Our first fight was about getting dressed. This is a regular, daily fight for Kristin and/or me. It is horrible. He doesn't want to get dressed. Doesn't like any of his clothes. Always wants to wear shorts and short sleeves. He kicks. Screams. Tears his clothes off. The works. I don't have the words to even describe how difficult and horrible it is getting this little three year old dressed.
We also got in a fight in the car on the way to Grandma and Grandpa's. After talking about, and agreeing, that he would start listening better, I asked him a question and he refused to answer. Infuriating behavior, so I snatched his computer. He cried and I wanted to too.
We had similar big and small blowouts throughout the day and evening. Not fun. Kristin has come up with a new system to try and modify this behavior. He gets a reward box. Yep, for being a little S-O-B he gets a box with a bunch of cool stuff in it that he can have when he does something he should just do anyway. Hmm. Hopefully it will work, and we do plan to really make him earn his rewards. For example, if he gets dressed everyday without much fuss he gets a sticker on a chart. At the end of the week, if he has 5 stickers, he can have something from the box. I'm hoping this isn't too soft of a parenting method. I am doubtful anything will work, so I guess it makes sense to try the reward box instead of going straight to face punches. Obviously Henry is clearly my favorite child now.
I will give Cole credit for his behavior once we are out of the house. He is usually a very good boy. He accompanied me to a work party on Saturday because Kristin got sick. We were all set with babysitters, plans to go to this work party and then to meet people out afterwards and Kristin goes and gets sick. She sucks. I don't like going places alone, so I took Cole just because he is easier to deal with at places than Henry (due to age). Cole seemed to have a lot of fun at the party. He met a four year old boy, Andrew, and they were running around the basement most of the time. They also started to hold hands and embrace in a hug here and there. This did not make me happy, and sadly I even saw Cole initiate a couple hugs. Cole also got to stick fight a little bit (my boss is a stick fighter, seriously). I felt like a bad parent though. As Cole was stick fighting with the basement pole, I heard Andrew's mother in the background yell, "Andrew! Don't touch the sticks!" In addition to having fun with Andrew, Cole enjoyed eating snacks and was a great party helper - getting me and my coworkers beers from the cooler.
 |
| Check out that stick speed! |
 |
| And you can see he won at getting dressed this day - short sleeves |
 |
| And then he looks like this and all is forgiven |
Cole and Jake (the three year old I nanny) should meet up! I have the same fight with Jake every day about getting dressed; he only wants shorts and short sleeves as well! I finally hid them all in the closet; after a few days he forgot about his obsession! I use the reward box for tantrums - seems to work well for me, but sometimes (a lot of times) I forget to use it and then have to modify on Friday!
ReplyDeleteCan't wait for baby Kroner to be three! ;)
OMG! Ellie does the same fricken thing everyday. She only wants short sleeves too. We tried hiding them too, but then she wouldn't even put clothes on. Putting pj's on at night is also a struggle. What I found that works (most of the time) is distracting them. So when I'm putting her clothes on, I'll drill her a million questions about things she wants to talk about... like asking her about her new Hello Kitty stocking, if she wants to eat yogurt after her bath, or just any question that will make her think and not realize we are putting her clothes on. I hate to say it, but I'm glad that we are not the only parents with a crazy child. I hope this is a phase.
ReplyDelete