So this quarantine business has brought us a lot of mixed results.
Lots of progress in some areas. New anxieties and regression in others.
Jonah no-longer tolerates being in the car.
Well, that’s not entirely true…
He gets very anxious when there is a car following us. He will start screaming when we stop at stop signs or lights. (Presumably because the other cars will catch up to us).
He is constantly looking over his shoulder for other cars and then starts getting anxious as soon as he spots it.
This is brand new behavior as of about 2 weeks ago.
I think the behavior developed when we got into a routine of going to Aunties house to do work, and when Jonah was really into the Disney/Pixar “Cars” series.
You see, there is a scene in the Cars movie when “Frank” the Tractor Bull is chasing Lightning McQueen and Mater through a pasture. Jonah doesn’t seem stressed watching that scene, but I wonder if the anxiety of the disrupted routine has contributed to imagining it happening in real life.
Cars are no-longer just “following us.” They are deliberately CHASING us. And Jonah cannot have it.
And if Jonny is with us as well, Jonny gets anxious and will escalate as soon as Jonah starts escalating.
And if Jonah sees Jonny escalating, Jonah starts getting even MORE escalated. Jonny will be covering his ears and Jonah will be trying to get Jonny to STOP covering his ears. (Reaching over to grab his hands off his ears, which makes Jonny scream even louder).
Today we had two meltdowns happening simultaneously in the back seat.
Jonny screaming that he just “couldn’t take any more of this. Jonah STOP IT PLEASE!!!”
Which in turn adds fuel to the fire. Jonah has the added incentive of annoying his brother with his screaming, eliciting an instant reaction which makes him scream all the louder because he is still anxious…
…prompting Jonny to scream all the louder.
And I don’t want to stop to “deal” with it because I just want to shorten the duration of the trip as much as possible because my boys CANNOT handle a quick drive together.
I mean, this is happening on quick 5 minute trips to get some coffee.
So here’s what I have tried as a remedy.
1) Getting Jonah out of the routine. Taking him fun places so he’s not anxious about if we are just going to do work.
This works with mixed success. If I’m driving, he will almost always start getting anxious. Especially when headed home.
Almost the same results when Mama is driving.
Curiously, not when he’s riding with Papa.
2) Redirecting Jonah’s attention. I put a DVD player on Jonah’s side so he can watch DVDs and not pay attention to the cars behind us. I even got some over-ear headphones just for him to drown out outside noise.
That worked for one day. Now, movie or not… headphones or not… he’s just as anxious with it without a DVD playing.
The only difference is he will be screaming with a DVD playing in his headphones.
3) give him his tablet to play with.
This one has been in the parent handbook since the invention of tablets. But unfortunately, he is more anxious of what could be following us than he is interested in what could be on his tablet. Doesn’t matter WHAT app he is using.
4) Use a different car. We tried switching it up and driving Mamas car just for a little variety.
Didn’t make a difference. Lots of screaming from both kids.
So I’m at a loss. None of these ideas have worked for us.
I’ve gotten Jonny some ear defenders to wear for when Jonah is screaming, but it doesn’t seem to help him. When Jonny gets anxious, he will “tune his ears” to pick up the slightest noise coming from the “Jonah frequency” and react almost violently in protest at any noise coming from him, even if it’s just a muffled “grunt” he can barely pick up through his ear defenders…
(Jonny’s last audiologist test suggests mild hearing loss. Did I mention that yet? Eh. That’s for another post.)
I went and bought Jonny some $150 noise-cancelling over-the-ear headphones he can put on and use with his tablet in the car, but today proved that they may as well have not even been there.
The duel-meltdowns occurred in spite of the portable DVD player and the noise-canceling headphones.
We need some help!
There is no worse feeling as a parent than when all of your kids are in distress and you don’t know how to remedy the situation.
Thoughts?
Ideas?