. SAMUEL HAD DELETED ALL THE CHARACTERS, ALL THE INFORMATION, ALL THE SCORES WE HAD OBTAINED over the 40 days since we received it at Christmas. This included all the games and levels that had been unlocked due to our hard work. I felt really bad for my two other sons, who had done lots of hard work on Wii Fit, Wii Sports, and a crossbow shooting game. Samuel's helper took care of setting up the system so that a password would be needed in the future to do such a thing. I wish we had thought of that earlier! Live and learn.. Now, Samuel wants me to repeat the story of this. I won't. I tell him that what he did was wrong and that we have now fixed the game so that it cannot be done again. He apologized to all of us without me even asking for him to do so.
Samuel also likes for me to repeat a story that I had told all the children one time.. about how I had broken apart one of my baby brother's toys (a toy hour glass) so that I could get to the plastic pellets inside of it. I will not repeat this story for him anymore either. I talk about it in terms of how it was wrong, that I should have respected my brother's property.
The strange thing in all of this is that he seems truly remorseful and sorry for doing things that hurt others, yet he likes to get others to talk about it and I'm sure that he will "explore" other such actions in the future. We're trying to pay attention to what he talks about and what he is watching on the computer. His big brother says he got the idea about clearing out Wii from a video he watched on the computer.. YouTube or something like that.
He's going over the Ten Commandments one by one in Religion and I am glad that he seems to be able to relate to the idea that there are rules of proper behavior that should be followed. I have a few books that are great for bringing the rules of the commandments to his level. (For example.. "Thou shalt not kill," besides meaning that we really shouldn't "kill," also means that we should treat our siblings and friends nicely....)We are reading them; now I have my job as his Mom to help him apply them in everyday life.
3 comments:
I can see the dilemma, but am charmed by his wanting you to "tell the story", is he wanting to relate to "you did wrong too"..I also squelch the telling of offenses that like to be rehashed over and over (almost glorified).
I am curious about this exploring of emotions because I wonder if that isn't what I'm seeing my little one go through right now, you've given me some food for thought..thank you!!!
Thanks Kathryn!
I don't recall either of my other two sons going through any stage like this, but then again you hear about the stage of development in children where they are "testing the limits." I wonder if my other sons went through something like this when they weren't yet talking, so it's not sticking in my mind like Samuel's experiences are.
It's funny, Samuel will go through "stages" in social things that much younger children go through, but then he ponders it and explores it with a way of thinking that is closer to his chronological age.
We go through quite the similar repeating of stories. Connor is currently going through a death phase. We have had several people in our lives pass recently, and two pets too. Add that to learning about the assassinations of Lincoln and MLK, and you can imagine the mess. Plus, the innaugeration was at the same time so now Connor constantly worries about our new president! Then when we buried our little hamster in the yard, Connor was all about things being underground. Yikes! I agree that Connor goes through these stages later than typical kids, but explores it more in depth as he is older.
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