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Thursday 15 August 2013

Brick Wall

When dealing with teenagers (and toddlers), sometimes it is all too easy to get involved in a tedious spaghetti junction argument.  Anxiety and emotions rise and you usually end up back where you started, with considerably less petrol in the tank to get through the day.....

The best piece of advice I ever received was from my friend, Malia.  You can substitute the word "ed" for "anxiety" "PMS" "hormones" "over tiredness" "boredom" "Unhappiness" "bloody mindedness" "disappointing exam results" "being dumped" "bad hair day" and the myriad of other miseries that make a teenager (or toddler) just completely lose it.

The advice still stands as the best there is:

I have six words for you when ED talk is coming your way:

Pretend you are a brick wall.
 
I mean that literally, actually.  And if you want to, you can go find a brick or similar wall to test this out on for illustration.  Yell at it, call it every nasty thing you can think of, cry, threaten to hate it forever, tell it it's making you fat and you hate it, tell it it's killling you by making you eat every single day, tell it it's crazy and has some problem of it's own. Tell it how bitchy it is.  By all means, tell it anything and everything you're hearing that makes you second-guess yourself.

Notice it's reaction.

Yeah, your daughter is sick right now.  Yeah, she has an eating disorder.  The ED runs her reactions, and it runs her MOUTH.  It's also a lot bossier to her than you've ever imagined being.  The kindest thing you can do for your little girl is to not let her eating disorder be the boss of you too.  The safest and most effective thing you can do is let the ED smack talk hit the brick wall.

Malia
 


1 comment:

  1. Incredibly wise stuff from a truly wise woman. And she tells it so well.

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