WHEN A HEAD-BUTT SAYS I LOVE YOU

This morning at 6.45am, not long after we'd finished reading The Chicken Chickens Go To School and James had polished off his bottle, he sat up in bed, smiled and head-butted me right on the nose. I cried out in equal parts shock and pain. It hurt! The look of surprise and remorse on James’s face quickly gave way to protracted wailing. It was clear in his mind this was not the reaction he expected from me.

The head-butt is a recent phenomenon. Previous efforts have been ill-timed, glancing blows off the side of my leg and once or twice our dog Chili has been on the receiving end of James' advancing forehead. I've put it down to an extension of the rough'n tumble play that we were engaging in at the time, accidental collisions as opposed to full on skull warfare. But this morning was different. There had been no roughing or indeed tumbling. We'd just been reading a book. Cuddling in bed, y'know those quiet bonding moments that we parents wish there were more of. But the smile, the force of the blow and the look of shock on his face lead me irrevocably to the conclusion that the head-butt was in fact premeditated; an extension of our bonding session. A short, sharp and painful way for James to say I love you when words, or a hug are simply not enough.

It is intriguing and a little worrying that this brutish act of love almost literally came out of nowhere. He doesn't watch violent television (Captain Feathersword's, uh, feather sword is as close as it gets) and we're fortunate enough to live in a pretty quiet area - no drunken youth scrapping on our street on Saturday evenings - so where exactly does it come from? Testosterone apparently. That most powerful of male hormones, responsible for world wars, professional sport, loud exhaust pipes and films directed by Michael Bay is also responsible for my son choosing to display his love with a bit of noggin floggin’.

Apparently boys go through testosterone growth spurts (really?). While most of us can still remember the acne, quaky voices and acute social paranoia it gave us in our teens, we have less memory of the affect it had on our toddlerdom. Until of course, our own sons do it to us. Granted, the head butt is a little extreme. Such testosterone related breakouts are more commonly manifested in toy throwing, high pitched squealing or wilful destruction of supermarket property. Y'know, classic 2 year old behaviour on the surface but with a distinct thuggish quality.

The solution? Go easy. Laugh. Use time out for the bad stuff like hitting and throwing toys at people and pets. You want to control that sort of of testosterone-fuelled outburst or before you know it you'll be making excuses for your son directing films like Pearl Harbour or Bad Boys. And I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.

-Chris

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