2nd late night

And for once, neither one was attributed to Nico. He must be slipping. LOL No, I actually wish it had been that (how sad is that) as that's almost easier to deal with. Last night we had friends over for dinner and a talk. Normally that's more of a cause for rejoicing but in this case, we were trying to play counselor and help them talk to each other and get their relationship started back on the right track. Still not sure if we did much good but hopefully we've gotten enough started and they will get in with a real counselor who will hopefully help them.

Tonight it was Chris. Love that boy dearly but oh, man, teenage hormones are not fun. So the backstory is that I spent Friday and Saturday helping to direct them in cleaning their room a bit. Sunday I spent basically the entire day in there with them helping them get the floor cleaned up and some of the toy storage decluttered. Monday I was in there and helped them get both bookshelves decluttered. Yesterday I told Christopher to get everything out from under the bed. He got most of it out and then all work stopped. They got home from camp and Matthew got through his shell collection and then all work stopped. This morning I was back on their case about getting everything picked up. Remember, this is JUST the stuff that was under the bed and most of that was in storage boxes! They spend 1½hrs playing dress-up and when I went in to vacuum under the bed, things were still a total wreck and you couldn't walk in the room again. I vacuumed and put all the storage boxes back and told them to finish putting the toys away and get the trash picked up. It was barely touched before they broke for lunch and spent much of that time with their noses in books. (For the record, I was working on bill paying, dishes, laundry, and other household stuff when I wasn't in there with them, not on the couch eating bonbons LOL)

They get home from camp and I tell them to get in and pick up the crap on the floor and table. Now it's dinner and they want a game. We had already told Nico on Monday that we would play Apples to Apples on Tuesday and since that didn't happen and he was asking again we figured we would do it. After dinner, the new schedule is whoever is bathing picks up the bedroom while the other 2 pick up the dining room & living room and then they bathe while the vacuuming is being done. But it's been over 20min and while there is a lot of yelling and playing noises coming out, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of picking up going on. So I set the timer for 10min and tell them after that, they go in the bath and I'm picking up and throwing out whatever is left.

Now I've never taken this approach. I've always tried hard not to because I know how much I hated it when it was done to me. But the one thing I remember is that I never had the timer set, it was just sort of, my parents snapped and that was it. I'm sure they'll remember it differently and I'm equally sure the truth is somewhere between their recollections and my own as it so often is. I'm not going to debate all that. I can only hope that my children have seen me in a fairer light as I've been in there with them every couple of months doing this exact same thing trying to help them learn how to keep things clean in there.

Of course, I'm sure it's easy enough to see where this is going. The timer went off and it wasn't done. I sent them to their assigned tasks and went to picking up. Of course, they were constantly coming in to see what was being tossed and beg for those items they didn't wish to lose. Of course, I end up finding a memory card for the Gamecube which belonged to Chris on the floor right as he came in. He watched me throw it in the trash but didn't see me take it out to hide it for later redemption.

Then we had the meltdown. He was all pissed off at me for throwing it away, himself for not picking up the previous 36hrs, his brothers for not picking up more. The whole usual list. He went to vacuum and didn't do a good job but when called on it (as usual), he threw the cat off the couch. I admit, I probably didn't handle it wonderfully well at that point as I told him not to dare throw the animals and that if he was pissed that was fine but not to take it out on innocents. Sounds reasonable put like that but I was yelling as I'd already had enough of his screaming at me by that point.

Mark finally got him calmed down and we talked long about better ways to handle it and I was able to finally show him that I had saved his memory card and that I had had every intention of working with him on a way for him to earn it back. Part of me is glad that he seems to have gotten the point that I can do it but it hurt that not only did he think I have no compassion and no regard for what he loves most in the world but that at one point when talking about what would have happened had he actually hurt the cat when throwing her, he said I would beat him up. Now I have never EVER hit my children in anger. NOT EVER! I know this is currently how he is handling his anger and emotions, by lashing out at those smaller than himself (poor Jonathan is the favorite target of both Christopher and Nico right now) but that's not something that has ever been done to him. Needless to say that we had a long talk about that as well.

We finally ended things without the bag of stuff they are losing being dumped out so they can see it. We are going to do that tomorrow. But I sent Christopher to bed and told him I want him to think it over and come up with a rational way to approach me in the morning on how we can deal with the memory card since my idea could no longer proceed as I had planned. I'm hoping this type of lesson where we talk after his meltdown and then give him time to come up with the correct response will help that type of response sink more firmly into his repertoire. I do think we need to spend some more time modeling and practicing it when he's not in that mood as the outburts that I thought were getting better are starting up again. I can only guess hormones are to blame at this point especially since it's over the stupidest stuff (like just going up and taking the lightsaber Jonathan was playing with for no reason).

Boy the teenage years are going to be some fun.

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Insight from the Dalai Lama:
It one assumes a humble attitude, one's own good qualities will increase. Whereas if one is proud, one will become jealous of others, one will look down on others, and due to that there will be unhappiness in society.