So lately, this guy’s gotten a little more feisty. He’s hit me in the eye, as I was asking him to say “No thank you” instead of squirming when offered food. It wasn’t a serious blow in any way and probably sounds much worse than it was, except for the intent. He’s been known to say “I want to kick you in the face” so him punching my eye was something that had some intent behind it.
He’s also thrown books at people’s head when they’re laying down. And hit his mother too. And dealing with this has gotten us a little frustrated/curious about what to do.
He got a good grasp of manipulation. When I took him outside (we were at Chili’s) when he hit me in the eye, we had a chat outside about how he was in trouble and might not get to open some of his leftover birthday presents anytime soon. Which lead to crying. And him declaring that I hurt his feelings. Yeah – the little stinker tried to turn the tables on me pretty quickly. The concept of his toys got to him though but wasn’t quite immediate enough to really grab his attention.
Later, on the drive out of there, he wanted gum. He loves the gum chewing. And that was another item he was on probation for – which then caused a flurry of apologies. He knows he’s been bad. But sometimes he can’t help himself.
It cracks me up sometimes, listening to him acknowledge the things he’s doing, while he’s bawling from the punishment/consequences/situation. Last night, when we got to Teavana too late for him to get his tea, he melted down a bit, and when I asked him if his crying was going to open the store back up, through the tears and screaming he told me “probably not”.
Me laughing at/with him didn’t help the situation any.
So it is clear that he’s aware of what he’s doing, he just has troubles sometimes controling his feelings/behavior. Which seems perfectly natural – I just don’t know how to support him and help him gain that control over his feelings.
Talking it over with Ben, he mentioned that his boys played some baseball inside the house and his new HD LCD TV was broken. Powering up leaves the majority of the screen black, except for the bright star at the point of impact and the spidering lights streaming out of that ball. Because DirecTv was coming the next day, he went out and bought a new TV quickly. Its tough to balance the notion that broken things don’t always get replaced immediately with no “cost” with the fact that yeah, these are just material things and losing them isn’t the end of the world. Then there’s the whole, they weren’t obeying the rules (no baseball inside…)
I read up on some discipline books at Amazon and there are some pretty interesting reviews in there. One guy’s review of a book said that his parents followed one of the methodologies perfectly and he was a well mannered well behaved child growing up. One that bottled up his emotions constantly and eventually became emotionless. Kind of an intense review for a book huh?
I don’t want to shape him like that. I just want to help him acknowledge and control his feelings a bit more. Some have characterized me as emotionless in the past, which is kind of funny and possibly true. When I get intense feelings, I have a way of separating myself from the feeling and from that distance, can just admire the feeling. Stores being closed, items being sold out (I still search for adult Green Machines), losing info on hard drives – in the end, they’re not really big deals, but they still do generate a rush of feelings. And somewhere along the line, I learned to distance myself from them.
Not sure that’s the best approach – but it’s just what I got.
I just don’t know how to give Sal something better.