The last few weeks I haven’t been as good about handing out consequences for disrespectful behavior and my son’s attitude has gotten worse. Ugh.
I warned him a couple days ago that I wasn’t putting up with it anymore. Apparently he didn’t believe me.
Saturday, he decided to have a really poor attitude when it was time to clean his room. After the cleaning was done and he had to haul the vacuum upstairs, he informed me that “it will take forever” to get the vacuum upstairs and he “isn’t doing it”. I just walked back to the kitchen. After he ran the vacuum, he brought it downstairs and put it away and then announced, “That wouldn’t have been so hard if I wouldn’t have had a bad attitude about it.” I almost asked him to repeat that so I could record the statement. Probably should have.
Yesterday, he was disrespectful and defiant. First that earned him the opportunity to walk from the Kroger end of the parking lot to the exit end of the parking lot so that he could have some alone time to get himself together before we drove home. A couple hours later, he started in again. The long end of that situation is that he ended up with 2 weeks of being grounded. Since this weekend is the beginning of winter break, the grounding covers his entire time off. He does have the opportunity to earn some of the time off.
Today, he was very excited that we were going to go visit friends (even though he is grounded). He knew that he had to practice his multiplication tables before we got there or he’d be doing that instead of playing. As soon as the math got tough, he gave up and took on a bad attitude. He informed me that he was skipping that particular problem. I took away the rest of the cards. He said he still wasn’t doing it. I reminded him that refusing to do his work in the car meant he would be sitting with the adults while the kids played. We went through that a couple more times. After one hard problem, he announced, “That wasn’t too bad once I tried it.”
While we were at the friend’s house, he did amazingly well. Didn’t get overwhelmed and kept a very good attitude. He napped in the car on the way home instead of practicing his division tables.
We got home and he made it through the deck once. He’s supposed to get through it 3 times today. He didn’t even make it a quarter of the way through a second time when he informed me that he was tired. It wasn’t even 6:30 pm. I said that I was tired, too, but that he had gotten a nap so I was sure he could finish his work. He got completely defiant and managed to earn 2 more days of being grounded. Then I gave him the choice of doing tomorrow’s work plus today’s work tomorrow and going to bed now or finishing up his work. He didn’t believe that I was really telling him to go to bed early. I told him he had one minute to decide and set a timer. And then I was completely silent while he made up his mind. That seemed to bother him (my silence). After 45 seconds he stalked up the stairs informing me that he was going to bed. I said, “Ok. Get ready for bed and come down to brush your teeth.” He looked completely shocked that he now had to go through the whole bedtime routine.
Even more surprised when, after he brushed his teeth, I said, “Take your dog out to potty.” He questioned why he should have to do so. I said, “Going to bed early does not negate your responsibilities to your pet. Take her out.” He stared at me.
After the dog went out, he said, “Goodnight” again. I said, “We still have to pray.” Again with the stare.
Before prayer, I said, “You look sad. Is it sad to have to face the consequences of your actions?”
“Yes.”
I know that my inconsistency in requiring respect the last few weeks has contributed to this situation significantly. Some of this has been related to past trauma surfacing and some is fear of having to face hard things (like division).
The other downside to having to get back on track after being so inconsistent is that the dog didn’t get her usual evening playtime and now she is whiney and pestering me while I try to get things done. Argh.
No comments:
Post a Comment