Another Hind-Sight Moment

If it seems I've got more "hind-sights" than "in-sights", its probably because I do, lol.

For what its worth, I learned a very valuable lesson tonight.

We've been dealing with some pretty undesirable behaviors with our 7 yr old lately. (If you consider 5 yrs, lately...sigh). And its not like we just let it go, believe me we've taken courses on parenting strategies, talked to behavior specialists, doctors, watch 'Super Nanny', etc. etc.

For us, not much seemed to be working. Maybe because he's 7 now, its time to change our strategy.

Which I did, tonight.

I'm fed up with the spitting, hitting, tantruming, and throwing. My son has an outrageous temper.

For so long, it was easier to just give in, and like magic, the tanrums stopped.

Except, it wasn't magic. It was free-will. His, not mine.

So tonight, instead of just THREATENING to take away his radio until tomorrow, I stuck to my guns. Even after the tantruming stopped, he came to me and asked for the radio back, and I explained to him that no, that wasn't the deal. The deal was, the NEXT time he spit at me, the radio would be gone until tomorrow.

I gotta say, this boy is one persistent little guy. He begged, pleaded, cried, screamed, cuddled up to me, and tried basically everything he could think of...and why? Because it always worked before.

Not this time. I realized that if I gave in this time, he'd never take me seriously. I think I probably realized that a long time ago, it just took me this long to find the courage and strength to withstand his emotional cajoling. Because he's good, he's really good. He knows how to get to Mommy, in fact he's learned that I love him dearly and it's hard for me NOT to give in to him, especially when he's being all sweetsy.

You know what? Eventually he DID give up...and went on to bed...with no radio. (He listens to "white noise", not music).

Anyway, for what its worth, maybe it'll be of some help to someone out there who's going through if not the same thing, something similiar.

You see, in our case, his "melt-downs" aren't melt-downs at all. Honestly, I've seen some autistic kids who genuinely melt down because they can't handle new circumstances or transitioning, or sometimes even certain sounds, or other things that actually cause an uncontrollable response in them.

But that's not the case with my son. Autistic? Mildly. Spoiled? Severely.

esther