When Oldest One is mad he likes to make it known to me by speaking ONLY to Coffee. He does not wave goodbye and he leaves for school without saying a word to me and he tries to pretend I do not exist.
I believe I am supposed to feel slighted or upset by this, with hurt feelings and all, and that I’m supposed to then apologize for telling him that he actually has to do his chores or do his homework or, well, whatever it is that he’s mad about.
The problem with his plan is that if he’s mad, and not speaking to me, it means I do not have to listen to him being mad.
His pattern has always been that if he feels something is unfair he launches into a constant whine. The hashing and rehashing and retelling of his side of things, with slight variances in the telling meant to add drama or score extra points, goes on and on and on. He yells! He freaks out! He cries! He explains in great detail how the entire situation is NOT FAIR even if he was given ample warning that his behaviour was veeeery close to earning him a consequence.
This new silent thing? A TREAT!
I do not have to hear how mean I am or how unfair the situation is.. or anything else, for that matter. I do not have to solve his problems, listen to him whine or bitch, and I do not have to repeatedly explain why he’s in trouble for doing X or not doing Y. I simply state my reasoning for the consequence (or why his behaviour sucked) and then he skulks off to be mad at me.
He does not follow me around whinging. He does not yell.
And then, when he is finished being mad at me, he goes back to speaking again. There are hugs and general happiness. All is forgotten (if not forgiven) and he’s happy to move on.
But the part where he tries to make me feel bad for the consequences? I don’t think he realizes how totally, completely and utterly UN-BAD I feel and how much I am just fine with the “punishment” he’s applying.
And I certainly won’t tell him…
My thinking here is that I’ll encourage Middle One to deal with his anger at me by, oh, cleaning the house. THAT’LL show me, too, no?
(This post brought to you by a Southern Ontario rainy day and Oldest One’s refusal to give his brother the rain jacket he outgrew a very long time ago.)
-
Do you think he could have a word with Sam? A strategizing session? Because I would so love to get past the whining at me to show displeasure thing.
-
Maybe you can teach coffee to show how mad HE is by taking the kids out to the park all day and leaving you alone and tucked under a blanket on the couch with a pile of books.
Oh and just FYI, here in the most southern part of southwestern Ontario, it’s not raining. -
My rule is "if you don’t want to share it – wear it!". My kids like rhyming rules "Grabbers are lasters" is also a favourite.
Anyway – if the grower-outer refuses to pass on an article of closing, they need to wear it. This normally leads to the understanding that it truly doesn’t fit, and is no longer useful to them. When this realization doesn’t hit (really, I LIKE wearing these pants without the button and zipper done up), then the grower-into gets a trip to get a new (to them) item of similar clothing. The grower-outer doesn’t require a new (to them) item of similar clothing, because they already have one.
Granted – my kids are younger. But yours is *acting* younger .
3 comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link: http://miserablebliss.ca/blog/2008/09/27/ooooo-thatll-show-me/trackback/