Early this month, Kiernen got a new Lego set:
7590 Woody and Buzz to the Rescue ; 92 pieces (piece o’ cake!) ; ages 6-12

I watched him, fascinated as ever, putting together this set. Except for asking my help on getting together the smallest of pieces on the wheel axle, he put it together entirely himself, including interpreting the directions. I pretty much just got to watch him do his stuff – this kiddo is definitely proficient at Lego!


Sometimes when we look at some of the bigger sets he would like to get, we will talk about how many pieces they have and he will say something like, “Wow, that’s a lot of pieces. That might take four whole days to put together. We’ll have to take a lot of breaks.” (Remember in an earlier O4L I referenced us building the Slave 1 ship which was 573 pieces, and it took us an evening and the whole day the next day to put it together, with lots of breaks for recharging and moving our bodies.) I was interested to see that Kiernen also remembered this and referenced it in musing about building the other Lego ships.

He continues to save his allowance of $5/ week for his future purchase of the Death Star, which at this point the whole family is looking forward to. It will be difficult, as it always is, for us not to jump in and want to build it for him – because it is so fun!

I also noticed this week – we bought a Lego ship as a birthday gift for his cousin – one Kiernen already has but his cousin does not yet own. Kiernen was studying the box and then announced that he’d like to take apart his ship like it and rebuild it, “Because I was thinking about what it was like to build it when it was new.” This is the first time he has done this, asked to take apart one of his ships all the way so he could rebuild it. We happily obliged – he and I took it apart together – and then he went on to something else and we haven’t yet rebuilt the ship. And we will, this week, I am sure.

On Valentine’s Day, we managed to procure a used copy of the Lego Batman game for Xbox – Kiernen had been wanting it for ages, and not only did we finally find it used at a good price ($10), we then got an extra $5 off that $10 by buying it on Valentine’s Day. We were delighted!

I notice he is getting really good at playing these Lego games for Xbox – he and his father play them together once or twice a week, and sometimes he plays them with his babysitter as well. We do make sure that when he plays, because of screens making one forget to blink and shutting down the brain (oh delight), that he plays in one hour increments and takes a “body break” at that interval. We will ask him to get up and run around, move his body, eat, play a bit for awhile with his tangible toys, etc. Sometimes we’ll get out of the house to check the mail or “take a walk around Windsong” just to shift the space a bit. I am still not entirely comfortable with his screen time, and this helps us all a great deal to feel better about it, and helps Kiernen avoid meltdowns from prolonged exposure without proper processing time.

I notice that when I ask him to take a break and play with his toys for awhile, he will sometimes protest a bit, but after reassuring him that he will be able to play the game again, he is off to it, and he is also then able to use his toys to process the feelings in his body and the action of the game itself.

Speaking of feelings in the body, we have been working on naming those, identifying where in the body he is feeling something (and taking on learning the skill ourselves so as to set the example – family learning!). I have found this to be very helpful in helping him to calm down. Great example: at the gymnastics centre where Kiernen and Annie go to Free Play time 2x a week, he had some sort of showdown with another, younger kiddo.


What actually happened was the kiddo was saying something to Kiernen as they were passing each other – shouting ‘no’ at him or something. They both stopped and faced each other, and Kiernen said, “Stop that!” The boy repeated his action. Kiernen got visibly more upset, and raised his voice volume, “I said stop that! I don’t like it!” The little boy repeated his action. (At this point his mother and I were both heading toward them to remove our respective kiddos.) Kiernen made his ‘hulk face’ and shouted, while restraining himself from actually hitting the boy, “Stop it! I hate you! I said STOOOOOOOP!!!!!”

I gently physically removed Kiernen and said, “Come here, Kiernen, let’s talk.” (very gentle and soothing voice)

I sat down so we could be at eye level. I took him onto my lap, facing me, and said, “You know what? How you feel is totally fine – it’s normal to feel upset when someone is yelling at you. First of all, how about a hug?”

He seemed relieved and wrapped his arms around me, hugging me tight, and I him. Then when I felt like he was ready I said, “Okay, now let’s breathe together.” (Sometimes he resists this, so I take very exaggerated breaths and playfully exhale my outbreath into his face, blowing on his face and he cracks up and joins me.) After we’ve breathed, I address his feelings: “It seems like you were feeling very frustrated there. You were yelling and it seemed like the little boy wasn’t hearing you. You wanted him to stop and he wouldn’t stop.”

“He wasn’t listening to me!” Kiernen agreed.

“That must have felt very frustrating for him not to listen to you. You really just wanted him to stop, right now.”

“Yes. And he was yelling at me!”

“Yes. He was yelling ‘no’ at you.”

“Yes.”

“I hear that you were really frustrated. And I want to thank you for not hitting him. I saw that it looked like you felt like you might hit him, and you stopped yourself. I want to appreciate you for that – I know that was hard, and I want to thank you for doing it. You used your words to let him know how you felt, and that was great. Even though you felt really angry and wanted to hit him, you didn’t, and you used your words.”

We paused then for a minute to just sit quietly. I hugged him, we sat together, and then I said, “ Can I tell you what I think might have been going on for him?”

Kiernen nodded, so I continued, “Well, he is a little guy – much younger than you. And right now he is really doing a lot of experimenting in his world, to see what happens in the world when he does different things. He’s little still, so he doesn’t understand a lot of how the world works or what it is like for other people. I noticed that he was following you earlier. I think he might really be interested in you, because you’re a bigger kid. He wants to do what you do.”

“He wants to do what I do?”

“Yeah,” I answer. “Remember when you were a little guy and you wanted to follow the bigger kids around? Even now, you like to play with the big kids at Windsong. Right?”

He thought about it and said, “Yeah.”

“Well, I think that little guy feels the same way about you. And what he likes is when he has your attention. And when he yelled at you and you stopped, he had your attention. Now he is a little guy so even though you were upset, he didn’t really see that. All he saw was that he had your attention, and he wanted that, so he kept on doing the thing that was getting your attention, even though it was upsetting you. He just wanted you to be paying attention to him. So when he saw you facing him and yelling at him, he thought, ‘Oh boy, this big kid is paying attention to me. I’d better keep doing this thing that is getting his attention,’ which was him yelling ‘no’ at you. Would you like to know another thing you could have done then?”

Kiernen said yes, so I continued, “One thing you could have done then is to just walk away. Because see, he wanted your attention, and if you just walked away when he did something you didn’t like, he wouldn’t have your attention. And eventually he would have stopped, because he wasn’t getting you to look at him or react.”

“But what if he followed me?”

“Yes, he might follow you, that is true. You could walk away and he might follow you. And you could keep walking away, or you could come and talk to me about it, or you could let him know in gentle words that you don’t want to play with him right now.”

(I’m realizing in typing this that I also could have asked Kiernen for some possible solutions here, too.)

I was delighted with this exchange, though, because it really did soothe the situation while allowing for him to both see other options and the other person’s perspective, be acknowledged for the options he chose, and be heard and validated for how he felt.

Also lately when he is upset, I will just sit and be with him and sometimes ask him, “Is there anything you need from me right now?”

I notice he often says no, and then I just sit and be with him, gently rubbing his back or holding him, just letting him know I am here and that I love him. That process feels good for me, because is soothes my personal need to “do something” and also just allows space for him to express and to be. I love having the thought that I don’t need to fix anything, that he just needs to express and be. It is amazingly liberating when I remember it.

Kiernen is very expressive in his love for his friends, and I couldn’t resist leaving you with these: