Friday, January 28, 2011

Robo Mom to the Rescue

Alternate Title: The Boy's Day of Reckoning

I just wasn't going to take it another day
. I sent him, rather dragged him kicking and screaming to his room for a 4 minute time out. He threw stuff at the door and screamed and cried and pretty much let me know that he was going down in a blaze of glory. His timer went off and I went in to give him another time out for throwing stuff at the door. He flipped his chair upside down and looked at me with angry eyes. I walked out. The timer went off after another 4 minutes, I took his chair out of his room and set the timer again...4 minutes...again. He is angry. I am determined.

While this is going on, my little one happily colored at the table. I am thanking God for her at this moment. I talk to Adam, he sends me a link to a blog he thought could help me. I ask him to look up Bi-polar disorder. I was convinced he has this. He is so Jekyll and Hyde sometimes. I quickly scan the article he sent. She said one thing in that article that made sense to me and I took the advice. I decided that I had to be ROBO MOM. Absolutely emotionless. He was out of his mind and I had to stay the course. It helped. Making the decision that his words would not hurt me and that this was the best thing for him propelled me on through the day.

After this first episode. He pulled himself together. It was 9am. We headed upstairs. I could see a change in him already. He was being the kind, sweet boy I knew. He even suggested that he clean the playroom so we could have more fun in there...WHAT?! I was not going to complain. What a great idea!!!

After an hour and a half of cleaning and mostly engaged play, I gave the 5 minute warning. We would be heading downstairs so my baby girl could have some quiet time in her room. (God bless her! She loves to read books quietly in her room!) Bryson and I would work on his reading lessons. And down we went.

It didn't take long for him to "challenge me" with a slight hint of discontent. STRAIGHT TO HIS ROOM FOR YET ANOTHER TIME OUT. Homegirl wasn't playin! We went into yet another cycle of time outs and more time outs for misbehaving during the time outs. He was going to re-learn to have a happy heart if it was the last thing we did that day. I am not kidding when I say he was in time out most of the morning. Being emotionless was the best thing I did that day, besides pray, Pray, PRAY.

It all becomes a blur at this point...but I will say. I won the war. By the evening it was, Yes, Ma'am, and mother may I?

I couldn't decide what to tell the school for his absence, so I just told Bryson to tell his teacher the next day that his mommy just wanted him to stay home. Of course, they pressed and he told me that he said, "my mommy wanted me in time out." I called to talk to the teacher and let her in on our day of discipline. She chuckled and said, "well I knew there must have been a major shake down because he was a different boy today. So well behaved and full of "yes, Ma'ams" Music to my ears!

I will be on him like white on rice until further notice. So far, our house is much happier and I can see the gleam in my big boy's eyes again. I got a note home today that said, "Great behavior today and lots of Yes Ma'ams."