In this summer season where time with my son increases I am finding myself falling down the rabbit hole of distraction, taking on editing gigs, outlining new picture books, switching laundry detergents, uncoagulating the top of the dishwashing liquid—anything to avoid the more important thing: playing more with my son.
And after some reflection I realized why.
As a perfectionist, embedded in my DNA is the inclination to choose the known over the unknown. I call it the laundry over quandary phenomenon. I would much rather do what I know I can do well (even if it is boring old laundry) than something perplexing that I may not be good at.
And I feel wholly deficient when it comes to playing with my son.
Which seems ridiculous, but playing with my son is complicated. For him, the social aspect of play is extremely difficult and he simply doesn’t like playing or interacting with people.
So after gleaning advice from different experts I entered the world of charts— charts to record the amount of eye contact he gives, his level of flexibility, the length of his interactive attention span. And then there is speech—recording what he says and deciding which level of gestalts he is in and learning the art of encouraging his speech.
While these charts and methods were and are helpful, left unchecked they became massive stumbling blocks, paralyzing me.
Just like that ominous nothingness that strikes fear into the heart of every storyteller—writer’s block.
Framed this way it became a known as I realized I was really just avoiding writing that ugly first draft.
So one day, I showed myself some grace and set a new, achievable goal—just sitting with my son and letting it be messy and unpredictable. Coming up with ridiculously boring scripts, running out of things to say, having him reposition blocks that I placed so buildings were more structurally sound, and pushing for authorization to build my own structure next to his (a battle that I was shocked to eventually win).
After about 15 minutes of him tolerating me being there, he curled up against me, gave me a hug, and stared into my eyes (something very difficult for him). Then he leaned in until our eyes were almost touching and yelled
“MOUTHLID!!”
It’s “eyelid,” buddy. And you are hilarious.
It was so much more successful than what I had imagined and feared.
Turns out I could have showed up with the personality and energy of a tree stump and still would have come away knowing more about my son’s creativity and humor.
So if this is you, don’t let worry about the quality of interaction get in the way. Just show up. Like the structures we built together that day, you can’t build on anything you haven’t started. So you might as well throw something down and see if the Lincoln Logs stick to it.
And guess what? My son didn’t need to engage in a perfect Bluey-worthy play session.
On his journal page in the box that asked his three favorite things from the day he wrote:
1. Half Day of School
2. Toy Mini Brands
3. Mommy
As far as I am concerned, this is the only chart that counts.