"It's hard to connect with her": hide and seek, and what more time changed

It was actually a really good day. My client was calm, and we had fun.

One thing we’re always trying to do with her is teach her how to play. She doesn’t have very many hobbies or downtime activities. So we’ve been trying to teach her to play hide and seek in the house.

The first few times, she didn’t really get it. She’d hide where you could see her, or she’d just come out and stand there. Which is fine, that’s normal in the beginning. So this time I hid, and I managed to squeeze myself behind the shower curtain without her seeing me. And it was great, because they were looking and looking and they really couldn’t find me. And then she pulled the curtain back, and I jumped out, and she got so scared. She screamed and ran out of the bathroom. But then she came back with this huge smile on her face, because it turns out she actually really likes being scared. So she thought it was, like, really cool.

And I’m like, “Here I am.” And she was smiling so big. I said, “Was it good?” And she’s like, “Good.” She really enjoyed it. And then she wanted to go again.

And that’s a big deal with her, because it’s hard to connect with her. She doesn’t connect easily. She kind of just wants to be on her own. She’s in her own world in her head. So for her to be in a game with us, and laughing, and wanting more, that was really nice to see.

Around the same time we took her to the park, which used to be a lot of protesting and trying to leave the second we got there. This time she went on the swings, she went down the slide, she let us push her. No big fight to get her to stay. So we could just see all the progress she had made, and how much the consistency is paying off.

What changed? A big part of it is time. We’d been working together long enough now that she knew me, she knew the routine, she knew what was going to happen next.

And I can feel the difference. On my end, I actually look forward to going and working with her, instead of it being, like, the difficult day.

Because basically, the more time you spend with her, the deeper your relationship. You develop routines. She understands you, she trusts you. And then you have a lot more cooperation. And then the learning happens.

I saw the same thing for years in classrooms. The children would do so much more for a teacher they knew, and that had been there every day, than for somebody new. It’s not that the new person is doing anything wrong. The child just doesn’t know them yet. They don’t know what’s going to happen.

So if you’re a parent, or a teacher, or a new therapist, and you have a child that’s hard to connect with, I’d say don’t give up on it too fast. It might not be the strategy. It might just be that you haven’t had enough time together yet. Keep showing up the same way. Keep the routines the same. And look for the thing they actually like. For her it was being scared, which I never would have guessed. You kind of have to find it.

She still has hard days. So do I. But it was one of those days where you see it, you know? You see that it’s working.

So that was a good day.

The stories I share are put together from many children over many years, with details changed. None of them is about one child.