Life as a reformed Zookeeper. Now living a life as a working mother who dabbles in karate, scrapbooking, and Coors Light!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

At My Wits' End....

.....I can't seem to figure out what to do with Griffin. He's historically been the child who has given me the most pause, as far as his behavior goes. He gets frustrated really easily, having inherited his parents' perfectionist streaks (heaven help the boy who got it from both sides!). Case in point... this morning he got up early, which he normally does. He crawled into bed with me to snuggle me awake, which he normally does. I get up and hop in the shower, giving Griffin instructions to get dressed while I was there. All of his clothes that we recently folded were on the floor in my room, which I informed him were there. I hop in the shower and start scrubbing away, when Griffin knocks on the shower door to tell me he's cold. I tell him to find his clothes and put them on. That he will not be cold once he gets dressed. He cries. And cries. I tell him that he'll have to wait a minute. Am showering. He starts throwing a knock-down tantrum, kicking the wall, which brings Aaron back upstairs (he'd already said his good-byes and was headed out the door) to see what was going on. I finished up my shower as quickly as I could, and dried off and got myself dressed. Then I turned to get him dressed. I found him a pair of pants (that he couldn't seem to locate, which were right in front of him), and gave them to him and told him to put them on. He just sat there and cried, making no moves to put them on. I let him go while I helped Erin get her clothes (I typically don't do this for her, either, but it was red, white, and blue day at school and I was helping her get an outfit... she doesn't have much patriotic wear, as she's a girlie-girl through and through with pinks and purples). Gave her clothes and went back to Griffin... who hadn't put on his pants. Normally, my philosophy is that I should wait it out until he were to put the damn things on. But how long can I possibly give him when we've got to be out the door in 45 minutes and he's not eaten yet? So I get the pants partially on him, and make him pull them up the rest of the way. He still cries, not making any moves to do his part. I go downstairs, offering Erin up breakfast. He follows us down, pants only half-way up, sobbing. I get her breakfast. He proceeds to fall face-down on the floor, screaming as if in pain. I finally lose it completely, swat his ass and put him on the sofa. I even cover his mouth to stifle the now-screams. He FINALLY stops crying. I tell him to pick out his cereal, and he finally eats. While he eats, I tell him how unhappy I was about how he behaved. I ask him if I cried when I was cold as I got out of bed and got showered and dressed. He finally stops. But let me just say, it started my day with a defeated air. I feel defeated. No matter how unbelievably calm I am at the start, he pushes it to where all of us are crying. I channel the preschool teacher in me every day for this boy. But it doesn't work.

6 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wow... you know I have never had that happen to me before...

Oh wait... that was yesterday...

Ah the joys of have a 5yr old...

2:25 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

oh yikes, I have no idea how you guys handle that...much props to you if this is a daily thing. Hang in there, steph
~your childless (at this moment, much to my joy) sister-in-law

6:46 PM

 
Blogger Judy in Indiana said...

I have to walk away. I would have left him upstairs undressed. If he came down naked, fine. If he misses breakfast, fine, it's a natural consequence when yoiu throw a fit for too long. He will not starve and he will eat again, mid day. (Of course, he may be an ass at school and you might get a phone call.)

8:59 PM

 
Blogger Judy in Indiana said...

Noah does not respond to punishment but does respond to rewards. Can you make a Reward Chart and the kids can earn stickers or something. We used to have a box of cheap toys and the kids earned poker chips. They could trade the chips in for cash/cheap toys/McD's or something.

9:01 PM

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We've been trying a couple of different things with The Bean. For major things like not throwing shoes at the teacher at school, we let her pick a prize before school and tell her that she can have it at the end of the day if she doesn't have to go to time out at school. Having her see the prize seems to make a HUGE difference for her. Now, this is NOT an everyday thing. We just do it when she seems to be having a bad run.

On a more day to day basis, when she isn't listening, we give her an either or choice. You can either pick up your toys or sit in time out and then still pick up your toys. She usually opts to do what we say since she knows time out will follow. Time out is TORTURE for her, much worse than a swat to the bottom.

She has times where she works herself up occasionally. I usually have to either leave for a bit or try to get her to do some deep breathing. I should mention that she told me to take a deep breath one day when she knew I was frustrated with her. At least I know she's been paying attention!

10:31 PM

 
Blogger Katie said...

Personally I would have put the clothes on him immediately. Kyle pulls the "I can't find clothes, won't get dressed" thing occasionally and he gets more pissed if I treat him like a baby ('getting him dressed') and usually snaps out of his fit and does what he's suppose to do. Eventually the independence streak takes over and he doesn't want me doing what he can do himself.

He (Kyle and possibly Griffin) wants the attention from refusing to do what he's suppose to do and once it's over (he's dressed), he can't get that anymore. Then again I'm a mean mom and if they won't do what they are suppose to do, I will do it my way (probably not the way they want it) and they have to deal with it.

12:37 PM

 

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