01/24/2025
Repost from the The Occuplaytional Therapist 💗
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She is struggling. S t r u g g l i n g. This year is hard, hard, hard for so many reasons.
We haven’t been able to do everything I wish we could do, in OT every week, because we’re so busy putting out the emotional fire that’s raging constantly that we can’t even make progress in new skills. The slightest push feels like it would send her over the edge, and I can’t do that to her. I empathize too hard with that struggle, anyway. I tell myself that I’m being the one safe adult in her life…that if she doesn’t know anywhere else where she can let her guard down, she knows she can with me.
She comes to me ready to fight, because she’s been fighting all week.
She begs me to take some of my toys, some of my OT materials. I remind her that these things are for all the kids, that I can’t just give away my materials. She palms a pom-pom on her way out, thinking she’s hiding it from me. I don’t say anything, I let it go. She’s only 30 seconds out the door before she turns around and comes back in, presses it into my hand, the guilt is too much. “I accidentally forgot I was holding this, I’m sorry,” she tells me, and I accept a pom-pom and an apology and don’t push it even an inch further, and she still won’t stop apologizing. Her heart is so sweet. She’s just hurting.
She whispers an insult out of nowhere. It’s technically directed at me, but I also know it’s not really *at* me. “You’re trash. You’re trash.” When I don’t reply, she gets a little louder. “You’re trash. Ha-ha, you’re just trash.”
In as completely innocent and nonjudgmental of a tone of voice as I possibly can, I cheerfully ask, “Who are you talking to?”
Again she dissolves. “You’re not trash, I’m sorry, it was mean, I know you’re not trash.” I tell her that it’s okay, that I’m not hurt, I know I’m not trash. I want to ask her who’s saying this, that it was in the forefront of her mind, but her speedy, thoughtful brain is already on to telling me different things.
We play a game. She’s the one making up the game. She has four ponies and they go around the OT room and do different activities, and I follow her lead. She usually gives me half the animals. Today she holds one out— “Here, you can have purple”— and then snatches it back. “Ha-ha, you actually get nothing. You don’t even get any.”
“Oh, okay,” I say neutrally, trying to read the situation.
She deflates a little, to my eyes. I’m not sure what I should do. It’s so obvious that she’s dying for power in a situation when she has none all day long. But I thought I was giving her power, by agreeing, by letting her control the game. If I fought with her, she might feel fleetingly powerful, but she feels so guilty about being “mean” that I don’t think it would last. I’m not sure how to spin it so that she can “win” this scenario the way she so desperately needs to.
Then…
I lean in. I play.
I stage whisper conspiratorially. “Wait, when you say, ‘Ha-ha, you get nothing,’ do you want me to say, ‘oh, okay,’ or do you want me to say,” and I become extremely dramatic, “AWWW MAAAANNNN, I wish *I* had a pony! Pleeeeeaseeeeeee let me have just oooooone ponyyyyyyy!!!!”
She absolutely, completely, lights up. “I want you to say awww mannnn!”
“Okay,” I agree, and then give an Oscar-worthy performance of Therapist Who Desperately Wishes They Could Play With One Of The Ponies.
She’s laughing by the end of it, and offering me two of the toys. “Here, you have half of them. Let’s go, they have to crawl through the maze. Wait—no, I have to crawl through the maze and you have to go on the balance beam.”
I’m all set and ready to ask whether I’m supposed to agree with the balance beam or protest my being barred from the maze. She’s one step ahead of me. She gives me a smile. “And you just say ‘oh okay’. I don’t want you to say awww mannnn anymore. I just want to play.”
“Oh, okay,” I say, and me and my ponies go on the balance beam, and she crawls through the maze, with a little flicker of light—power—re-lit. With the feeling that some time today, she won, and she didn’t even have to be against me to do it.
***
[Image description:
At the top of the image, it reads, “Rethinking Power Needs”, with the artist’s tag .
The rest of the image is various cartoony illustrations with captions.
There is a picture of a remote control, with an X on it. Its caption says, “Power is not like a remote control where only one person has all the power and control.”
Next to that is a picture of a candle being held in a hand and used to light other candles. It reads, “Power is like a candle. You can give a child power without giving away any of your own power.”
Next to that is a picture of a bucket full of water, with another X on it. “You don’t have a set amount of power, like a bucketful. There are ways to give a child power without losing any of your own.”
In the center of the image is a quote in larger letters: “Kids don’t want your power. They want their own.” The quote is by Richard LaVoie.
There is a drawing of a child with a thumbs-up. It reads, “When a student feels they have power with the adults as well as power within themselves, they’ll have less need to seek power over others.”
“A new understanding of power can help with this…” An arrow points to another quote. “See a child differently…see a different child” which is by Stuart Shankar.
At the bottom of the image are two lists, next to two more illustrations of candles. The first list is titled, “6 ways to help kids meet their power needs.”
1. Offer choice, not orders
2. Give responsibility
3. Start with strengths
4. Express interest rather than praise
5. Ask for their opinion
6. Ask for their help
The second list is titled, “6 points to remember.”
1. Avoid power struggles
2. Avoid making threats
3. Growing power needs are a healthy part of child development
4. Respect boundaries
5. The rules (not the adult) should be obeyed
6. Reflect on your own need for power and control
At the bottom of the image is one more quote, by Ross Greene: “The reality is that no one wins a power struggle.”
End image description.]
