Tell Me If I Did This Right

[Bunny]

Today is difficult child's first day of competition with Bowlympics. New things are a big anxiety trigger for him, and even though it is quite a few hours until he have to leave I can see him starting to ramp up already. I gave easy child the option of staying home alone, or going with us, but I told him that we would be gone for a few hours. I have no one to leave him with today (my in-laws are upstate visiting husband's brother and his family, and our usual babysitter is away for the weekend) and he said that he didn't want to stay home alone by himself for that long. In all honestly, I wasn't thrilled about the idea of leaving him alone for that long, either, so in my mind it's just as well that he comes with us.

W laid down some ground rules for easy child. Bring your IPod, so you have something to do. Don't bother your brother while he's trying to bowl. You're not playing the arcade games that will be at the bowling alley.

Then I told him not to bother difficult child while we're in the car because he's going to be nervous, and that difficult child struggles with his behavior when he's nervous. easy child said that he understood and would do his best. Do you think I handled that part right? Does anyone else ask their easy child kids to go out of their way not to bother the difficult child child when you know that he or she can be easily triggered?

 

[TerryJ2]

Yes, sounds good to me. It takes work on the part of the entire family. Fingers crossed for a good day.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Yes, we've had to do that too... but we try to make it up to easy child later with a personal (unknown to difficult child) treat.

 

[Confused]

No worries, we do this as well. She gets upset that we " give in" as she says about her brother, but later she realizes why and we also give an extra thing or time to her. Hope all went well

 

[Bunny]

difficult child did really well. He bowled really consistently and afterwards the coach came over to him and told him how well he did and how happy he is that difficult child joined the team. difficult child was so happy on the ride home. The smile on his face was fantastic to see!!

easy child did well, too. He left difficult child alone on the ride there (the lanes they bowled at were about a half hour away), but it was a very long afternoon for him. We were there for about three hours, just for the bowling, and he was bored, but very well behaved and quiet.

 

[svengandhi]

I'm glad it worked out well. I know he usually stays with your parents and they are away. Maybe once the 3 of them can drive over to the lane towards the end of difficult child's games and you can all go out to celebrate afterwards. I know how hard it is to balance competing kids' interests. We had a rule of NO travel teams except for difficult child's chess and it worked pretty well but now baby boy (14 and a HS freshman) gets upset because his older brothers don't come to his activities (he was stage manager for the middle school play last year) and he had to go to all of theirs! daughter has come home from school a couple of times to see baby boy's things.

 

[dstc_99]

I think it is fine especially since there are plenty of times where difficult child is probably asked to do the same for easy child. Maybe not yet but in the future easy child will have activities that difficult child may have to attend and behave at. It's good for them to learn how to behave even when they are bored. Plus it is good for them to learn not to trigger the other.

It's not like you asked him not to speak or told him to stand in the closet for hours. You simply asked him to be considerate and find a way to keep himself occupied during an event.