Family Chaos in the Morning

Jeremy was screaming and the noise was piercing. Joanne ran to the kitchen to see what the matter was. Her heart sank. The breakfast table was a complete mess. Porridge and milk was sprayed all over the table and floor. Jeremy was tipping over his plate and pulling at the table cloth. Crockery came smashing to the floor, with an almighty din.

Joanne panicked. She knew from past experience that Jeremy could have tantrums like these that lasted for hours, and that there was nothing she could do to pacify him once he got started. She was overwhelmed. She had been up since 5.30 in the morning cooking the breakfast, making the children’s sandwiches for school, and washing up the previous night’s dishes. Frozen and confused she was looking at her daughter, Clarissa, speechless for the moment. No matter how often she had been through Jeremy’s tantrums, they still stopped her in her tracks Before she knew what was happening, she was on the ground in a heap, weeping.

Clarissa took a deep breath and pulled her full height of four feet and calmly resigned herself to take charge of the situation for the 305th in her young life. Her porridge lay on the floor mixed with the jam and toast, and sugar and milk. But she had learnt that she needed to be more like an ally and helper to her mom at times like these. She was the older sister to her younger brother and she was often responsible for looking after him. This morning she worried her mom would not have time to sign her note from school to join the choir. She hated being late for school, but she knew she probably would not get there on time. Whenever Jeremy acted up, she had to take second place, which angered her.

‘Come on Jeremy, let’s go and play.’ She coaxed Jeremy to walk down the passage with her. He was still screaming, but with less force. She tried to distract him with a toy and lead him to the bathroom, where she cleaned his stained shirt with a face cloth.

Clarissa thought her mom did not cope very well. She often saw her mom cry and go out the back of the house to have a cigarette. She thought her mom was too weak to stand up to her dad and too weak to control her brother. She decided she did not want to be like her mom when she grew up.

Excerpted from The Adaptive Intelligence Theory by Anca Ramsden – Clinical Psychologist Copyright 2015 All Rights Reserved

When Joanne and Jeremy have to work together as a family things fall apart. The cause of their problems lie in their under developed brain neurology.

Joanne is struggling with the teaching, training and disciplining required of an effective parent; and Jeremy is not yet able to perform the little self help tasks that most six year olds can already accomplish, such as having his breakfast by himself and getting dressed to get ready for school.

When we are born our brain is not yet fully developed. As a newborn baby we can cry when wet, cold, hungry or lonely, but we cannot yet help ourselves. At birth we are able to breathe and suck at the breast, but we have no other self help skills.