What do you think?

There are many decisions you make in your life, some are big ones and some are insignificant ones and how you get to your final decision can be different depending on what the decision is. Lots of people ask advice of their friends and families when making a big decision and usually ask:

“What do you think?”

This is usually reserved for big decisions – changing jobs, moving house, buying a car. Little decisions can be made very easily……unless you are my son. My son has a really tough time making decisions. Any decision can be traumatic. Any decision. What to do, what to eat, where to go, what to wear. Anything. I remember one particularly bad day where he had finished tea and asked for dessert. I offered him rice pudding which he loves and he said yes. I brought the rice pudding to him and he started chanting:

“I do want the rice pudding. I don’t want the rice pudding. I do want the rice pudding. I don’t want the rice pudding. I do want the rice pudding. I don’t want the rice pudding”

Before throwing the pot of rice pudding across the room then hysterically wailing that…..yep you guessed it….

“I do want the rice pudding”

In these scenarios I am helpless. Literally helpless. I really don’t know what to do in this situation. I believe in this one I calmly picked the thrown rice pudding up, threw it in the bin, calmly got him a new rice pudding pot and spoon, handed it to him, walked back to the kitchen and cried because he was so evidently distressed by these decisions and I just didn’t know how to help him.

Choosing a book at bedtime can be an effort. Sometimes we can sit for 15 minutes at bedtime while he tries to decide which book he wants to read – this is further complicated by the fact he likes to read 2 books. If he cant pick 1, how can he pick 2!!!! When this first started I used to get angry, I used to try and force him into making a decision or I would say if he didn’t choose quickly I wouldn’t read a book at all. As time has gone on and my knowledge has increased I have found as with most of these things that if I just sit quiet and patiently wait for him he eventually catches up with himself and decides. Lately part of that process involves him asking me

“What do you think?”

He asks me this all of the time. What do you think? It’s on a par with his favourite question what time is it? It’s become a bit of a mantra for him. What do you think? Over and over again!!!

I used to answer honestly and tell him what I actually think. With the bedtime books I always used to tell him the books I wanted to read. But this was wrong and he would tell me so. He would say:

“You aren’t picking the right book.”

So this would tell me that he knew what book he wanted to read but for whatever reason he couldn’t pick it or even say it out loud and so he wanted me to somehow telepathically know which book he wanted to read and then say this book out loud which then allowed him to get the said book off the shelf. It reminded me of a programme I watched about Chris Packham where he had moved into a new house and he needed to unpack his books, he knew how he wanted to put his books on the bookshelf (alphabetically) but he couldn’t do it. He didn’t know why he couldn’t do it but for now he had to leave his books in the boxes until he could unpack them. Knowing that my son knew what book he wanted led me to try all sorts of tricks to determine what he wanted me to say. I would covertly watch exactly where his eyes stopped on his book shelf and pray, literally pray with everything I had that I had worked it out correctly. If I wasn’t wilting under the pressure of my life before then I certainly was now.

These issues don’t stop at food and books. Getting dressed we have horrific issues. Just today I got his clothes out for him pants, vest, socks, trousers, hoodie and t shirt. I handed them to him and he immediately took a dislike to them said he didnt want to wear any of it. I said that is fine and went to put them back but he stopped me and said:

“I’ll wear the vest………and the pants…….and the socks. I’ll have the trousers too…….and the t shirt”

So that was basically everything but the hoodie. Its like if he is faced with an immediate decision it takes him a long while to process it and he has to catch up to himself before he can work out that he is ok with the clothes. Thank god for school uniform which is the same everyday, but by god I hate non uniform days!!!!

Shoes were also a big issue for a while. Non school days I would line his shoes up for him while he tried to decide. And I used all sorts of “rules” to aid him now and hopefully provide him with some rules for in the future when it came to him deciding on his own. Rules such as….

“Wear black shoes as you have black trousers on.”
“Wear boots as it’s raining.”
“Wear the same trainers that you wore yesterday.“

One particular bad day for shoes sticks in my head. It was the school holidays and we were trying to get out for the day. It was to a National Trust home. My son didn’t want to go (not that unusual) so I showed him pictures of the time we went last time when he was only a baby and this settled his mind. He wanted to go. We lined up the available shoes (don’t worry we aren’t really posh people, my son does not wear suede loafers, this photo below is just to demonstrate).

• 1 pair of camouflage trainers
• 1 pair of black hi top trainers
• 1 pair of white trainers

And he stood looking and asked:

“I think camouflage trainers, what do you think?”

Now…did he really want the camouflage trainers. Which one should I pick?!? It wasn’t even 9.30am and I was a wreck. I couldn’t second guess him or myself any longer so I just said yes wear them. But I knew he wasn’t sure. He picked the black trainers up and pointed at his feet. Then shrugged and put them down. He picked the camouflage ones up and went to hand them over to me. I went to get them and he swiped them away and grimaced like he was in pain. We sat for a further 5 minutes – it felt like a lifetime, an absolute lifetime. Until he said

Him: “I’m going to wear black. Is that ok?”

Me: “Yes, definitely. Definitely wear black”

My daughter at this point had joined the party. She was ready to go out and she plumped down on the shoe storage bench and waited for us. She was older, a teenager and she knew this process well and understood it. Sometimes she was fine with it and other times she added to the trauma, mostly unintentional, but sometimes intentional. Today she added to the trauma. She started huffing and puffing and saying “can we go nowwww” “are we going yet” while I’m looking at her and miming the throat slit gesture in the hope she would see my desperation and be quiet. I could see my son still considering the trainers. I felt like we were getting closer to a decision. Then he asked my daughter:

“What do you think”

I knew it all rested on this answer. We had been here about 15 minutes now – not that long in the grand scheme of things but a long time just to decide on shoes. He had said black, I had said black, all we needed now was for my daughter to say black. It was like a scene out of a film, one of them moments where the world stopped for a moment and it all happened in slow motion. My son looked at my daughter, my daughter looked at me, my eyes wide bore into her and I mouthed the words “black, black, black ” while surreptitiously pointing at the black ones and she looked back at my son and said:

“White, wear white”

Noooooooooo. No….. No…..No. White hadnt even been considered!!!! Why? Why? Why!!!!!

And we were right back at the beginning again. Right back at square one. We were never getting out. I knew right there and then that as soon as my son moved up a size he was getting one pair of trainers and one pair only. I couldn’t go on like this. My heart had sank, I was slumped on the kitchen floor resigned to never going anywhere again when he said:

“What colour shoes did I wear last time I went to this place”

I finally smiled. I knew I had him. I knew he had blue shoes on the last time we went there, I knew this because I always dressed him in blue as a baby and I would only ever buy blue shoes. I also knew that in all the photos that I had showed him you couldn’t see his feet so I knew I could get away with what I was about to do. All this went through my mind in the space of seconds and I said

“Black. You wore black shoes”

He nodded at the black shoes. And he put his black shoes on and we all got in the car and went out for the day. And anyone that saw us there would never know of the trauma we went through just to get out of the door. I saw a meme the other day that said “You might see 6 hours of me being able to function but you haven’t seen the 2 hours of preparation and the 4 hours of recovery time that went into this”. And this is very very true!!!

From that day on that rule of “what did I wear/eat/do last time” was used over and over again as a tool for decision making. When we went to the seaside and got fish and chips in the restaurant he would ask what he had to eat last time (a side of beans and a slice of bread and butter) and this was what he got every time since. When we went trick or treating for the second year in a row he asked what he wore last time and despite me buying him two different costumes he wore what he wore the year before. When we went out for the day somewhere I always showed him pictures of the last time we went there, pictures where he looks happy and this shows him he had a good time there and he is then happy to go.

And I know you are all wondering how he managed to decide whether he wanted rice pudding or not. Well he didn’t ever decide this because he doesn’t know how to work out what he wants but he did come up with a decision making rule and it’s very interesting. He absolutely loves rice pudding along with custard so I buy the individual pots of these, they come in individual pots in a 4 pack.

Quite clearly choosing rice pudding as a dessert was an issue and the rule he came up with for how to decide on this, he came to of his own accord. He will ask

Him: “How many rice puddings are left?”

Me: “4”

Him: “How many custards are left?”

Me: “6”

Him: “I’ll have custard then”

He will pick the one he wants by finding out how many there are and picking the one that has the most left. Thankfully we have never been in the position where we have the same number left, I keep a keen eye on the custard and rice pudding numbers in this house!!! Its more than my life is worth to let them drop to the same levels.

There are many things I hope you think after reading this. Next time a family member or friend or work colleague asks “what do you think?” I hope you think of me, I hope you think of rice pudding and shoes and bedtime reading!!! But most of all I hope you think that this post has been useful. There really is only one thing left for me to say……

“What do you think??”