Problem Child
I babysat for the Antichrist (and tried to fix him).
by Amelia McDonell-Parry
August 20, 2007
Routinely, Calvin was sent home from playgroup, and there were countless phone calls from the school about his behavior. Mostly he was quiet and didn't participate much, but sometimes he would crawl into his cubby and refuse to come out. He was sent home twice for hitting his teachers and another time for biting the school headmaster. He seemed overwhelmed by instruction or guidance; any attempt to catch him, block him from running, or remove or dislodge him from whatever object he was clinging to, would result in kicking, screaming, and sobbing, a breakdown and emotional collapse of epic proportions that could not be calmed down with rational words, a soothing backrub, or even threats of early bedtime. He could not be consoled.
You would think such drama would be cause for alarm with Calvin's parents — Upper East Side Catholics who sent their kids to private school with the wages from their finance jobs — but his mom just seemed irritated that she had to cancel a meeting in order to pick him up. And they weren't around much, in general. She and her husband usually didn't get home until the kids' bedtime.
I felt at once so sorry for and so tormented by Calvin that he became an obsession. Weekly sessions with my therapist became Calvin Hour. Dr. Austin wanted to talk about why I was so profoundly affected by a child who wasn't mine; I wanted to focus on how I could use psychology's Jedi mind tricks to make him better. Then she told me about her son, also four,He had attacked me with a fork after I took away a play sword with which he had threatened to kill me. who had been diagnosed with Sensory Sensitivity Disorder a year prior. She was pretty sure this was something Calvin may be facing as well.
I read everything I could about Sensory Sensitivity, also known as Sensory Integration Dysfunction and Sensory Processing Disorder. Apparently children with Sensory Sensitivity (called "Highly Sensitive People") have a difficult time processing stimuli of the five senses that the average person barely notices. They be intolerant of certain types or levels of lighting (Calvin absolutely HAD to have the door cracked a certain width so the right amount of light would stream into his room); feel attacked when touched (hello, hand holding!); become nauseated upon smelling something that does not smell bad ("Stinky!" was Calvin's favorite phrase); have difficulty maintaining eye-contact (even on his best days, Calvin didn't look you in the eye); and generally become overwhelmed when exposed to a lot of sensory stimuli at once.
I gently approached Calvin's mother with this research and with the accumulated tales of his escalating violence. (He had attacked me with a fork after I took away a play sword with which he had threatened to kill me.) "You know, he hasn't been napping," said Calvin's mom. "He's so well behaved on the weekends when we're home. Strange."
©2007 Amelia McDonell-Parry and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Amelia McDonell-Parry is a freelance writer in New York. Her work has
appeared in Teen Vogue, Everyday With Rachael Ray, NYMag.com,
Nylon, RollingStone.com, and Marie Claire UK. Her
biological clock has been ticking practically since puberty, but
she's still debating whether it's cruel to give her future children a
triple hyphenate surname. In the meantime, her dog, Lucca, calls her
Mommy. |
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