First off, let me say again that raising our first child has been no help in the least in raising our second child. Honestly, sometimes I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. Only it's worse because at least with the first child you know you have no idea what you're doing. By the second child, you think you know. Or you know you SHOULD know, which makes you feel like an idiot.
Anyway, lately Sam has been testing his limits. We feel pretty unprepared here, because Maria never argued with us like Sam does. And that phrase, "testing his limits," makes one feel that it's all a completely normal, slightly frustrating, phase that will pass and soon you will have an obedient pleasant child, if you can just make it through "testing his limits." It doesn't really get across how aliens have taken over your previously sweet child. How this behavior makes you so angry you feel like you would sell the child to the highest bidder (or any bidder, if there is one crazy enough to want him). How you feel intense waves of deja vu because you cannot believe you are having the same conversation again, and so soon after the last one.
The last several weeks having been trying, and it seems to have gotten worse since school started. Sam seems to like to argue about every single thing we ask him to do. Even things that he has had to do for years. Like drinking his cup of milk at dinner, which has been a rule since he could drink out of cups. He always starts out his defiance by asking "Why?" which we start off by answering truthfully: it's healthy, it makes you strong, blah blah, blah. But after having this argument so often, we loose patience mush faster and the conversation turns ugly much faster. He will then try to sneak out of the room without drinking it by running from the dinner table while he's still chewing his last bite of food. Then he argues because Ben or I will not bring the milk to him to drink it. And on and on. And it usually ends with us getting angry and Sam saying "You don't have to yell at me" like we're being completely unreasonable.
He pretty much refuses to do anything we ask, which is why it gets so exhausting. In the past 24 hours, he has refused to drink milk, pick up spilled cereal, turn off lights that he turned on, pick up toys, set the dinner table, and my favorite, putting on clean underwear.
Saturday I was doing the week's laundry and noticed that there were only 3 pairs of underwear for Sam, even though it had been a week since I had last done his laundry. And ever since then, it's been a fight to get him to put on clean underwear. Here's a small part of our discussion this morning:
Me: And don't forget to put on clean underwear.
Sam: Why do I have to put on clean underwear EVERY DAY?
Me: Because it's clean, and it's gross to wear dirty underwear.
Ben: And you'll smell if you don't.
We probably could have come up with better answers but this is not the first time we've had this discussion.
Sam: No one else has to wear clean underwear.
This is another one of his favorite points. Apparently he's the only little boy required to bathe, drink milk, clean up his toys, and wear clean underwear. No wonder he's so mad.
Me: You ask your friends then and if they're all wearing dirty underwear you can to.
Another not great response but these constant arguments just suck the life right out of me (and I know he won't do it).
So Sam goes into his room, and I go to the bathroom. When I come out, Sam is dressed and ready to go to school. But the clean underwear I have set out is still sitting on the floor.
Me: Did you change your underwear?
Sam: Yees... (with a smirk on his face)
Ben (or me, I forget): GO CHANGE YOUR UNDERWEAR.
And he did, because he knew he was at the end of our good humor. This evening, when he refused to come eat dinner with the rest of us so he could finish watching an episode of iCarly that I'm sure he's seen 20 times, we threatened to start taking money away from his allowance every time he argues with us when we ask him to do something. And that did get him moving, although he still carried his general attitude to the table.
And I think we may have found a possible solution to all of this arguing, because if there's one thing Sam likes, it's money.
1 comment:
We've also been fining Mark for attitude and it has worked wonders for "Captain Capitalism." We deduct it from his "paycheck" at the end of the week (which I know isn't necessarily immediate negative reinforcement, but I haven't had to fine him in a couple of weeks). My husband said that if the current fine system stops working, we should make him immediately go get 5 cents (our fine) and put it in his sister's piggy bank. That would really get to him.
Post a Comment