For the past week, I've felt I am failing my oldest son, A. Oh, I have been taking care of his bodily needs. I have been caring and affectionate. But A. is reacting to his father's absence and the change in our life in typical ways, the three Rs, if you will: rage, regression and revenge. And I have not been handling it well at all.
A. has always been the sort of child who is easy-going, fun, affectionate and eager to please. He likes to help, dotes on his younger siblings, and goes with the flow. At least, that used to be the way he behaved.
Since The Hubby left, he's been having fits of anger and frustration. He's thrown tantrums (at five!). He's teased and tormented his younger brother. He threw something at the baby the other day, although he did not mean to hurt her, and tearfully rushed to me to confess his wrong when I asked what happened. He loudly misbehaved in church. He refuses to eat foods he enjoys. He refuses to dress and undress himself in a timely manner. He's been talking back.
He is doing things he knows annoy me, such as winding himself and his brother up before bed with a sound he makes. It sounds like a laugh, but it's really a fiendish, nasty, mirthless squeak that means, "I'm being as bad as I can and I want you to know it." I hate that sound.
The stress of all this makes me want to vomit.
I'm generally a no-nonsense kind of mom. I try to say what I mean, mean what I say, and do what I say I'm doing to do. Tantrums and public misbehaviour means we go home NOW. I try hard not to yell or to guilt-trip. But A. has been testing me on so many simultaneous fronts that I am losing my cool. I am yelling far more than I like.
In church the other day, I asked him if we needed to leave, and he said he wanted to go. Well, there goes my usual consequence to poor behaviour! I was stumped, until my friend G. suggested that before we leave the house, I calmly explain a consequence to poor behaviour on top of leaving. So we will now leave anyway, and the consequence will be the TV does not get turned on for the rest of the day.
I have used this at bedtime once (the consequence to purposely misbehaving on the way to bed is now no story before lights out) and it worked very well. But honestly, I don't want his obedience to be based on the stick. I believe in consequences that are reasonable, simple, and practical. This fits, but it still feels like a punishment rather than discipline. Perhaps I need to make it clear that if he misbehaves, we won't have time for a story.
But the reason I feel I am failing him the most is I know the main reason why he is doing this: we haven't been alone together, just the two of us, since November. I have alone time with Little I. when A. goes to play school. (Alone except for the baby, but she's still a bit of a nonentity when it comes to playtime.) But I never have time when I. is away and A. gets to be the centre of attention.
We used to do that all the time before I got pregnant and sick.
I'm going to try to fix that this week, if I can. I'm going to ask a friend to watch I. and maybe baby N. while I take A. on a short outing, just the two of us. And I'm going to try to do that at least once every two weeks.
What makes this all sting even more is I am failing Christ. Every night when I go to bed, I ask Him to make me holy. Holiness is just another word for loving others the way Jesus loves us: completely, despite our faults and failings and the way we hurt Him. So I have been asking for opportunities to love those who are hard to love, and here is my son, the first child born alive from my body, who is driving me up a wall. And instead of embracing the moment to love him totally while disciplining firmly, I am ranting and railing at him. I am not really forgiving him after an annoyance or slight. And I feel I am not really giving him what he needs right now; I'm either too firm or too soft.
I'm not looking for parenting advice here in this forum; my mom and G. have already gotten lots of phone calls and will probably get a few more, and I trust their advice. I just needed to vent. Now that I have, I think I need to hit a confessional booth before Mass this Sunday.
A., if someday you read this, I'm really sorry, although I've said that already. I'm trying my best.
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