So, I spent part of my afternoon in tears and most of my evening in a bit of a daze. Ethan and I have been on a short rope with each other lately and today I pretty much had a breakdown. This parenting thing is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be and I have a pretty stinkin' great kid "right out of the box", so I can't imagine what might have been.....
Ethan has turned 5 years old and has a controlling and demanding mommy. The poor guy has done pretty well with all of it so far, but lately, he's not putting up with much of my crap. There are fits and whining sessions and crying and physical lash-outs. It's not pretty, folks. Of course, all of this stops the minute daddy walks in the door because daddy is the calming factor in BOTH of our lives. His laid-back nature and over-all calm are a vital part in Ethan and I's successful relationship. :)
Today, I was home. I had no obligations. No teaching, no meetings, I didn't go to rehearsal. I was just home. Ethan and I got into a few tussles (mostly power struggles) early in the morning and he was already down a few privileges and had scored a few time-outs before lunch. I thought maybe a distraction was in order, so I had his friend come over and play for a couple of hours. That actually worked very well. Ethan and Austin played together very well and I was able to clean my room, get some laundry done and sort through Ethan's toys and pick up his room a bit. I gave the 10 minute and 5 minute warnings (complete with responses from both boys) after a couple of hours that it would be time for Austin to go home, but it didn't seem to matter. Ethan threw a fit. Austin (who is going into 8th grade, but fairly autistic) stared at Ethan like he was some creature. :) Austin and I got our shoes on and headed out to the car and Ethan eventually showed up complete with tears, and fit throwing/door slamming. On the way home I asked Ethan if he was embarrassed by his behavior and let him know that it was completely inappropriate. My rant was met with only more negative nasty fit-like behavior. I started yelling, he started yelling and I sent him to his room (after yelling at him to go there). Sam was home for lunch and I won't go into the dirty details, but he was the recipient of my anger as well. I went in my room, slammed the door and cried and cried. Mostly at that point, I felt like the victim. I was pissed at Sam for pointing out that my behavior was no different than Ethan's. I was pissed at Ethan because he has NOT been behaving like the angel child I know him to be.
So...there's my dirty laundry for the day and here's what I have learned in all of this. I'm 1/2 way through the book I picked up at the library yesterday (and started reading today) called "ScreamFree Parenting". Yes...I know myself pretty well. I'm passionate, energetic, dedicated, and ambitious. This means that I'm a yeller. :) So...here's what I've learned so far:
By reacting to my son's acting out, I am bring my anxiety and fears into the equation. I fear (the same as every parent) on some deep level that if he's throwing fits and acting out NOW at age 5, he's going to grow up to be full of repressed anger and walk into a mall and shoot everyone. :)
So...I am going to run an experiment. I am going to learn to calm MYSELF before reacting to a situation. If I can be calm and rational, I can usually work through our trials WITHOUT ending in a power struggle. I am working to raise him to be a self-guided and confident adult. The only way to do that is to give him some control over his own life. I'm going to work on respecting his space. I want him to knock before coming into my room, he deserves the same respect. I am going to change the way I look at parenting so there is less REACTION and more ACTION.
One thing I am doing to implement this new change is dedicated time with Ethan. We played legos for an hour and a half today and all I could think about was what I SHOULD be doing. I wanted to work in the backyard and finish cleaning the house. I will be limiting my computer time (again) and we will both (Ethan and I) be using timers for a while.
I'll keep you posted. For now, I'm 1 minute and 23 seconds over my limit and it's time for bed. More tomorrow...or another day when things have gone a little better. :)
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