Well, for the sake of this post, and perhaps future posts, I'll refer to them as One, Two and Three (birth order, in case that isn't painfully obvious). So creative I am.
We've been having a HELL of a time with One lately. He has been very challenging to our authority. "It's time to go to bed!" is responded to with "NO!" "Have you done your homework yet?" is met with "I'm not going to!!" "We are going to go to (somewhere fun and kid friendly)" gets a "I'm not going!!!! I'll stay home by myself!!!" response. It gets worse when we have to consequence him. Removing a privilege only increases his anger, and then the battle really kicks in.
I have been trying really hard to stay calm, calm, calm, and lately, I have pretty much succeeded. (not so much for Bob, but he's not home for many of these events -- sometimes it's easier to be the only parent dealing with a sticky issue) However, despite my calm response, he doesn't really change. Or, if he is, the change is s-l-o-w and hard to notice. I'm most frustrated when he's flipping out at bedtime, thus creating chaos for Two and Three. One thing that I have loved about being a parent, ever since deciding that co-sleeping is ok for us to do, is that our bedtimes have been sweet and lovely. (side note - we don't typically co-sleep anymore, athough it's not unusual for a kid to migrate in to our bed during the night, which is ok.) No screaming, no protesting going to sleep -- it's a nice, quiet transition to sleep. At least, when One isn't having a tantrum in his room.
The other morning his tantrum is so bad - like, how he would when he was 3 (laying on the floor, screaming, kicking -- all because I wouldn't itemize his breakfast options) - that I got out the camera to film him. My thought was to video him so I could show him later how he looks when he gets like that. I don't know if that would have been effective, and it turns out I couldn't do it because my camera's batteries were uncharged.
Last night, it got dicey again during dinnertime. We sent him to his room, and, after a few minutes of listening to him scream and carry on, both Bob and I went up to talk with him. We tried to get him to tell us WHY he acts like he does, which was pointless. We were able to humor him out of it, and later, Bob played some wii with him and the other boys, and the night ended on a good note.
Last night, I tried some empathy. "It must not feel good when you act like that. It doesn't feel good to me, and I can only imagine it feels worse for you." (Hey, I didn't learn nothin' in social work!) Maybe that little bit of kindness resonated with him, because later, after I got his brothers settled down in their beds, he asked for me to lay down with him when he was done reading. I agreed, and came back into his room after a few minutes. I snuggled up with him, and he quietly said, "this calms me down when we do this." Hmm. "This calms me down too," I responded. I suggested that if he needs a hug when he is angry about something, I'd love to give him one. He paused and said, "maybe. Love you, mom."
This morning, he was delightful. Got up without a struggle, got dressed and ate breakfast without incident. Scampered off to the bus happily with excited plans for his day at school. I don't know why, and I should stop asking why. I'm going to enjoy the good morning we had and hope that staying calm and giving him love IS making a difference.
It's funny how different approaches work with different kids--cuddles do NOT calm down my one son, but for another they work like a charm. Grounding works with one, another shrugs it off. It's good to have lots of ammo in the arsenal of parenting, isn't it? Good luck working it out with him.
ReplyDeleteI loved this story. Older boys are a mystery that I am just beginning to see. Little ones are, too, in different ways but older ones...oh boy. :) I love that he told you that calmed him down.
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