diaper gym drama
Today is one of those days where I really wish it was bedtime already. Not mine so much - theirs. They're driving me nuts.
Tennyson had the mother of all meltdowns this morning. Twice. Once at the library (that one wasn't even so bad) and then another at diaper gym. I asked him to stop rearranging the chairs in the entrance, and I started to fix them myself. He started to flip out. I put him in time-out. He sat in the chair and cried and punched the wall. I took him into the bathroom, smacked his bum once and then put him back in the chair and told him to stop smacking the wall. He went on to give me evil looks while crying and screaming at the same time, kicking the wall, shoving his chair away from the wall while kicking it, and pretty much trying his darnedest to disrupt everyone and get his own way by embarrassing me and showing me how mad and upset he was.
This carried on for a while. I tried again to get him to stop kicking the wall, but to no avail. Then I said "forget it, I'm out of here." I started cleaning up. He stepped the commotion up a notch. When I went to leave he refused to put his arms in his jacket. Still freaking out. I walked out the door, he followed me, screaming and crying. I got him in the van. He tantrummed in the van for another 20 minutes until we picked Jordan up from school.
Ugh. Some days.
I've decided to drop the counting altogether, the yelling and the warnings. I read something in a book yesterday that said to speak quietly to your children so that they learn that they need to be quiet to hear you. If you yell, you'll always have to yell louder. I'm going to say something once. If I'm ignored, instead of calling their names louder, threatening punishment, giving warnings and getting madder, I'm going to just drop them right into time out.
They're not going to be happy.
But that's okay, because I'm not happy with a lot of this behavior now.
You know, every time I think that I've got this all figured out, they all enter new ages and stages and the manual becomes obsolete again.
Tennyson had the mother of all meltdowns this morning. Twice. Once at the library (that one wasn't even so bad) and then another at diaper gym. I asked him to stop rearranging the chairs in the entrance, and I started to fix them myself. He started to flip out. I put him in time-out. He sat in the chair and cried and punched the wall. I took him into the bathroom, smacked his bum once and then put him back in the chair and told him to stop smacking the wall. He went on to give me evil looks while crying and screaming at the same time, kicking the wall, shoving his chair away from the wall while kicking it, and pretty much trying his darnedest to disrupt everyone and get his own way by embarrassing me and showing me how mad and upset he was.
This carried on for a while. I tried again to get him to stop kicking the wall, but to no avail. Then I said "forget it, I'm out of here." I started cleaning up. He stepped the commotion up a notch. When I went to leave he refused to put his arms in his jacket. Still freaking out. I walked out the door, he followed me, screaming and crying. I got him in the van. He tantrummed in the van for another 20 minutes until we picked Jordan up from school.
Ugh. Some days.
I've decided to drop the counting altogether, the yelling and the warnings. I read something in a book yesterday that said to speak quietly to your children so that they learn that they need to be quiet to hear you. If you yell, you'll always have to yell louder. I'm going to say something once. If I'm ignored, instead of calling their names louder, threatening punishment, giving warnings and getting madder, I'm going to just drop them right into time out.
They're not going to be happy.
But that's okay, because I'm not happy with a lot of this behavior now.
You know, every time I think that I've got this all figured out, they all enter new ages and stages and the manual becomes obsolete again.
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