The power went out at our house for about three minutes earlier this morning, and Daniel has been talking about it non-stop ever since. I asked him if it was alright to record our conversation for a couple of minutes after we had been talking about it for half an hour or so, and he obliged:
Obviously, Daniel is also very physically agitated from the experience as well. As you heard him say, the most upsetting part of the experience for Daniel was that the smoke detectors and baby monitors were beeping to signal their loss of power. Those kinds of sounds are always quite alarming (forgive the pun) and cause disruption for quite some time after they're over.
Daniel seems to prefer to process things verbally (just like his Momma) so whenever anything out of the ordinary happens, we talk about it over and over until he has made sense of the event in his mind. (This includes things that have happened days, weeks, or even months ago; Jaymz and I are often surprised by how well he can remember events that happened so long ago.) As I mentioned before, this is called perseverating, and it's (at least in part) caused by his sensory processing difficulties and the quirky ways his brain works to try to figure out his world.
Whenever we have one of these extended processing conversations I find myself fascinated at observing how hard Daniel's brain is working to assimilate these occurrences that surprise, scare, or confuse him. I'm grateful that Jaymz and I have this (verbal) insight into what's going on in his head, so we can try to help him work through all the things he's feeling for as long as it takes to work through it.
What kinds of things do your little ones do that surprise and fascinate you? How do they prefer to work through scary or uncomfortable events? I'd love to hear about it!
Aww oh my goodness, how fascinating! My heart just breaks to see how upset he was by it! I learn so much from Daniel through your blog!
ReplyDeleteThanks for saying so! I felt conflicted about recording him because I, too, was sad that he was upset. I'm glad I did, though--it's started some really valuable conversations!
DeleteAw what a horrid thing to happen, yet something that does. I had a similar experience when my son was younger he was in the bath and the lights went out, the electricity was off for no more than 20 minutes yet he was beside himself with worry. It was so frustrating as there was nothing I could do but reassure him, hes now 9 and still has to have the landing light left at on bedtime, I often wonder if that experience when he was 3/4 caused this fear of the dark
ReplyDeleteAw what a horrid thing to happen, yet something that does. I had a similar experience when my son was younger he was in the bath and the lights went out, the electricity was off for no more than 20 minutes yet he was beside himself with worry. It was so frustrating as there was nothing I could do but reassure him, hes now 9 and still has to have the landing light left at on bedtime, I often wonder if that experience when he was 3/4 caused this fear of the dark
ReplyDelete