Katie and Jason came to me at their wits’ end over four-year-old Mabel’s frequent meltdowns. “She’s been like this from birth,” Katie explained at our first visit. She described needing to nurse Mabel as an infant in a dark, quiet room because she was so easily distracted by sights and sounds. When I asked them to tell me about a recent specific moment of disruption, they described a visit to a county fair. Mabel was clearly so hungry that she was falling apart, yet despite the abundance of appealing snacks she refused to eat.
Katie had lost her cool, yelling at Mabel in the face of what seemed like irrational behavior. Finally, recognizing the futility of this battle, they gave up and took her on a hayride. At the conclusion of the ride, to the astonishment of her beleaguered and exhausted parents, she asked for a hot dog, as if nothing had happened. “In a sense, she’s still that infant you nursed in that quiet, dark room,” I said. Both nodded in agreement and recognition.
When we took the time to look at the moment in detail, by slowing things down, it was clear that the intense stimulation of the fair overwhelmed Mabel, and only with the gentle movement of the hayride, when her body could again feel calm and organized, could she focus on eating.
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