Overcompensation can be defined as;
Excessive compensation, especially the exertion of effort in excess of that needed to compensate for a physical or psychological characteristic or defect.
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But I prefer to define it, when it comes to your kid, as allowing them the capacity to walk all over you and even coming to the point that I am willing to lay on the ground to allow easier access. But only under particular circumstances.
You may have heard stories along the lines of...
"She fell over playing netball and complained of a sore arm. After a few days we took her to the doctor and turns out.... she had a greenstick fracture all along!"
"He was walking around with the aid of a stick for a few days. Then we took him to the doctor where they called for an ambulance and turns out..... he had acute appendicitis!"
"She came in from riding on her bike, saying she had hurt herself. Turns out...... she was hit by a car!"
When this happens to you, when you poo-poo a child's medical complaint, give them 5ml of Panadol and send them off to school only to find out later that there was a serious medical situation coming on, the guilt is crippling. Like someone has taken to your knee caps with a baseball bat.
You may tend to swing into OVERCOMPENSATION.
This is what has recently happened in the Woog House.
Jack' developed a huge middle ear infection, resulting in a perforated eardrum, the eardrum which had, unknown to us, spat out it's grommet somewhere. But before the doctor told us this, we thought it was just a bad cold.
The Doctor told me that Jack would have been in unbearable pain over the last few days, prescribed antibiotics, a few days off school and booked an emergency appointment with our ENT Specialist. Who I like to call THE ACCOUNT DRAINER.
I felt like a nugget of warm dog turd.
So I called Mr Woog at the office and reported the diagnosis and asked if he felt bad that he snapped at Jack the previous evening. Because he should. As Jack had been in a lot on pain. And he should feel TERRIBLE.
That is called deflecting and projecting my guilt.
Then I went to the chemist where I told Jack he could choose WHATEVER HE WANTED IN THE WORLD. By this stage I was carrying him everywhere and he had started to play me like the mother guilted mother that I was.
He selected a small packet of jelly beans and some new slippers and a kicking hat.
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| Looking good dude,,,,, |
So in conclusion, swift and steady overcompensation will both ease your neglectful mind, and help your child forget that their parent was an asshole.
When do you overcompensate?
Or are you a complete hard-ass?
