She came down, waking me up, saying he had taken her glasses, wouldn't give them back, and then once she'd gotten them, he'd bit her (this is a new thing with him and belies some underlying emotional issues we think.) I asked why he was in her bed in the first place, and she explained how he had come in and then shortly after getting in the bed proceeded to take up almost all the room. My son does this—he sprawls.
I gave her some suggestions, hoping he or she would elect to go to another room, but no, it only got worse, so I had to go upstairs. My son has been raging angry at the slightest provocation—provocation he decides is such, even if it's calm words of authority. I sent him back to his room based on his tone, and he started screaming. His father came upstairs at that point, and we turned on the lights to his room, which infuriated him. He yelled at us, calling us all manner of names, including some swear words (which he never does.) We wanted to know why he was so upset and just wanted him to calm down.
His blame machine was kicked into high gear. It worked against him badly because we had to stop the verbal abuse he was throwing at all members of his family (the dog excluded) about how it was all our fault. He had done nothing and/or it was an accident or he didn't remember or one time we had done such and such to him, and therefore he was in the right, or we owed him money or screen time based on how poorly we were treating him.
For the most part, we remained calm throughout his tirade, but we didn't back down. He was required to apologize to us and his sister, who got upset for him mid-way through and turned to his side, trying to help him in any way she could. Eventually, after a long time, he calmed down enough to apologize to our satisfaction, and we left the room. I tried to leave things on a good note, but I wasn't sure if I'd gotten through.
My husband and I talked about it afterward—something was up. He was getting continuously corrected, and even though he deserved all of the corrections. Some were him not paying attention and overrunning screen time. Some were intentional disregard of our requests. He wasn't responding the first time to anything, ignoring us, yelling, being incredibly rude, and trying to pick fights with his sister and us any time he could manage it. He was fighting back against what? Not being understood? The last time this happened, that's what Dhruti said was going on. So, instead of being more firm with him today, we went in the opposite direction.
I got up early to take the dog to be groomed (hooray, finally), and when I returned, I went to his room, opened the door, and quietly started cleaning up the mess. When he realized I was in the room, instead of yelling at me, he said, "Mom, I love you." That was about as atypical as you can get for him. I climbed into bed with him and hugged him for a long while, something he would in no way entertain the night before and talked to him about my ideas for the day.
We needed to work on his Father's Day gift, and I had some ideas to expand on what we'd talked about before. He thought that sounded like a good plan. Also, I told him I thought we should go to Target and get him new bedding and maybe something for his father by way of a gift. He was interested but not excited.
The night before, one of his complaints was that no bed was comfortable (save his sister's). He's wanted the bottom bunk for several years, and this was a chance for him to move to it and get some bedding he liked in the process that wasn't purple and pink and his sister's. So we had a plan for the day that involved him and me spending some quality time together, and him getting his room (well, bed) redone. Sounded good, right?
Then, he lost his mind. He didn't want to do any of that! It was horrible I would make him do any of it, including possibly getting his hair cut, something he had asked me to do personally for him he was so unhappy about the length of his hair. I was so mean as a mother. I held firm and told him we would just drive around if he didn't want to do anything, but he was getting in the car.
When he begrudgingly got in the car, things started to improve as I suspected they would, and by the time we were at Target, he was in a good mood again. We spent a long time looking at all sorts of things in our masks. He finally decided that yes, he did want to get new bedding, but it wasn't what I thought he was going to pick out. He didn't want any character or theme-based bedding. He wanted blue and white bold stripes. He picked out two super fuzzy pillows with the feature of being hard to hold. They're so soft they slip through your arms.
I suggested we get him a towel and bath mat to match, thinking this might be a good motivator for him to start showering in his room. He loved it all and ended the trip by spending the last of his "spend" allowance money on some Pokemon cards.
We left, got him drive-through lunch, and picked up the dog from the groomers. When we got home, I had a plan, and thankfully my husband and daughter were playing Katan, and my son became immediately interested in what they were doing. I told my son I was going to work on his room to update it as a surprise in a bit. Would he be okay with that? Surprisingly, he was. Typically, any change and my son goes slightly mad (read furious) but in this case he was ready for it.
I did more than just change the sheets and comforter out on his sister's old bed. She had the lower bunk which was had a full-sized mattress. His top bunk was a twin. The new bed was going to be bigger for him and wasn't constrained with railings all around. There was a lot of "growing up" I did to the room. I removed the stuffed animals from the top bunk and remade it, leaving only his top favorite animals nestled in the corner.
For the bottom bunk, everything was pulled that was his sisters, the bed was crisply made in blue and white and the two huge fluffy pillows were added against the back wall. There was more that needed doing though. I put away a lot of the toys my son really didn't like in the room like the wooden kitchen set with loads and loads of plastic food and cooking implements all over the place. I cleared out some drawers his sister had used, taking those things to her room and removed the mass of things from under the bed they had shoved there over time.
My son had a second dresser now that his sister had moved out so I moved things there that had been otherwise cramped and freed up some space in the closet for books by taking all the braille books over to my daughter's closet. I tidied up the bathroom, put up the matching blue towels and bath mat, and then called him in.
I held my breath. Would he like it or get upset that I'd "grown-up" his room because he was acting so very grown-up himself. This was strategery on my part for the day. I wanted to improve his self-image and generally have a positive day with him.
He loved it. He was so excited. He had his father hold the slippery fuzzy pillow and marveled at all the little changes that made the room different. He remembered the towels and took his father to the bathroom to look at the updates there. There was his very own towel right there at the shower's edge. He could take a shower and get his own towel and he didn't have to take a bath downstairs anymore if he didn't want to.
My son was so excited he ran to find his sister so he could show her. I had been worried about this part. Siblings always have the, "it's not fair" response to anything. I had been showing my daughter the little things (I was calling them, "upgrades") that I'd done to her room during the afternoon as well. I had organized all her braille books, all the way back to Kindergarten, including the tactile picture ones Mrs. Aagaard had made for her. She was very happy about that as well as some of the other things I did to organize her room.
I decided to give her some new responsibilities that I thought she would like. I brought up the nighttime steroid eye drop and put it in her nightstand drawer alongside the cuticle clippers she had wanted for herself recently. Then I showed her the big one: her iPhone and Apple Watch were sitting on her nightstand in their chargers. She didn't get it at first. Then I explained she was now responsible for putting the watch on and taking it off to charge at night. And also...she could have control of her phone, something we haven't let her do before now.
She was very happy and I think that privilege. It isn't much of a change although it sounds like it might be. She only uses the phone to call a very select few family members. She can't use it otherwise. Having her manage where it is and if it's charged is almost easier for us. But it's a big step in her mind.
Back to my son's room: I had told him he could pull off the wall stickers on the wall under the top bunk that my daughter had put there. I told him maybe don't mention that right now to his sister but he either didn't hear me or was just so excited he told her anyway. And she didn't care one bit. She is so happy in her own room she isn't looking back at all.
My son is a lot happier about the situation after today, I hope. We've got more to work on than new sheets and pillows will solve, but it was a good day for my son. I like seeing him genuinely happy.
The Big Boy Update: A bit after we'd done the grand tour of my son's updated room, I was in there finishing things up. My son came in and said, "Mom, who's room is this?" I said, "It's your room" and smiled my biggest smile. He smiled back with a thoughtful look and said, "It doesn't feel like it." I asked him if it felt different and he agreed that's what it was. Was it a good feeling different? Yes, he agreed, it was a very good feeling.
The Tiny Girl Chronicles: My daughter has been wanting to collect the advertisement mail for some reason. There have been newspaper inserts and those packets of 4x6 inch glossy card stock ads or coupons. She doesn't want to get rid of them, so I just move them to the side of her desk. This afternoon she was on the phone with Mimi and had taken her braillewriter into her bedroom. I heard her typing away and came in to say hello to my mother. I looked down and she was typing on those small card stock add mailings. I was thinking about how smart it was for her to reuse them because she couldn't see what was on them and it was a great source of paper for her. About that time she said, "Momma, where did you get this glossy card stock? It's really good." So I told her what it was and we all agreed we'd just found a free source of paper for her. I told her later if she wanted to stump me, she could type on those sheets because I couldn't possibly read the dots amongst all the imagery on the page. She smiled mischievously at that.
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