Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Detour

Nothing screams EMERGENCY in our house like a blog post about Mr. Darcy get pushed for another day, and the stack of books on the end table tossed aside and immediately replaced with The Strong-Willed Child, Dare to Discipline, and Bringing Up Boys.

We're having some problems, but we're looking for solutions. If you have one, let me know. Otherwise, we're on fruit snack and Playhouse Disney lockdown until we can figure out what to do with our boundary-testing buddy. It's a stage, I realize, we just need a refresher with how to make sure the stage isn't chronic.

3 comments:

Sarah said...

Mallory - our oldest (now 2 1/2) boy went through this right after the baby was born. I think it's one of those adjustment period things. Hang in there . . . it gets better.

The mom said...

Ben and Luke sound very much alike. We recently started giving Ben timeouts in his room with the door closed, so he is by himself and is not getting attention. It helps him make the connection of "if I can't play nice I don't get to play at all" and it helps me not lose it... it's a timeout for mom too :) His big problem is playing too rough with his sister, so this is really helping with that.

Mallory said...

Thanks girls. I think that his behavior is both related to the baby and just his age and temperament. My biggest problem with him is defiance for the sake of defiance. For instance, every morning he asks for an english muffin for breakfast and happily gets one. On the morning Mark made him one anticipating his request he REFUSED to it for no reason other than a power struggle. That's what it all is, a power struggle, as if he's saying to us, "You're not tough enough to tell me what to. I'm tougher." So...for a few days we gave in more then we should have to avoid the tantrum, but that just gave him more power. Starting yesterday we'd all had enough and are being MUCH tougher on him, basically not letting him get away with ANYTHING, and I'm hoping that a few days of strict, enforced discipine will get him back on track for awhile. He's been such a sweet boy for us, so it's difficult to know what to do when his obstinance takes over.

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