First-Time Mom

I don’t know if I’m supposed to be telling you this. Probably not. Maybe so. I know the arguments on both sides about airing your kid’s business, but if I’m going to be real here – in the space that is mine that I pay for where I am able to clear my head and find support—then here goes nothing. Plus, my kids are only human and make mistakes or deal with bad days like the rest of us.

Ego gets in the way of everything. We think we are in charge of things that we have absolutely no control over. We think we can fix things all by ourselves when really, we need to ask for help. Or we think that if it looks like everything is under control from the outside, then no one is getting hurt.

Throw trying to protect your kids into the mix and it is maddening. When things are going well, it’s hard not to take their successes and pat yourself on the back for them. When things are going bad, it is impossible not to beat yourself up for all of your parenting gone wrong.

My oldest son, Jack, has been pulling his hair out for about 8 months.  

He started pulling in one inconspicuous area and got away with it for a long time, but the beloved mohawk he has worn for years couldn’t hide the bald spots. A few months ago, Ben took him to get a haircut and the hairdresser made some changes that made it a little less obvious, and his haircut way less cool.  

At his parent-teacher conference, this habit was front and center in our discussion. If he isn’t pulling the hair on his head, he is pulling it on his arms or legs. He doesn’t do it all of the time or even when he is bored, but he does do it often.

When I asked Jack why he liked to pull out his hair, he told me that he liked the way it felt. I didn’t like hearing that. I guess I wished he would have said that he thought it was in style to have bald patches or that he was bored and didn’t know what to do with his hands, but telling me that he liked the pain made my heart hurt.

This isn’t the first time he has pulled his hair. When he was just a baby, he would do it in one spot above his ear while he was in his crib. Eventually he stopped and the hair grew back. At least, I think he stopped. We moved on to bigger issues, but maybe he has been pulling a little bit for a long time. I don’t know.

I was out of town recently when his father realized that Jack had pulled out nearly all of the hair on the top of his head. I watched through the video on our Ring doorbell as Ben shaved everything off, as short as it would go, on the front porch. I could hear their conversation, and Ben was very frustrated. It was not his best parenting moment, but I also understand the way he felt. He was at his wit’s end. I am too.

We have tried nearly everything to help Jack – talking to him about it, rewards, punishment, and given him fidget toys to keep his hands busy. Ben and I both have made “secret” deals with him. I told him that he could have one hour more a week of time to play video games if he stopped pulling his hair long enough for me to see that it was growing back in. Ben promised him the opportunity to stay up later on weekends.

There’s been a lot going on over the past 8 months and I have had a hard time finding things to enjoy. My parents are going through a divorce after nearly 50 years of marriage, shattering what I thought was a solid place on which I had to stand. My adrenaline has finally bottomed out from babies, miscarriage, taking care of Ellie and turning 40 that my hormones and health are all out of whack. My husband has expanded his law practice, merged with another, bought a building in downtown Little Rock and is now managing a law firm that will turn 100 years old this decade.  

The kids are kids, and in themselves, they are plenty enough for us two parents to handle. Add all of the rest of it, and we are finding ourselves treading water. The kids, I’m afraid, can feel it. I am an anxious person. It’s diagnosed, documented and medicated. My fear is how this high vibration of worry surrounding me is now affecting them.

My therapist says that in young kids, anxiety disorder is usually hereditary, so even if it isn’t my example that is making him on edge, I very likely could have passed that on to him.

So.

What’s next?

We’ve talked to the pediatrician and to therapists and other doctors and his teacher. Trichotillomania is a mental health condition involving frequent, repeated and irresistible urges to pull out hair from the scalp, eyebrows or other areas of the body. People with trichotillomania try to resist the urge to pull hair out, but they can’t stop and it leads to permanent hair loss. Consensus for treatment is a therapist and a bit of medication.

He is the first-born child. We don’t have any idea what we are doing today with three kids and we damn sure didn’t have a clue when we just had one kid. His sister is medically fragile and has a developmental disability. I learned recently that married couples who have a child with a disability are something like 60% more likely to get a divorce. If there is that much stress within the marriage, then at least a portion of that has to be obvious to their children.

I don’t know the statistics on siblings of kids with developmental delays and mental illness, but I know there is a study out there that says healthy siblings of children with disabilities are one of the groups most at risk for consequences in psychological health and well-being. It is suggested that siblings build their idea of “being people,” in terms of character and personality, by continuously and daily confronting themselves with the theme of disability and a family context subjected to continuous stress. 

And, who knows how the mortality of his sister has affected him? Being bounced from caregiver to caregiver and often watching your parents move quickly in an emergency, seeing the fear on their faces or the exhaustion in their eyes has to make some sort of an impact on how he experiences the world.

Jack is a good kid, such a good kid. He is everyone’s friend. His teachers say they wish they had a classroom full of Jack Honakers. He tests way above grade level. He steps in to help and is given increased responsibility often. He is excelling at piano and sports. He is patient with his sister and brother, and he still lets me cuddle with him on the couch. From the beginning his tender, empathetic heart has been one of my favorite things about him.  

Ben and I are not on the same page with how to move forward and that is not surprising to me. We usually fall on opposite ends of the spectrum on issues, with positions that are well-thought out and argued. I tend to make decisions from the heart and his come from his brain. When we finally land at a compromise, it is frequently a good mix of the two.

This one is hard for us to debate. We get too heated too quickly and aren’t making a lot of headway. It’s frustrating because, like my therapist said to me the other day, “If he were showing symptoms of diabetes, you would take him to be evaluated and would do whatever it took to make him better.”

I put a sticky note in each kid’s lunchbox each morning so that at lunch they get a reminder that I love them. Jack puts his in his pocket and often writes a note of “I love you Mom” on the back of it to leave somewhere around the house for me to find. I found this one the other day:

For email delivery of Typically Not Typical, add your email address here: