As I was well aware, the twelve days of working would be difficult on all of us. They have been especially difficult on Jaden. His behavior has left me speechless in all counts.
The number of fits daily has shot through the roof, getting into every possible thing he can find, and a blatant disregard for authority has been the norm.
Yesterday, as I was leaving for work, we had a discussion about my having to work for only three more nights. Jaden was happy to be able to count the number of days I had left until I would be home at night. I mentioned to him that he needed to be a good boy and it was almost over.
Last night, while I was working, his poor behavior hit an all time high.
Today I decided it was time for reprogramming. That, however, was not an easy task!
I began first by cleaning up the house and getting laundry started. I told Jaden it was time to pick up all of his toys in the living room and his bedroom. He outright refused. I gave him multiple chances and told him that if he didn't pick up his toys, I would take them away. He still refused.
I went into his room and began picking up all of his toys and he instantly went into fit mode. I called for Rob to take him out of his room and he did. He kept Jaden in the living room while I packed up all of his toys and pulled them from his room and dispersed them into appropriate hiding places.
When he went back into his room he cried for close to an hour, wanting his toys back. I told him that he could get them back, only after he started behaving correctly again.
It's going to be a long road, I'm afraid. I feel horrible for taking everything away, but as every other form of punishment hasn't worked up through this point, I've felt no other choice. It's going to take him a long time to earn back all of his toys; perhaps at that time he will respect them a bit more and will remember to do as he is asked...
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2 comments:
LOVE the slide show below. What a
cool idea! About your son. Someone once gave me really good advice about parenting. I don't know that it would work for you but all the kids I know whose parents do it are really nice, easy going, happy kids.
The advice was, "always say some form of yes." Which Does not mean let them get away with murder either. It just means that a kids world is filled with so many negatives (not from parents alone) lots of people including tv shows and books make it really clear that "bad" behavior is punished.
What most people don't realize is that if you don't have time to play at the moment you can still say "yes" just with a different set of times. Like, "Yes, I'd love to play with you tomorrow after work and I promise we will" instead of "no, there's no time".
Along those lines is positive parenting; which means not punishing for bad behavior but rewarding good.
I don't even like to call it bad or good behavior personally -- I just tell Cedar that I appreciate him doing something healthy for himself (teeth brushing) or that if I see he's not thrown a fit that day I give him a sticker for being such a great person to be with. Cedar went through a huge fit throwing stage. And I tried taking things away but what finally worked was rewarding good times not punishing bad.
Just some ideas. It's hard when kids freak out though -- I've been there.
Parenting Jaden has been a big challenge for me. I've gone through moments where he's thrown such an intense fit; he would actually injure himself and per the advice of his pediatrician, it took six months of wrapping him in a blanket and holding him through his fits for those to come to an end. Since that time, Jaden has been an exceptionally well behaved child; until now.
Although, I've been so saddened by the poor actions on his part; I knew that the vast majority of that was caused by the serious disruption of his regular schedule. As many times as I talked to him about this only being a temporary situation, Jaden still lashed out in ways I've not seen in a very long time; including hitting and biting.
His behavior has been amazing since yesterday afternoon. He's stopped getting into everything and he's earned back quite a few of his toys since.
Once I'm home working all the time with just one or two nights a week at the bar, we'll attempt the "always yes" method again. It would probably work better with me being home the majority of the time.
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