The campfire crackled, as we sat in a ring around it. It was twilight, and we could just make out each other’s faces as the sky darkened. Some faces were dappled by the deeper shadows of the overhanging oak trees.
It was our first time camping with USARC at Big Bear. Peter, his little brother Luke, and I had set up our tent and were waiting for the campfire introductory talk to begin. We had prepared Peter as best we could for the experience, showing him online photos of camping, describing the fun activities planned, and even setting up the tent the day before on the grass in our backyard. Peter had loved the tent, only reluctantly climbing out so we could take it down and pack it into our car. He had typed, “I think I’m ready for this adventure.”
But as the shadows lengthened, and he sat staring at the crackling fire, the monotone started to grow in pace and volume. “Papa, car ride home, bed, Papa, car ride home, bed, Papa, car ride home, bed…” Pressured speech, cold clammy hands, racing heart- I saw all the signs of a growing monster of anxiety. “Peter, I see you are getting anxious, but you will be okay. Remember how fun it was to sit in the tent? Look at all these other kids like you- they’ve all done this before, and they all came back they had so much fun. It’s new, but it will be fun.” Peter rocked back and forth in his camp chair, humming and chanting his “Papa, car ride home, bed” mantra over and over. But he did not get up to leave.
A lady with a kindly face came over and sat beside us. A USARC volunteer for many years, she quietly chatted about this and that camper and how many years he/she had been coming to camp. Then she turned to Peter, “Peter, do you want to go home?” she asked gently.
I handed Peter his iPad keyboard. As he continued to chant, “Papa, car ride, home, bed,” he typed, “Just fooling. I really appreciate being here.”
The lady looked stunned. I hastened to explain. “You know how we all have mixed feelings- you can feel excited and scared all at the same time? Well, in Peter’s case, the scared feelings tumble out automatically, and that’s what you see. But he really does want to try this adventure, and he really does appreciate everyone’s understanding.”
The lady was delighted and relieved, and continued her comforting chat with me and Peter. Peter made it through the entire campfire talk, and even enjoyed his first sticky s’more.
We still had our challenges that night- I had to kind of trick him to get him to use the bathroom by telling him that even if he wanted to go home, he would need to use the bathroom first, and at one point, he tried to repack the duffel bag into the car, but overall, he did well. He got into the tent and managed to fall asleep, with the help of a thick futon I brought along, a sleeping pill for the first night, and a great book he loved to hear me read aloud. We had an amazing adventure, sailing, fishing, and kayaking.
I’m sharing this experience because it is such an extraordinarily clear illustration of how careful we need to be when we interpret our children’s behavior. Our children are wired differently. Their upper brain, the frontal lobes, center of thinking and judgment may be underconnected to the basal ganglion that initiates movement and action. On the other hand, the lower brain’s amygdala, site of anxiety and the fight or flight response, is overactive and well connected. So whereas we handle our dichotomous feelings adroitly or less adroitly depending on the relative strength of our conflicting emotions, our children tend to automatically express the lower brain, sometimes even when the upper brain is trying its best to exert control.
So don’t be too fast to judge. Work hard to figure out the form of communication that works best for your child. Some children type much better than they can talk. For them it’s important to take the trouble to have a keyboard available for deeper conversations. And keep talking softly and reasonably to that upper brain that may be listening intently despite all the distracting noise of the lower brain expressing itself. “Understanding helps,” Peter often tells me. Not just a passive understanding, but realizing the person really is in there, and to address the person and support those higher intentions that may be hidden inside a locked-in upper brain. Your support may make all the difference in what your child is capable of experiencing, and how wide, joyful, and hopeful his world may become.
As Peter put it,
“i really love sailing.
i feel the wind on my face.
blue sky and lake,
the sound of the wind luffing the sails,
i feel fast and free among friends.”
Joyce Show, M.D. 
Wow, this is very thought-provoking. Fantastic you could speak to him ‘around’ the automatic fear response. Makes me ask myself how many times have I also had those dueling responses too.
I have a question, maybe you can give some insight. When my eldest was little, sometimes when we’d had an extra active/fun day, when I was tucking him in he’d get very ‘eeyore-like’ and say sadly and slowly “I didn’t have any fun today.” The following day, when recounting whatever it was we’d done the prior day, all his memories were only happy ones. It seemed to me some contradictory unknown came forth when he was over-tired, have you ever experienced this too? Just curious! Thanks for your post.
Peter has never typed one thing and later typed a contradictory comment, but there have been plenty of times he verbalizes one thing and later contradicts it in typing. I read an excerpt from Naoki Higashida’s book “Why I Jump” in which Naoki talks about the frustrations of “operating a faulty robot.” Naoki writes that he often does and says just the opposite of his intentions. Peter says he feels like that only sometimes. but that typing is definitely his most reliable means of expression. I do think it’s very common for our kids to have much better receptive than expressive communication, so if unsure that the child meant what he expressed, I would just voice the question. For example, “Really? Did you mean that? I sure had fun with you today. Maybe you mean you’re sad the day is over, and are wondering when you can look forward to another day like this. Let’s talk about it in the morning after a good night’s sleep.”
Once again you enlighten us, Joyce with such incredible, wonderful reports that teach us all so much.. Thank you and thank you Peter!
Many thanks for your kind encouragement and support, dear Mona!