Can Love and Bonding Solve Child Behavioural Problems?

My second son Flynn is 8, we didn’t have the best start. My much longed for cathartic home waterbirth (after an emergency transfer into hospital first time around) ended as an emergency induction in hospital due to pre-eclampsia after a 4 day stay antenatally. Flynn passed lots of fresh meconium during the labour, he was obviously as stressed as I was during the whole procedure, which meant I was constantly monitored so was unable to move or use the pool, the ferocity of the induction meant I begged for an epidural despite the weeks of hypnosis for birth sessions I had attended during pregnancy.

By the time Flynn was born he was showing some horrible heartrate decelerations which meant he was taken immediately by a paed. After a good few minutes I was allowed to hold him. I was passed a wiped, swaddled, shocked looking screaming bundle. I had torn so the lights were turned up full whilst I was stitched back together. My husband was sent home 2hrs after the birth and I was wheeled to an overheated ward with 3 other women where I remained for the next 4 days. One of the other new mothers had twins and was trying to sleep train and get them on a 4hrly feeding routine despite the fact they were only 2days old – needless to say they cried almost constantly. I was exhausted. Flynn was bathed every day by a care worker and given back to me dressed. He spent most of those four days in his plastic goldfish bowl hospital crib. Everytime I held him and slept I would wake to find a midwife had taken hm from my arms and placed him back in his goldfish bowl. Once they took him whilst I was still awake, I begged her not to – but she said “we don’t allow bedsharing here, it’s dangerous”.

On day four I discharged myself, I felt like I was going insane, in fact I think I probably was.

No, we didn’t get off to the best start – not at all.

If I’m honest that’s all I remember from Flynn’s first year, aside from one snatched snippet of feeding him a banana in a baby yoga class, him wearing a reindeer babygro at Christmas and me stopping breastfeeding at 3mths because I couldn’t handle having him so reliant on me – or indeed close to me – all of the time. That is the grand sum of my memories of his babyhood. As is by now obvious I most certainly had undiagnosed PTSD and/or PND. Having a Psychology background though means it’s easy to fake Edinburgh Scales and tell the health visitors and GPs what they want to hear. So  I lied, I lied through my teeth and I convinced everybody I was OK – even myself in the end. Only I wasn’t OK, I was seriously messed up and worse than that I messed up with Flynn, that mother-baby bond just wasn’t there. In truth I almost resented him for being poorly and messing up my birth plans.

Fast forward five years and Flynn had become a real handful, that’s a polite way of saying he was the most awfully behaved child I have ever met, if I tell you his nickname was Flynn Bin Laden that will probably give you some idea. He was never violent though (for that I am eternally grateful!), he just had no respect for authority, me, his father, his siblings or anyone really. He was in constant trouble at school, temper tantrummed like a toddler well into his eighth year and constantly wound up his siblings. He got banned from football club for running around in his pants and refusing to get dressed and he got banned from school swimming lessons for jumping in when they should have been gettting out. He flooded the school toilets (on purpose), he got in serious trouble for pulling down his pants and deliberately weeing on the school playground for a dare. One day he told school he was “going home” and off he went, just walked straight out of the gate and up the street (they reviewed their security PDQ after that event!). He killed two of our chickens (he took one “swimming” and the other on the trampoline with him – you can guess how that ended) and two goldfish (he wanted to “give them a cuddle”) and his piece de resistance was stealing my homeopathic powder wraps (sac lac sachets if any other homeopaths are reading!) and distributing amongst his friends in the playground at school where the dinner lady thought he was distributing cocaine. The school called the police, who promptly turned up on my doorstep (I was part way through teaching a private HypnoBirthing class) to question me on suspicion of drug dealing. Oh no, you couldn’t make it up – Flynn Bin Laden gave Horrid Henry a run for his money!

So – fast forward to last month, I have been called in to see his teacher about a thousand times (I’m probably not exagerrating) and the headteacher (for “serious” meetings) several times. Their solution was basically to pass the buck to me and throw in some antiquated behavioural techniques such as “time out” and reward charts (my hatred of these requires a whole new blog post!). I protested, loudly, at these suggestions. I explained the carrot/stick arguement, I asked them to read Alfie Kohn, I told them about the downfalls of behaviourism and I asked them to instead consider WHY he was acting like this and consider ways of helping – not compounding the problem (my suggestion of Forest School was immediately rejected) which was basically, deep down – an unhappy little boy. I asked for an evaluation from an Ed Psych as I suspected dyslexia. After TWO YEARS he was assessed last month (though from what he says I wouldn’t call it an assessment) – so what did this long awaited report contain? A suggestion for bloody reward charts and stickers in order to make him more controllable – aggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

So the solution to me was to home ed. I would LOVE to home ed. The only problem is Children 1, 3 and 4 love school but would hate Flynn being at home with me and then there’s the slight issue of writing my books and being the Director of an ever growing soon to be very international company. I was left with the awful choice of Work V Flynn. I am ashamed to say work won :-( I couldn’t give him what I knew he needed, but I knew the behavioural approach was NOT for us. I had to find an alternative – quickly.

Last year I began to hear about a technique called “Love Bombing” pioneered by the Psychologist Oliver James. I respect Oliver’s work hugely, particularly since he gave Gina Ford a run for her mega money! (so much so we invited him to be a guest speaker at our Conference in May – Click HERE for info – OK plug over ;-)!!!) and was inspired to give Love Bombing a go after hearing him speak at a local event just before Christmas. I badgered Oliver with my questions and resolved to give it a go after Christmas. By “it” I mean a weekend away, just Flynn and I – filled with activities he had chosen, me not saying “no” but instead constantly telling him how much I loved him (bombing him with love!). Oliver promised that this technique was massively successful and he had witnessed great responses in all the families who had tried it – so much so it is to be the content for his next book.

Flynn and I didn’t manage to get away for the weekend, but three weeks ago we gave Love Bombing a go. I asked him what he wanted to do for the day, as we’ve just had a big extension built he had just got his own room for the first time. He waivered between swimming/bowling and cinema and stayng at home and decorating his room. Staying home and doing his room won. So on Sunday morning he woke and the two of us spent all day in his room, sorting his toys, I decorated one wall with a giant jungle mural (his choice) and we chose some Zebra material for me to make a tent under his bed. We listened to cheesy Disney songs and he drew me “I love you mummy” cards whilst I worked. That night he slept in my bed with me, and  the next and the next. The following week we worked on his room some more and that evening we had a “mummy and Flynn” movie night – popcorn and an awful DVD chosen by him which I pretented to love every minute of whilst we snuggled on the sofa together. Next weekend we’re off to see a film together at the cinema (Puss in Boots – I can’t think of anything I’d rather watch less! but again I will feign deep interest in), just he and I. Each evening we have “hug time”, I tell him I love him lots and he regularly sleeps in bed with me and writes me love letters almost daily.

Has it worked? I am not exagerrating when I say he is literally a different child. He has not been in trouble at school for nearly 3wks (we couldn’t go 3 days before), his work at school has improved (he is a year behind for everything except for art), he hasn’t tantrummed about doing his homework for 3wks, we’ve had no incidences at home and he seemes genuinely happier. Flynn Bin Laden is no more. Of course the school and Ed Psych are patting themselves on the back because their new reward chart/sticker scheme has “worked” (they don’t know what I’ve done – they think I’m a troublesome hippy anyway, no point in telling them).

And me? I don’t know who Love Bombing  has healed more — myself or Flynn, certainly when we started I had no idea that I would benefit from it, but I have, imeasurably. I feel like I’ve got some of  that year back again and I’ve mended that bond that was so badly broken at the start. It seems I’ve been bombed with love too :-)

Since then I haven’t stopped recommending the technique, it is so simple,yet so effective and so, so, so easy. So if you have a troublesome toddler, a problematic preschooler or a tempestous tweenager ditch the reward charts, the time outs, the punsishments and the naughty step and give love a chance instead. You may just be surprised at the results!

Sarah Ockwell-Smith

Mother of Four and Director of BabyCalm Ltd www.babycalm.co.uk

Coming soon The BabyCalm Book: “BabyCalm: A Guide For Calmer Babies and Happier Parents”, Piatkus,published October 4th 2012.