in which Mum loses it
0 comment Thursday, May 29, 2014 |
One of Son's things is to be passive-aggressive. Given any instruction he will do it slightly wrong, or choose another way to do it, or if he's been asked not to do something, do it one more time. He'll do this at every instruction, but when he's been thwarted in some way he'll go that extra mile. If he's not happy when he gets into the car for instance, he'll shut his door too gently so it's not shut properly, and because of the child-lock he can't open and shut it again himself, meaning I have to get out and do it for him. Ha! Take that Mummy!
Little molecule sized punishments meted out at every turn. Deal with that sort of thing every day, all day, and it starts to feel like your brain is beginning to fry. It's a bit like the consistent low-level mental assault that makes Chinese water torture so effective, where each little drip of passive-aggressiveness pushes you just a tiny little bit further towards insanity.
I deal with it mostly by keeping myself in a good place mentally and ignoring his little assaults. He's just testing the world, seeing how far he can trust it's got better. I mostly ignore what he is doing, don't give him the confrontation he craves, sometimes I even smile at him to say it's OK, you're annoying, but I love you, but sometimes I deal consequences if the behaviour warrants it.
Two days ago however I tried the chase-the-child-up-the-stairs method followed by the scream-at-the-child-to-just-bloody-well-d0-as-he's-told technique.
It didn't work. If my parents had ever lost it with me like I'd lost it with my Son, I'd have been a quivering wreck for days. But Son likes it. Gives him a chance to scream back at me. After shouting at me that NO HE WAS NOT GOING TO DO WHAT HE WAS TOLD I was then called stupid, an idiot and told repeatedly how much he hated me.
I did the only rational thing I could in the circumstances and started calling him an idiot back, and how much I hated him, and how I was going to stop feeding him, and how he was going to spend the rest of his life in his bedroom and he could die there an old man !
Realising that this seemed a bit drastic for taking another photo with the DS when I had told him not to, I burst out laughing. He laughed too and then immediately said he was sorry for taking a photo when I'd told him to stop. We hugged and kissed and told each other that we loved each other. Then we carried on with the afternoon. He seemed fine. I wanted to grab a bottle of gin and run to the shed.
I sat with both kids later on the Rug of Truth and Trust and tried to explain that at this time of year Mummies were very busy with Christmas, and this made them tired and irritable, and it was best not to push them because they might lose their temper. I don't know whether they were listening because at the time Daughter was trying to get Son to tickle her feet so she could "accidentally" kick him in the face.

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