Be Excellent To Each Other

Last night, my eldest (he's 10) decided to have a strop. Kids were told it was bedtime at 20:15 and were all in their beds by 20:30. Owen (for that is his name) asked to read for a bit, and he was allowed to read until 20:40, which he did. At about 21:20 he comes down stairs saying his bed is uncomfortable, so I go up and turn his mattress over, and make his bed, so the sheet is on tight, I lay on it, and can't feel anything wrong with it. He lays on it, and says it's not comfortable again. This is despite there being no problems with it for the past 2 and 1/2 years (which is about how long we have had the bed). I then offer him another pillow, incase that would help. No Joy.

His mum had suggested that if he wanted to, he could sleep on our guest mattress on the floor in his room. So I offer him that choice, he agrees, so I set that up, taking the sheet off his bed, and putting it on the guest mattress, and setting it all up for him there. He says that's still not comfortable (despite sleeping on the same mattress in his brothers room the night before and it being fine). So I say to him, he has a choice, his bed, or the floor, but choose quickly. He wants neither, so I say he has to choose, ask him not to leave his room again, say good night and leave.

Before I went back down stairs I do a bit of pottering about on the landing as I notice some stuff needs tidying up. As I'm doing this Owen opens his door, sees me and is surprised, falls back into his room, and lets out a shriek of shock. His Mum comes up to see what the fuss is, and is very blunt with him, telling him that he's 10 years old, not a toddler, and he's making a mountain out of a mole hill etc. Owen does not accept this and thinks it's unfair, Pauline has enough and says good night to him and goes back down stairs leaving Owen and me to sort things out. I give Owen a 3rd option, sleep in your bed, sleep on the floor, or stay up all night (figuring he'd fall asleep eventually) but he was in hysterics at this point, and was wanting to go down and see his mum (who wanted nothing to do with it at this point).

So after more attempts at reasoning with him I give him stern instructions on not leaving the room. And go down stairs myself. Sure enough about 15 minutes later (it's about 22:00 by now) I hear him coming down the stairs and trying to sneak past my office (I was in the office watching "The Wire" whilst Pauling was in the living room watching Big Brother or something) I look out, and he runs into the living room.

Eventually I'm called through and Owen's told to work it with me, I say it's fine as long as he goes to bed and stays there, but he's having none of it, eventually he says that's dark in his room and gloomy and asks for a lamp in there. So I go and sort that out and he settles down into his bed (the one that was so uncomfortable 2 hours previously).

I have no idea where all that came from, the only thing I can think of is that he knows the summer holidays are coming to an end and is worried about going back to school. Sorry for the rant, but I think I just needed to let it all out on here, feel free to ignore if you wish.

Malc

Enjoyed the rant. Of course, we were all perfect little boys and girls, weren't we?

H&K MP5, You know it makes sense.

Maybe he's not looking forward to going back to school and wants to spend a little more of the last few days of his time with his mum and dad? Hopefully it isn't because he is scared of going back to school for any worse reasons, but it might be worth having a gentle talk with him, just in case he is being bullied, teased or feeling left out at school.

Hope you have an easier night tonight, Malc.

I hated going back to school

If I'd ever done that, my dad wouldn't have acommodated me by changing sheets on various beds, and giving me pillows and lamps, he'd have told me to just go to fucking bed. If I'd sneaked out of the room or similar, you can believe that I'd have had a smart smack about the head. It'd have worked, too.

Yeah but look how you turned out

To be fair I don't think I'd have got very far with those antics either..
Who'd be a parent eh?

Suddenly, things become very clear...

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have indulged him with the bed changing - if they know they're getting a reaction....

Brings back memories.

Bristol Palin, it would seem.

My dad was and is ace. A nice reasonable bloke who you just made sure not to piss off. Sounds familiar, I know.

I don't think it's about being bullied (we're pretty on top of that sort of thing). He suffers from Asperger's Syndrome and doesn't like change. He also has trouble seeing things from other peoples points of view, he couldn't see how what he was doing last night was unfair on Pauline and I, only that he was upset and that he didn't want to go to bed in that room. (I suspect the acceptance of going to bed with the lamp was because he was getting too tired to fight, and that by getting the lamp in his room he was able to "save face" by getting what he wanted)

He's going through a phase at the moment where he really can't see why things shouldn't be anything other than exactly how he wants them. I guess that's pretty standard behaviour for children approaching puberty, but with Owen it borders on the dangerous, especially when outside with him, and he decides that rather than listen to Pauline or me, that he will do what he wants to regardless, and storms off in a huff. I'd normally just say ignore him, he'll come back, but with Owen he's so stubborn that he wouldn't.

The thing is, in the cold light of day he's fine, he realises he's been silly, and is all apologetic and stuff, but then the next time he's "in the moment" the blinkers come on and he can't be reasoned with, you either do it his way, or put up with him being in a huff for the rest of the day. He's not aware of dangers at the best of times, but when he's like that he just doesn't notice anything. There was one time in Plymouth where he was walking ahead off in a huff, and he just walked out into the road without stopping, or looking. He would have been knocked over if the driver wasn't completely on the ball.

EOR

Malc

Palin and family is going to either win or lose the republicans the election. Hopefully the latter.

Is "Pro-life" and "Pro-Gun" (of course)
Is strongly "for" drilling for oil in Alaska (of course).
Has 5 kids, including one with Down's syndrome (which is allegedly possibly the previous offspring of the 17 year old).
The pregnant 17 year old is unmarried, which apparently makes it worse.
Has trailer-trash-esque husband.
Is under investigation for possibly abuses of power.


Wheee...

If I was a Republican politician I wouldn't name one of my kids after one of the major centres of the slave trade.

Normally I wouldn't but because Pauline had already promised it (and she thinks the bed is uncomfortable too, but then she did from day 1) We gave him the option, but it was obviously more than that, but we didn't want him to feel that if he came to us with an issue we would just ignore it (he's hardly the most open person as it is)

There will be repercussions for how he behaved last night, so he won't get away with it Scott Free.

Malc

Could the uncomfortable bed have actually been growing pains? It's a possibility I guess and might help explain things.

I'd written at length about nurture for a while and then read your latest post which pretty much negates a lot of what I would suggest as it sounds like you can't reason with him immediately. You could try a long term strategy of making all your decisions feel like his decisions - I know that works with stubborn people. Not sure how you would make that work. Other things to look into might be NLP which might work with someone who is obsessed with being contrary.

If all else fails, I hear tomazepan is quite benign. That's a joke, OK Chloroform is better

It's possible I guess, but he didn't have any issue when he got the lamp, so who knows. To me it was all a ploy to stave of going to bed, because if you go to bed then it brings on the next day, which means school is that much closer.

Malc

Make him sleep in a tree.

Make him sleep in the coal cellar.

Sounds like he needs a 32" HD telly and a 360.

Or maybe a lock on the outside of his room

I've told him he's sleeping in the bath and the shed before. I've even gone so far as to take him into the garden, carrying his stuff and asking him if he wants to sleep in there or not. That's worked in the past. I didn't think of that last night tho.

That's the problem (I find) When you're in the moment you don't always remember the plans and tricks that you've thought of in the cold light of day.

Malc

He (or rather we) has 1/2 of that already and a Wii (and a PSone) I've been close to buying a 360 twice, but both times, other more important things have gotten in the way.

Things like carpets and laminate flooring and such.

Malc

FTFY.

I'm sure I have all this to come Malc. Please let me know what to do when you've figured kids out.

Was this a one off or does he do it often?

My parents did this to my brother once. The story goes, he wouldn't keep coming out of his bedroom, moaning for attention, so they locked him in. They found him asleep next to the door the next morning, and after that promised not to get out of bed as long as they didn't lock the door.

Worked.

I'm sure all of the fucking retarded reactionary kids groups would condemn such tactics these days, and would instead tell us to merely give our kids a polite talking-to instead. Sometimes kids are stupid and need direct, harsh, action.

The lamp may have been to save face, as you said earlier. Or maybe if he really WAS feeling uncomfortable and couldn't sleep then being awake for longer than usual in a dark room made him feel just a little spooked and so the lamp just helped to settle him a bit?

Sorry, probably nothing I am saying is of use, but sometimes it's something that you haven't thought of. One of my little brothers used to be a pain at bedtime, but after a lot of experimenting it turned out that he was experiencing some kind of claustrophbia and turning the bunk beds (where he was n the bottom bunk) into two singles sorted him out fine.

He used to do it lots, but never to that extent before. He's not done anything that bad for a while!

I'm already dreading tonight.

Malc

Aww, Malc. Hopefully tonight he'll be too tired from a combination of not enough sleep last night and a full day of school today.

Hear hear!



CG, yesterday.

Is that Hitler after a bad dye job?

Mr Bronson is all wet.

What book was he reading? Was it a horror book? I remember doing somehting similar when reading a book my parents were throwing out about that age. The Darkness I forget by who, a pretty famous horror writer though, but my mind has gone blank.

School's not til Thursday (2 teacher training days)

Malc

Oddly enough Michael Sheard who played Mr Bronson played Hitler in a number of films including Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade.

That's nearly seven weeks off!

I can't wait for next week when Lisa (hopefully) goes back too.

Man goes to the doctors and says "I hurt all over"...

etc...

eventually his finger is broke. ha ha. My point is this: Malc, your wee lad probably has a broken hip and that is why every bed is uncomfortable. I imagine you broke his hip when you threw him down stairs as punishment. Tsk!

So, last night was plain sailing.

He was really upset at how he acted the night before, and made a concerted effort to be nice to his mum all day, and then to me when I got back. When I said it was bed time to him, he made a point of it being fine (when it was clear he wanted to stay up longer) and not a problem and so on. We'll see what happens tonight when he's back to school in the morning. And Thursday and Friday night when Pauline's back to working nights.

Malc