The Slow-Poke Speaks.

How Sarah understood what made her daughter Anna eat so slowly, and what they decided to do about it.

It seems like Anna is slow at everything. She packs her school bag slowly. She gets out of bed slowly. She answers questions slowly. Her mother Sarah can live with all that. But what lights her fire is how slow Anna is at eating. No matter what, Anna will only be half-way through her meal when everyone else is finished. Sarah has tried yelling at her - that has been a good way to ruin the meal. She’s tried taking away desert, or iPad time, but that rarely works. She sees Anna’s getting bitter about it. She’s tried spoon-feeding her, even though Anna’s 10 and Sarah knows she shouldn’t be doing that - eating disorders and boundaries and all that. But it’s just so frustrating, she can’t help herself. She wants Anna to eat her meal on time with everyone else.

When Sarah’s asked Anna why she takes so long, Anna’s said things like, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’m not trying to.’ It’s like she doesn’t see the same thing that everyone else finds so obvious. She gets nowhere and it frustrates Sarah even more; Anna sounds ignorant or stubborn on top of being a slow-poke. Sarah’s got to the point where she doesn’t look forward to meals and, if she’s honest, she’s not really looking forward to spending time with Anna. The last thing she wants to do is talk to her more.

After the parenting class today, though, she’s realised that part of the problem might be the way she’s seeing things herself. She’s so focused on how slow Anna is that she only thinks about how to speed her up. Calling her ‘slow-poke’ for example: she says to everyone that it’s affectionate, just teasing, but deep down it’s not really. Sarah’s frustrated and she wants to embarrass Anna into changing her behaviour. It is at heart a mean thing to say. Anna’s picked up on it, too. Didn’t Anna say this morning ‘I’m just a slow-poke’ when Sarah started yelling at her to get out the door for the school bus? Calling her a slow-poke seems to be making her go slower, not faster.

What if there’s something else that is stopping Anna from getting her dinner finished on time? Sarah’s not considered that before. She has never asked Anna what that might be. She feels a glimmer of curiosity and hope. Tonight she will try again.

She’s gathered some paper and a pencil. She’s focusing on curiosity, and trying to put aside the trepidation that it will all go wrong. She’s done some thinking. What might be turning Anna off eating? Maybe she doesn’t like the food or eating it?  What might Anna be feeling?

From her class today, Sarah knows the steps to follow for solving an on-going problem like this: 1. Tell her what she wants to talk about (briefly!). “I want to find some ways to help everyone finish dinner on time.”

2. Ask Anna if it’s a good time to talk. “Is this a good time to talk?” If it’s not, Ask Anna when it will be, and say “Ok, I’ll come back in 10 minutes, after you’ve finished your game.”

3. Put Anna’s point of view first, and check with Anna that she’s got it about right. “I imagine that you’re sick of everyone telling you to hurry up and eat. Sometimes it really upsets you. It seems you want to eat with everyone else, but something stops you.”

4. Put her own concern forward. “The problem is I get frustrated with you when you’re not eating when it’s dinner time. I end up thinking you’re trying to upset me. I don’t want to feel that way about you.”

5. Then ask Anna for some thoughts about how to improve things, so Anna’s needs can be met and Sarah’s concerns can be addressed. “I want to come up with some ideas to make dinner happier for you and more relaxing for me.”

With a deep breath, Sarah starts. Paper and pen in hand.

Anna doesn’t say much at first. She looks worried, and says, “ I don’t know. I’m just slow, I guess. I don’t mean to make you wait.’

Normally Sarah would have started arguing with her about that (of course she knows everyone is having to wait!). Or she’d have slipped into thinking that Anna was just trying to make her go away. But this time she’s really wanting to understand.

So Sarah proposes: “You don’t like the flavour of the food? The texture sometimes doesn’t appeal to you?”

Anna looks surprised. ‘Oh, mum, I don’t want to say that. I don’t want to hurt your feelings. It’s only sometimes because of that. I know you work hard to make us good food.

(How many times has Sarah gone on and on about how much effort she puts into meals and how she doesn’t want thanks but she does want people to eat their food? Anna was listening after all!)

“It’s more that I want to tell about my day and I can’t if I have food in my mouth. You don’t want me talking with my mouth full. So if I eat then I might miss my turn to talk. It’s also bad to interrupt.”

(It’s all true! The rules about talking with your mouth full and interrupting! Anna’s been listening all this time. Sarah never expected this. Anna’s been trying to follow the rules. That’s what’s been stopping her.)

“The other thing is that I can’t hear if I’m chewing. If Adam is talking I miss what he’s saying. Then if you ask me something, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Listening, Sarah is floored. What’s got in Anna’s way are the very rules that Sarah has insisted on herself. Anna’s not been out to get everyone else; instead, she’s trying to be good. She’s been genuinely wanting to be part of the family, not an annoyance that slows everyone down.

She tells Anna, “I never knew that it was the rules about not interrupting and not talking with your mouth full that were making it hard for you to get your food eaten! You were trying to do the right thing.”

Now that Sarah appreciates Anna’s perspective, she feels free to talk with her about how to change things. “So what can we do that will let you listen and talk, and will let me feel reassured that you’ll eat enough? I’ll write everything down we come up with. We can go over our list and improve things after we’ve written them.”

Anna seems happier to talk now that Sarah understands her point of view. She also likes the pen and paper to write it all down.

“Well, we could take turns telling about our day, so I knew when it was going to be my turn. But the problem with that is it’s still hard to hear Adam when I’m chewing.”

“We could ask Adam to talk louder at the table.”

“Yeah.”

“You could start eating before everyone else.”

Anna doesn’t look thrilled at that. “I’d be lonely.”

“Ok, what else might work? “

And so they talk, both of them feeling closer than they have in months. They agree to try turn-taking and asking Adam to speak more loudly at the table. And to meet again at the weekend to see how it’s worked. But the best result is that Sarah feels new respect for Anna. For her part, Anna’s relieved; talking to her mum feels like she wants to understand how she feels not undermine her.

Points:

-When there’s an ongoing problem, and you’ve tried everything but it still goes on, use problem-solving.

-Understand that when something is bugging you, you tend to focus on it too much and you don’t see other things that are going on. Your own obsession with stopping something might be keeping it going.

-Get curious instead.