Malika
Well-Known Member
Well, it's Sunday again and that means... that J will have a big tantrum about something, start being oppositional, rude and defiant, I will get angry at a certain moment after trying to keep my cool, there will be tears, screams, shouts, lots of dramatic running up and down stairs (and that's just me, lol).
Monday to Friday we have a routine and constant activities that seem to mean there is no room for drama and upset. Saturday, because I have so much work at the moment, J goes to the childminder. Sunday we spend together and... things go haywire. At a certain moment.
Today it was about his bike helmet. He always wears it and usually there's no problem. However, a little boy who is occasionally in the village (his parents are divorced) has started calling for him to go riding their bikes together. This boy, unusually, doesn't wear a helmet... So today J started making a big fuss and drama about wearing his helmet, with all sorts of impassioned dramatic statements ("I want to do what I want to do and you just bother me with making me do things I don't want!) along classic difficult child lines, I would imagine. I try talking about it, negotiating, being reasonable - doesn't work. He gets rude and insulting, which is always what really presses my buttons because I just don't, in the moment, find it acceptable for a small child to speak like this to anyone. I ended up shaking him today... and then of course feel guilty and annoyed at myself. And also got really cross and spoke to him very fiercely, which in a way I don't regret.
As soon as I get really annoyed like this, he backs down, starts crying sadly rather than storming and saying pathetic things like he wants his daddy, he wants Oma (my mother). I feel it is unconsciously manipulative in some sense but it does work because of course then I just feel like hugging him and making him feel better... Then he calmed down, eventually, and we had a cuddle and a story, went outside to do some gardening together. And then the friend called and he put his helmet on without a murmur...
I wish there was a way round all this stuff without the drama and histrionics. There probably isn't. This is probably what it means to be very spirited, or a difficult child, or whatever one wants to call it. But try as I might (and perhaps I don't try very hard), I can't find it acceptable or normal for a child to be insolent and rude like that, whatever their "diagnosis"....
Monday to Friday we have a routine and constant activities that seem to mean there is no room for drama and upset. Saturday, because I have so much work at the moment, J goes to the childminder. Sunday we spend together and... things go haywire. At a certain moment.
Today it was about his bike helmet. He always wears it and usually there's no problem. However, a little boy who is occasionally in the village (his parents are divorced) has started calling for him to go riding their bikes together. This boy, unusually, doesn't wear a helmet... So today J started making a big fuss and drama about wearing his helmet, with all sorts of impassioned dramatic statements ("I want to do what I want to do and you just bother me with making me do things I don't want!) along classic difficult child lines, I would imagine. I try talking about it, negotiating, being reasonable - doesn't work. He gets rude and insulting, which is always what really presses my buttons because I just don't, in the moment, find it acceptable for a small child to speak like this to anyone. I ended up shaking him today... and then of course feel guilty and annoyed at myself. And also got really cross and spoke to him very fiercely, which in a way I don't regret.
As soon as I get really annoyed like this, he backs down, starts crying sadly rather than storming and saying pathetic things like he wants his daddy, he wants Oma (my mother). I feel it is unconsciously manipulative in some sense but it does work because of course then I just feel like hugging him and making him feel better... Then he calmed down, eventually, and we had a cuddle and a story, went outside to do some gardening together. And then the friend called and he put his helmet on without a murmur...
I wish there was a way round all this stuff without the drama and histrionics. There probably isn't. This is probably what it means to be very spirited, or a difficult child, or whatever one wants to call it. But try as I might (and perhaps I don't try very hard), I can't find it acceptable or normal for a child to be insolent and rude like that, whatever their "diagnosis"....