He was a complete pain in the ass from the minute we pulled into the driveway (after coming home from the playground after school): yelling, screeching, stomping, throwing things, hitting things, hitting me and Katie, being completely defiant, being rude…
In all, he had four time outs, TV and video games taken away, early bedtime given (twice!), and eventually a few precious toys taken away which resulted in him screaming and crying. (I even had to interrupt writing the draft of this post to jump up and yell at him for smacking Katie in the face because he was pissed at her. That got him sent to his room.) And I was even ignoring a lot of his more minor events. He even had his B (which I thought would be comforting) but he was even throwing that around and saying he didn’t want it. I asked if he wanted to go up to his room to be alone and he grouched at me about that, too (before he got sent there).
It was exhausting.
When I take something away for, say, him being cranky, he seems to think that if he apologizes right away and says he won’t be cranky anymore…that he’ll get whatever I just took away (like TV). Nope, kid, that’s not how it works. You get a warning (sometimes two) and if you keep on, you get the punishment—and at that point it’s too late to recover from the punishment. And I’ve told him this REPEATEDLY and I NEVER give in so it’s not like he’s thinking I did it once so I’ll do it again. And he apparently hasn’t fully caught on that when I say NO TV, I mean NO TV. Sometimes it’s just one show he loses. But today was full on TV. But he kept asking every half hour or so—and when I kept telling him no, that would set him off again (even though I kept asking him if he remembered WHY he lost TV and he did—he would tell me because he was cranky, etc.). So then he throws a toy or throws a B or hits Katie (which are all obviously not allowed) and it just escalates. He’s actually pretty good about sitting in his time out—and we go through the whole Super Nanny thing of me telling him I love him, me asking him what he did wrong (he always knows), him apologizing—and 10 minutes later he’d be back in another time out after being warned.
Lather, rinse, repeat…for a good three hours.
I actually thought he recovered after a pizza dinner and a bath (two of his favorite things, during which he was his normal, happy self!) but then he got cranked up again while getting ready for bed (he was upset that he missed a few chore chart items—he definitely lost Show Respect today, as well as Pick Up Toys and Share) and therefore lost his snack so he was NOT happy.
WHAT. THE. HELL?!
As I was saying good night, I told him tomorrow was a new day and it would be a better day…and he said “Yes! No more throwing things, hitting mama or Katie, and being grouchy.” So we’ll see…
