Tetherball

Does the mention of this childhood game conjure up big emotions for anyone other than me? I clearly remember the sweaty metal smell of our school playground and the angst that grew inside me as I tried to choose the least conspicuous way to slide into a group during our morning recess.

Tag on the playset was my first choice (unless the boys decided to wreak havoc on our clearly laid-out rules), an open swing was a close second and if I could find a gentle partner who liked to push the boundary of speed but not pain, I loved a good teeter-totter. On the rare occasion that I felt brave, I would walk my 80’s mushroom cut to the south side of the school pavement and line up for tetherball.

My most significant memory of tetherball had nothing to do with the game itself or the opponent I faced. It had everything to do with Peter. There were not many things at school that went well for Peter, but tetherball did. He was the uncontested King. Simply getting in line caused most opponents to shrink back rather than face the one-swing-wonder.

Inside the classroom, Peter had to work hard to keep his rage from surfacing. Mistakes or frustration on paper often resulted in aggressive erasing that left his worksheet in shreds. It was not a rarity for Peter’s paper to be handed in with a mosaic of tape on the back.

As a trauma-sensitive adult now looking back at Peter, I realize he had bigger things going on than academic frustration. But rather than pulling him close and finding the need behind his behaviors, teachers sent Peter away, usually from tetherball. His favorite.

I can make a pretty good guess about the why behind the teachers’ decision. I assume their thought process went something like this… ”If we take away tetherball, Peter will pull it together because tetherball is so very important to him. Clearly, Peter can self-regulate and work within a classroom system set up for students who neither need to move nor integrate their whole bodies for learning to sink in. Besides! Taking things away worked for my parents!” (Well, maybe it went something like that.)

You guessed it. This did NOT work for Peter. His anger was set off, so the teachers pushed in harder, dogpiling on the additional consequences if he couldn’t find a way to regulate on his own.

As a parent, it is so hard not to repeat this same model in our homes.

When emotions are high it seems the simplest and quickest way to help our kids fall in line is to press in: add on the consequences, raise the voice, and up the ante. But just like the increased emotion and hard-line response sent Peter into his downstairs brain, our children often follow the same path.

For many of us, the little souls in our homes have already had their most precious things taken away (first family, safety, trust…). No consequence we impart will touch that pain. Their threshold is too deep to compete with. What they need is a love that pushes in especially when they are at their worst. They need a new model. They need a caregiver who stays. And loves. And waits. And gives them a million second chances.

I hope that today Peter knows he is precious. If he has children I hope they believe the same thing about themselves. Parents, we are trajectory shifters. Every time we choose to come in close and love and wait and give a million second chances, we are shifting the model for generations to come.

So when your days feel like you simply ran on the hampster wheel, remind yourself (and anyone who asks what you accomplished today) that you are shifting the trajectory for generations to come.