Sometimes by the end of the day, I am just left shaking my head! Today, I think the boys were pretty exhausted by the time they came inside. We spent a couple hours at the lake, from 1:30-4:00. Then they came home and were outside until 7:30ish playing with the neighbor. All in the record hot temps...so I give them a little slack.
At 7, I gave them a warning that they would need to come in at 7:30 to get showered up & would be going to bed at 8:00. When I call the boys in a 7:30, Nate comes but not real willingly & that was the good part.
Once inside, he falls apart. He came in & stood in front of the TV. I told him that he needed to go upstairs and shower. At first he did not even listen, then he rolled his eyes and snarled something when I firmly told him to go. He stormed upstairs, complaining because he wanted to watch the TV & didn't want to shower. He was mad because he didn't have time to play to which I just rolled my eyes because he had been doing nothing but playing since he came home from school.
Once he made it upstairs, he managed to get Josh all riled up abut something...not exactly sure what the exchange was but I have no doubt that Nate was the instigator. At that point, I figured there was really no "winning" or even trying to talk with him because he was so worked up & overly tired. I told him that it had been a long day & that after his shower that I wanted him to get in bed....understanding that it is now nearing 8:00 with all the messing around that has been going on. Of course this set him off again. I just walked away.
About 15-20 minutes later, I checked and he was in bed & had showered...so that was good. He had not really calmed down much. He had entered his self pity phase. 'I am a jerk, I am so stupid, I am so dumb." Over and over, Jim and I have told him that he is not stupid but once he enters this phase, it does not matter what we say...Nate turns everything around to be negative. So, my response tonight was to just tell him that I love him & I walk away.
He came down about 30 minutes later for a drink of water and seemed to have calmed down.
We are still working on how to deal with Nate when he gets like this. I don't think he really believes that he is stupid. I think he is just looking for attention. We have been trying to point out positive things that he does or says & tell him that we are proud of him when he is NOT is his self pity phase & then just walk away when he starts in with the negative talk. My thought is that this way he is hearing that we are proud & how great he is doing but it is when he is in a good mood & accepts the compliments. Then in his "down" moods it seems best not to even try to say anything other than to tell him that we love him. So far this has been about the only statement that he does not turn around & also he is not getting any attention for his negative fits.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment