Coloring Outside the Lines

Yesterday Sword had a dental appointment, so Lawrence came in even though it was not a Wednesday. The dentist's office is  closed on Wednesdays, so we had no choice but to accept the Monday appointment.

I have been desperately trying to de-clutter the house and I found an old workbook for practicing upper case letters which had been used by Sword when she was in  preschool. It was one of many items we were planning to get rid of. Since some of the pages were blank, I suggested to Lawrence that Bow might like to try his hand at tracing the letters. It is a colorful, attractive booklet with lots of pictures, and Bow likes that sort of thing.

Here is a video of what happened when Lawrence offered this activity to Bow.

In the past, Bow has been rather successful at writing letters freehand. But he does not like to take instruction, or to do as he is told. He has no interest in pirates, and he loves pictures of food. So on the page for writing and recognizing the P, he went straight for the picture of the hamburger instead. The instructions in the booklet were to trace the P, and then later write a P under the picture of something beginning with a P. If you'll notice, Bow does seem to have written an H under the picture of the hamburger. Well, at least there is something that looks rather like an H there.

Writing Sample

Yesterday, as Lawrence was about to leave for the day, he asked in passing: "Why do you think Bow can't write?"

It seemed like a strange question, since I never said I thought he couldn't write. "It's not that he can't write, it's that he won't."

Lawrence handed me an index card sized rectangle of cardstock and said: "See, this is what he wrote. I wrote the letters on top, and I made a box, and he wrote the letters inside the box."

I glanced at it, and he seemed to be disappointed that I wasn't more enthusiastic. "Now, they don't all look so good, but some of them are pretty close." And then he explained how he had been writing something, and Bow wanted to write, and how he had had to hold Bow's hand to steady him, but it was Bow who had written the letters in the boxes, without being guided by Lawrence. "Now, I know for proof, the fact that I held his hand means it's no good, but he can do  it!"

I reassured Lawrence that I believed him, and that I wasn't surprised because I'd seen it before.  I knew Bow could do  it. He wrote his name in  Hebrew when he was much younger. It was sloppy but recognizable. He did it with nobody holding his hand at all. But after that, he scribbled all over it, so  it wasn't visible any longer. When I let him keep the pen and paper too long, he scribbled so hard there were holes. Bow's problem isn't intelligence. It's self control!

He can read, but if you let him have a book, he will tear it apart. He can write, but even if he does write, he will destroy the paper if you let him keep at it. He can use a computer, but he's rather take it apart.

There are probably hyperactive humans with similar problems. Getting them to settle down is the hard part. Getting them to write is easy. If we had a breakthrough in self control with Bow, everything else would fall into place. But getting to that breakthrough is the hard part, and it's not likely to come with maturity.  Older male chimpanzees are typically less cooperative, not more so. We need to  have the breakthrough now, when we can still  go in.