Friday, August 20, 2010

attaching

Calvin lied to me about brushing his teeth. If I was not exhausted and frustrated with Fudge I may not of gotten mad about the lying, but I did. I told him he would practice brushing until told otherwise. He started brushing and I got my book. I had read about a chapter when he asked to stop brushing, I said no. I read another page and then stopped him to talk it through. We talked about his choices and I said that I was upset about the lying and the sneaky behaviour. He began to cry and looked for comfort from me, we talked about what happened and what would happen if it continued. He showed an appropriate amount of remorse for getting in trouble and for working hard to make me notice him. I am not sure what the motivation behind the lying was and I am to tired to figure it out but we worked it out and there was no rage, I'll settle for tears instead of a rage any day.

4 comments:

The Accidental Mommy said...

Genea has been provoking with that sort of thing for a few weeks now. She is trying to get in trouble and get a consequence so she can be in control. ARRRRGH!

Diana said...

My "starting to attach quite nicely" son has all of the sudden started pulling out all sorts of old-school RAD tricks we haven't seen in well over a year. Very frustrating. I'm sure it has to do with school starting again. I just hope it settles down soon. But, I agree with you. I'll settle for tears instead of rage any day!

Mama Drama Times Two said...

Talking it through without the rage... Tears that lead to relationship healing and mother-comfort. Plus you read an extra chapter of yor book. Sounds good to me.

Integrity Singer said...

we're trying a new approach with Sissy's incessant lying (seriously, the child doesn't even know WHEN she's lying, the words just come tumbling out of her mouth with so much ease it's scary)

ANYWAY, the therapist has agreed to our plan. We bought a cheapo composition notebook. Every time we catch her in a lie, she writes 25 times "I will not lie about ..." she hates it. loathes it. Can't stand it. Has enormous fits about it. BUT the kicker is it's in her face, every time she opens the book, how many times she's lied, what she's lied about and all the hard work, pages and pages of it, of writing about her lies.

i don't know if it will work, but the therapist is betting on it.