My son has just had two very bad days. I don't know if it's COVID-19 related isolation or something else, but he is fighting back so hard it's painful. Painful to watch. To experience for him and to be the parent for us. He doesn't like some requirements we place on him, such as this time when he was required to sweep up the pretzel pieces he spilled on the floor—yesterday. That started it. It ended, finally, tonight at ten o'clock—hopefully.
Yesterday his backtalk and defiance caused him to lose screens for today until he wrote a full-page apology to his father. He still had to sweep up the pretzels, it's not like he ever gets out of something just because he doesn't want to do it and throws a fit about it. He never wins. He tries so hard though.
He tries to rationalize the situation, claiming we're cruel or in this case, saying his father was a neat freak. Then he called his father an idiot. That's grounds for disciplinary action. Today, all he had to do was write the apology letter he didn't want to write, and he'd get screens back on this holiday day off. Only he didn't want to do it.
I heard things being thrown around upstairs and went to investigate. His sister was outside on her bike so I found him in his room, of his own choosing, with all the kitchenette toys back in the room, pulled out from the closet storage. He was dashing plastic food all over the place. The beds were a mess with pillows and other things from them along the hall in what appeared to be a version of, "the floor is lava" and the pool noodles were laid about in various places.
I told him I liked what he did, but to be sure he cleaned it up before dinner. His sister came in a bit later and I heard them quarreling shortly thereafter. I heard her doing a common complaint, "GET OFF MY BED!" She has the bottom bunk and hates him on it. He didn't budge so apparently after multiple requests, she started kicking him to get him off. So he bit her.
He bit her on her bottom hard enough to draw blood. He will have a consequence for this but I haven't come up with it yet. But still, there was trouble. It got worse for both of them because she had kicked him, also not allowed, although I was sympathetic to her cause because I'd heard what had happened.
It got so bad that I told them they were moving out of their room effective immediately—both of them—because they couldn't get along and I was tired of it. Eventually they decided to work together to clean up the room and hall and came up with a plan to have some semblance of harmony. This was the only way I was going to let them stay in their room. They were barely getting along at that point, but they didn't like the alternative.
As they were finishing up I noticed our neighbors that we're co-isolationing with (I made that term up) out in their back yard with their firepit lit. They were toasting marshmallows. I yelled to the children to hurry down. I sent them next door with marshmallows, chocolate, and graham crackers (I had some on standby) and hoped the neighbors wouldn't mind.
We had about two hours of happy times at this point because it's hard to be unhappy when marshmallows are being toasted. It was good catching up with them, even if it was well before dinner and we were having dessert first.
I thought it was over, but as soon as we got home, my son started up again, taking aggression and anger out on his sister at every turn. She wasn't doing anything, she was trying to steer clear of him even but he was seeking her out and basically being a bully, blocking her scooter with her little Tesla car so she couldn't get around or away from him.
After dinner, he got worse and finally wrote the apology letter, but he was in such a high mental state that folding the laundry was deemed "slavery" and he got in even more trouble for insulting and then hurting his sister's feelings.
Finally, I got him in bed and was able to connect with him emotionally, sitting in bed beside him while we watched a LEGO puzzle box tutorial video and talking about creating it together later to see if we could stump dad. I hope he'll be back to normal tomorrow. This is awful for him.
The Big Boy Update: My son asked me right before I left his room for the night, "Mom, what's the worst way you can kill a person?" I said I didn't know, mostly because it was an alarming question to ask. His next statement made me understand though when he said, "because I want to do whatever that is to COVID-19. Is eradicate a bad way to kill something?" I told him if he could eradicate COVID-19, he would be the hero of the entire world."
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter wanted to help her brother tonight because I told her he was having a really hard time and would she be able to forgive him for biting her and maybe help by folding the cloths he had to do since he had to write the apology letter and still had to take his shower? She folded all his cloths and was so happy coming downstairs to tell him. He screamed at her and called her an idiot and didn't she know he wanted to fold the cloths because now he was going to have to fold the other clothes? (he was going to have to do that anyways with us, we told him.). He was so angry he then said, "I'm going to destroy the pile!" She put the cloths down, turned and went to her room to cry. She rarely does this, she's a tough little girl. I went upstairs and she said, "Mom, I don't understand, why would he want to destroy the work I did?" I told her he was so unhappy right now and we didn't understandy why and that it wasn't her. She has been listening to Dear Evan Hansen a lot lately and her favorite song is, "Anybody Have a Map?" I explained that the song was about two mothers who were trying to help their sons, who were both very unhappy. That as parents, sometimes we feel a lot like that—we wish someone had a map to help us know the right things to say and do to help our children. Even after all that went on today, she was willing to forgive him. I think she understands what its like to be very unhappy and just wants to help.
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