It has begun. My son has entered the terrible 3’s, even though he’s nearly four!!
He has become angry, rude and argumentative. If I say black, he will say white. Grrrr. I’m having to bring in every tool I have to keep my patience and sanity in check. Believe me, I am one self-help writer who definately practices what she preaches, although admittedly things still get the better of me sometimes, but that’s okay, cause I’m still human.
Anyway, I went to the shops with Ryan over the weekend, you know, to get some one on one time with him. He was pretty good most of the way until he spotted some jelly beans that he wanted. I didn’t buy anything in that shop so we decided that he would be able to get a chocolate from the chocolate shop instead and he picked out a beautiful shiny packaged chocolate frog.
I casually mentioned that we were getting take away as soon as we left and he could eat his chocolate after dinner. NO! was his response. I WANT IT NOW!!!
Oh no, here we go again. I told him that he couldn’t have it now he could have it after dinner and if he couldn’t agree to this deal, then he couldn’t have it at all. He said, “No! I’m having it now” and started to unwrap the paper. I told thim that he now couldn’t have it at all and proceeded to take it off him. This ended in us almost wrestling on the floor of the shop as I tried to pry it from his fingers and he got lower and lower to the ground to keep it away from me. He ended up smacking his head on the ground (which really didn’t help the matter) and started screaming at me and getting really angry. I finally got it off him (stilll in tact) and gave it back to the lady.
I walked off with Ryan grabbing my arms, legs, clothes and having to continually untangle myself from him and continuing to walk away. He was screaming his head off and I could feel everyone watching me. My mind was going in and out of being consumed by the moment and detached by it, knowing that this is normal young child behaviour and I wasn’t giving in. I was determined that this was going to be a teachable moment for him.
Anyway, we got to my car, after him repeatedly hitting me and attempting to bite me (nearly lost it at that one, but just firmly said “don’t you dare bite me” with one of those don’t mess with me glares). However he would not let me strap him in, he was kicking, screaming and kickiing the DVD player in front of him. I was literally pinning him down to strap him in and I just couldn’t do it. so I got in the car and drove out of the carpark around the corner, stopped the car and said, “Right, get out of my car”. He screamed Nooooo, of course and I said, “well let me strap you in then”. I re-attempted to strap him in to no avail, so I literally took him out of the car and put him on the side of the road and told him to walk home. At this point he was terrified that I’d leave him there (don’t like that he felt that way, but didn’t know what else to do?) and he finally let me strap him in.
When we got home I put him in his room (for a lot longer than the required 3 minutes) and let the adrenalin in my own body settle down and his too, before I went back in and chatted to him very softly. The whole incident ended with a cuddle and an apology from him and …..hopefully a lesson learnt.
Phew, what a hair-raising event for both of us. But I’m sure it’s just a taste of what’s to come unfortunately. I just have to keep remiinding myself that his behaviour is not about me and all about his learning behaviour and his development. If people are looking at me, so what? I can’t control how they think and feel and all I need to do is concentrate on staying calm and detached from his behaviour – that’s enough to think about without having worry about the judgements of others. Easy said than done thought, but I’m generally happy with how I handled it, although there is definately room for improvement.
Let me know if you’ve had a similar incident happen and what did you do?
Cheers,
Jackie