Totally Tubular! August 2007
by Sue Sokoff
When Kyle was a toddler he was afraid to go into any play-place tubes (you know, those red, yellow, blue and green germ factories at the fast-food restaurants). At first, I wondered if he was claustrophobic. Then I realized it was the loud noise of the other children laughing and screaming that had kept him pacing about at the mouth of the tubes for 4 years. He wanted to be close to the action, but wanted to escape easily if the noise became too overwhelming. My goal was to ease him into the thing bit by bit so he could thoroughly enjoy being a hamster like every other child in the place!
First, I got him to sit with me in the mouth of the tube for just a minute. Then, we upped it to five minutes or so. This "inner tubing" lasted for a whole year. Year two we tried getting his brother and sister to coax Kyle to go inside while they were inside the tube, but to no avail. Yes, eventually I was crazy enough to crawl in a tube myself and persuade Kyle to follow me a few feet before scurrying back out. I can tell you it takes some skill for an adult to turn around in one of those tubes! I had it all planned out. If someone approached me about adults not being allowed in the tubes, my excuse was going to be that it is a flooding technique that my therapist suggested to help me overcome my fear of small spaces and clowns. If you've not heard of the "flooding technique," it's a technique used to overexpose someone to their fears in order to minimize their level of anxiety. If you haven't seen the movie What About Bob? the Bill Murray character is "flooded" to overcome his fear of just about everything.
By the third year of crawling in and out of tubes, my knees were pretty much shot. Sometime during the fourth year I slowly phased myself out of tubes. By then, other than a few times of Kyle not wanting to come out when we were ready to go, he was climbing, funneling, and sliding like all the other hamsters.
Kyle is nine now and it is a joy to wave at him while he sits in one of those tubes with a window and see him smile and poke his "Talk to the Elbow" at me. I can proudly say he is "Totally Tubular!" And when someone approaches me about him being too old to be in those tubes, I'm finally going to get to use my line, "It is a flooding technique that his therapist suggested so he can overcome his fear of small spaces and clowns!"