Weekly Psyche

It was interesting that the mother of the young child said that the worst of it all was she felt powerless and that powerlessness made her angry and she wanted a way to deal with her own anxiety. Well, with that little reminder, I just got off the phone with a family down in Southern California and the parent is on an economy with a four year old, a very precocious four year old, an adopted child. We’ll talk about adoption later and about the pitfalls involved with adoption that social services never really talks about. I’ll call it ‘the social genetic dance’, very interesting.

In this particular scenario, the parent already has the child on a token economy; we must have individuals on an economy and have a list of things that the child is paid for, in terms of her chips in her can and also the things that she pays for which is all the delights she chooses: from foods, to outings, to movies, to whatever toy she fancies. In this particular scenario, what do you do with a four year old that says no at home to a shower, to brushing the teeth, to going to bed, to changing the clothes? At home it is very simple because from a four year old, and from a two year old, there is really not that much difference about removing power. Removing mobility, which is a re-movement of power and taking over the autonomy, you are putting them back into the play crib or when they are four it is isolating them to their room. But what do you do when you are at grandma’s house?

That is what the call was about; what do you do when you’re at grandma’s house. Well, you always have to think in terms of how to complete the sense of removal of power both in autonomy and also cost. In this particular child, the parent must follow through mechanically on the request. Just as if we’re working with the elderly or we’re working with the mentally disabled, we have to take the child and actually go through the steps and wash their hands physically.

After we’re done with the process, the child has to pay for maid service and with younger kids I usually call it bus service, but it is essentially a maid service. And they have to pay a certain amount, maybe five tokens out of there economy (which would normally buy them some ice cream or a breakfast choice) and they have to go and physically take the five tokens out of the jar and give them to mom, even if the parent has to do it. We have to have follow through on the actual request plus cost, so we have autonomy and power being removed. We have the actual activity being completed, so responsibilities are done and the cost paid to someone else so that the child sees that the cycle is done and that it would be more beneficial for them, if they did it themselves.

I forgot this point. As soon as the parent makes the choice, they start an egg timer, which is digital, and they say to the child “you have three minutes”. At the end of three minutes it rings and if, when it rings, the child says “I’ll do it now”, they have lost the choice, they have lost the power, they have lost the autonomy. This is the process of responsibility follow through with young tykes between the years of two and six because they have not reached the age of reason. Remember, this is your Weekly Dr. B saying, we are not alone.