“So, Max, how was your day in Kindergarten today?”
“It was great! I was Aquaman and the rain gave me power!”
Success! I thought to myself, and traded a smile with Michelle. The rain-meltdown crisis was over.
Now, I figure that a meltdown over rain might sound like something out of the Wizard of Oz. But what if the Wicked Witch of the West was scared of water for no good reason? What if water didn’t actually cause her to melt, and it was all in her imagination?
That was sort of what was happening in our house for a few days prior to this exchange.
It all began on a stormy Friday the previous week. Max’s kindergarten was located at the lowest elevation in the area, so whenever rain came the place was in danger of getting flooded. The street leading up to it suffered as well, so driving to pick him up at the end of the school day was fraught with risk. My car might get flooded in, finding a parking space might be impossible, and traffic jams might cause me to arrive late to pick him up.
Luckily, we live only a few blocks away from the place, so I decided to walk to pick him up. I figured the worst that could happen was that he and I would get wet. Nothing that a nice warm cup of chocolate milk and a fresh pair of thick socks could not cure once we get home.
On the way to kindergarten I got seriously wet, but I arrived on time and picked Max up. He was happy to see me, his usual energetic self, and we headed home in the pouring rain, with Max telling me about his day. Two minutes later, however, an ear-splitting crack of thunder shattered around us, and the black clouds overhead let us have it, the light rain turning to a real torrent of large drops.
Within seconds we were both soaked to the bone, and cold. I did my best to walk under the trees that lined the sidewalk, but it was no use. Still, it was not the wetness and the cold that were the problem – the main issue was the noise. Thunder after thunder rumbled above us, some of which were quite loud. The rain came down heavy, filling the air with a loud white noise. As a result, Max could not hear me unless I shouted, which meant I could not calm him down effectively.
We were halfway home when I saw a familiar car stop by our side on the main road, splashing through a street that had become a raging river. The back door opened, and Michelle shouted from within “come in!”. She had seen the downpour and had decided to come to our rescue. I shoved Max into the back seat, then hurried into the front, holding his soaking backpack.
Back at home, Max was still worked up, but we took him aside and hugged him for a while until he calmed down. I don’t remember for certain, but I’m guessing we got that hot chocolate drink in the end, switched into nice dry clothes, and had a relaxing weekend indoors. What an adventure! All’s well that ends well, right?
That’s what we thought, for sure, until a few days later. The forecast spoke of rain, though not nearly as intense as what Friday had brought. Michelle went ahead and got the kids prepared for school. However, Max was anxious. The Friday storm had been too much for him, and now the very thought of rain scared him.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this yourself, but early morning, when you’re trying to get four kids ready for school, is not the time to have long talks about their feelings. It’s a time to get things going. Michelle told Max, “Don’t worry, it’s not going to be such a major storm today,” gave him a hug and moved on from the subject. Mopey and worried, Max continued getting ready, and went, complaining, off to kindergarten.
It rained lightly that day, nothing special, but when Michelle came to collect him at the end of the school day, the teachers told her he had refused to go outside the whole day. He was too scared of the rain.
At home, after I came back from work, Michelle and I sat down to think: what do we do? How to dispel the fear?
I think it’s time I tell you a bit about Max.
All our kids are quite imaginative, but Max is the only one who really LIVES in his imagination. Perhaps being the youngest has something to do with it, but while all his siblings never had imaginary friends, Max has at least three. When he has nobody to play with, he can just as easily sit down, open up a four-player board game, and play with his various phantom pals. He also has a few favorite dolls, and even now, at age 7, he enjoys bringing his dog-doll to the dinner table and pretend it needs feeding. And, not surprisingly, I can already see him getting interested in Roll-Playing games such as D&D.
As we sat there together, I tried to think about this fear of his. All fear, after all, is about how we process and frame the reality around us. Even death, to take a very extreme example, stops being scary if you are certain Heaven awaits you on the other side. What I needed to find was a way to help Max reframe his reality in such a way that it was no longer a threat. And I didn’t want to do it using the “brute force” method of shoving him out into the rain to prove it won’t hurt him – that approach might work, but if I could find a way that worked in better harmony with his personality, that would be better.
Putting these two components together, I came up with an idea. The next morning, I took Max aside.
“Max, right you’re scared of the rain right now?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, his lip quivering.
“Well, I understand that. However, did you ever hear of the super hero called Aquaman?”
He had not. I opened my phone and found a picture of Aquaman from the comics, zooming through the ocean in the classic super-hero pose, right arm and fist pointing forward and up.
“Aquaman,” I told him, “lives in the water. In fact, water is exactly what gives him his power. If Aquaman is out in the rain, every drop gives him more strength, more power to beat the bad guys.”
I could see his eyes light up. It was clear that I had gotten his imagination running. I knew I had this.
“So”, I told him, “if the rain comes, all you need to do is turn into Aquaman, and then the rain will not hurt you, but give you power. You do like this, see?” I said, and punched the air with my fist, shouting “Aquaman!”
“Aquaman!” Max repeated after me, all excited now. He ran off to tell Michelle about the great idea he and dad just had.
So yeah – I was excited but not surprised that day when he came back home and told me proudly that when the rain came he turned into Aquaman. It appeared that he still didn’t go outside to play, but this time it was not due to some irrational fear, just that he didn’t feel like it.
Reflecting back, I take from this story two main things. The first is the power of our mind to conquer fear and adversity, by simply looking at the same events through a different lens. So many of the limits we think exist for us are just the limits that we place upon ourselves by our viewpoint. A change of viewpoint can open up previously locked doors.
And the second is a message that all parents need to remember, and which I’ll probably mention dozens of times in this blog: get to know your kid deeply. This technique worked for Max, but would have been a complete fail if I tried it on Kacey, for instance.
If you can figure out the main forces that make your child “tick”, you will be able to communicate with him or her with much more ease, and unlock potential inside them that neither you nor your child knew they had, and which can enable them to deal in a healthy way with what life throws at them.
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