I am really struggling with discipline and my eldest. He has always been a challenge to motivate to behave well. He is a very smart, intense little boy. I think part of my problem is that he thinks and talks like an 8-year old and has the emotional maturity of a 4-year old. He is gifted, emotionally intense, and perfectionistic, and I think these all come into play.
He is very internally driven and his interests change frequently - except for his never ending desire to expand his knowledge of video games, movies, and tv shows. Except for screen time limits, there is nothing that consistently motivates him and if I guess wrong about where his interests are today, I get into a spiral where he gets mad at the fact that I don't "get" him on top of whatever the original issue was.
When he was younger, a very intense form of time-in was the only form of communication that could get him out of an emotional storm. These days, I find that I am not usually being able to be present for that level of intensity due to the demands of his siblings.
We have resorted to trying rewards and losses of privileges to try to motivate him as he is not motivated by anything as simple as feeling good about doing the right thing or making Mummy or Daddy happy. But, he has a massive emotional response to being remprimanded. And, getting him through that response always seems to blunt the impact of the original criticism.
On top of that, as soon as he has lost a privilege or failed to earn a reward, he completely gives up and figures he can be as bad as he wants because he no longer cares and he knows that we won't do anything to actually hurt him. And, now he has taken things another step and started pretending that he doesn't care about the reward or punishment in order to avoid the emotional toll of being reprimanded. I know that I used to do that and the end result was that I stopped allowing myself to feel strongly about anything. And, because DS1 thinks so fast, this is all happening without the slightest consciousness on his part.
I need ideas on how to help him mature through this without being an absolute nuisance socially and without losing his enthusiasm for life. Any suggestions are gratefully appreciated.
He is very internally driven and his interests change frequently - except for his never ending desire to expand his knowledge of video games, movies, and tv shows. Except for screen time limits, there is nothing that consistently motivates him and if I guess wrong about where his interests are today, I get into a spiral where he gets mad at the fact that I don't "get" him on top of whatever the original issue was.
When he was younger, a very intense form of time-in was the only form of communication that could get him out of an emotional storm. These days, I find that I am not usually being able to be present for that level of intensity due to the demands of his siblings.
We have resorted to trying rewards and losses of privileges to try to motivate him as he is not motivated by anything as simple as feeling good about doing the right thing or making Mummy or Daddy happy. But, he has a massive emotional response to being remprimanded. And, getting him through that response always seems to blunt the impact of the original criticism.
On top of that, as soon as he has lost a privilege or failed to earn a reward, he completely gives up and figures he can be as bad as he wants because he no longer cares and he knows that we won't do anything to actually hurt him. And, now he has taken things another step and started pretending that he doesn't care about the reward or punishment in order to avoid the emotional toll of being reprimanded. I know that I used to do that and the end result was that I stopped allowing myself to feel strongly about anything. And, because DS1 thinks so fast, this is all happening without the slightest consciousness on his part.
I need ideas on how to help him mature through this without being an absolute nuisance socially and without losing his enthusiasm for life. Any suggestions are gratefully appreciated.
