My son is 4. He makes messes for lots of reasons. But lately, he's doing it to get a rise out of me.
Today:
He pulled all of the clothes out of the closet and off their hangers while I was nursing the baby in the living room. Nadia was in there with him playing with their toys. I put the baby down and went in to play with them and saw the mess. I thought to look for a mess because he dove under his blanket when I walked into the room. But he thought it was funny. I played his game a little and exclaimed at the closet being empty and I asked him if he could find any of the blue shirts for me to hang up. He told me to do it myself. I told him it was a lot for me to do and I wanted to do it with him and I wasn't sure which color blue was. He said to have Nadia do it and ran out of the room.
Nadia started doing it but I stopped her and we went into the living room to see what Skanda was up to. He had dumped his train tracks out of their box and thrown them around the room. I asked him if he wanted to play train tracks. He said yes. So I started collecting them and asked him to get me pieces to build the track together. He said no and ran back to his room. I had a feeling that he wanted attention and he likes to make me chase him. So I left the train tracks and started walking to his room when I heard the tell tale sound of the toybox being emptied.
He exclaimed WHAT A MESS! and then laughed like a maniac. I acted all excited and suggested we play a game throwing them into the toybox. He said no thanks, that he would do it later and ran outside where he knew I wouldn't follow because I wasn't dressed.
I just can't walk around cleaning up after him. But I also can't convince or force him or creatively come up with a way to get him to help clean up or stop making messes just for the sake of making messes. I know it sounds like I'm being permissive, but I've already gone through years of telling him not to make messes. If I was doing it that way, I would spend all day telling him what he wasn't supposed to be doing. He would be in trouble all day. So today, I tried to put the positive spin on it. Focus on positive things, show him or tell him the way we DO things, not what we DON'T do. I thought that maybe if he dind't have a huge reaction from me, he wouldn't be so tempted to do it over and over.
I also can't even spend time with him since I'm walking around cleaning up after him all day. It's like dominos. It takes forever to set up but two seconds to destroy.
I feel a rage building up. I have no idea how to respond to this. I try and try to rack my brains but everytime I go over it, I just get angry. I'm making such an effort to be calm about it, to not focus on the mess or his desire to make it and not help finish put it back together. But I"m so frazzled trying to pick things up, that I can't even find much time to spend with him doing things he likes. And when I do try to do things he likes, he just turns it into a huge mess. His dad's solution is to just hide the toy box and hide the legos and hide the train tracks and only bring them out when there is direct supervision. But that never happens because I have three children and one of them is a new baby. And then he has nothing to do and plays in the kitchen. So his dad puts cabinet locks on everything. So then he plays in the bathroom. I put a stop to the lock everything up madness. But now what?
Right now, he's about to dump his huge lego bucket out so I have to go remove it from him and get back to finishing this... I haven't said anything but I can hear the noise of the legos getting crazier than if he were just searching through them. (I'm sitting here and not playing with him because I'm nursing Nadia to sleep and if I sit next to him and nurse her, he'll holler in her face to wake her up and think it's funny).
I tried to put Nadia down so I could play with him and Amelie woke up. Now I'm trying to nurse her to sleep (and again, if I nurse her near him, he'll wake her up). I try to include him in things like changing diapers and bathing the baby and helping me fold clothes and wash dishes because they have to get done and if I can do them with him, we can spend more time together. But he says no. He won't even get dressed. He spends his day naked around the house and even hates to go places. When we do leave, he wants me to dress him. I can be in the garage and getting in the car and he won't put his own clothes on. He'll stand in the doorway and yell for me to put his clothes on. As soon as I get near him, he runs away. So I play silly tickle monster or some other energetic game to get him to let me dress him. It's exhausting! When I was pregnant, I just didn't do it and we hardly left the house. We do have a dog and a big yard and cousins who come to play sometimes.
I wish I could say this is a new thing since the baby was born, but it's not. I even had a thread some months back called mess man. He really enjoys projects on a grand scheme. When we go outside to blow bubbles, he gets bored quickly and then dumps the bubble solution on the ground and smears it everywhere. If I leave a bottle of soap or shampoo or tube of toothpaste in his reach, he'll empty them.
But this new attitude of refusing to participate in the 2nd phase of his project, cleanup, is new. I guess he's testing me. But my anger at the way it's adding exponentially to my workload is clouding my ability to respond appropriately. HELP! I feel paralyzed. I don't want to be mean and say or do the wrong thing. I have expressed how it makes me upset that he has all the fun without me and doesn't want to do the rest of the activity with me. *sigh*
You know, I think he might be sick of me pussyfooting around issues. Last night I was scrubbing the sidewalk chalk off the kitchen floor and it was hard work. I gave him the option of helping (I actually didn't expect his help with that one) and he didn't want to. Fine. But after 20 mins of scrubbing on my hands and knees, he found more chalk and wanted to draw. I said things like, "not tonight, I've just cleaned it up." or "we're done with chalk for today" or "please put the chalk away" or "i don't want you to mess up my clean floor", things like that.
So he looked at me, scribbled on the floor, and said "Mommy, you should just say NO"
Today:
He pulled all of the clothes out of the closet and off their hangers while I was nursing the baby in the living room. Nadia was in there with him playing with their toys. I put the baby down and went in to play with them and saw the mess. I thought to look for a mess because he dove under his blanket when I walked into the room. But he thought it was funny. I played his game a little and exclaimed at the closet being empty and I asked him if he could find any of the blue shirts for me to hang up. He told me to do it myself. I told him it was a lot for me to do and I wanted to do it with him and I wasn't sure which color blue was. He said to have Nadia do it and ran out of the room.
Nadia started doing it but I stopped her and we went into the living room to see what Skanda was up to. He had dumped his train tracks out of their box and thrown them around the room. I asked him if he wanted to play train tracks. He said yes. So I started collecting them and asked him to get me pieces to build the track together. He said no and ran back to his room. I had a feeling that he wanted attention and he likes to make me chase him. So I left the train tracks and started walking to his room when I heard the tell tale sound of the toybox being emptied.
He exclaimed WHAT A MESS! and then laughed like a maniac. I acted all excited and suggested we play a game throwing them into the toybox. He said no thanks, that he would do it later and ran outside where he knew I wouldn't follow because I wasn't dressed.
I just can't walk around cleaning up after him. But I also can't convince or force him or creatively come up with a way to get him to help clean up or stop making messes just for the sake of making messes. I know it sounds like I'm being permissive, but I've already gone through years of telling him not to make messes. If I was doing it that way, I would spend all day telling him what he wasn't supposed to be doing. He would be in trouble all day. So today, I tried to put the positive spin on it. Focus on positive things, show him or tell him the way we DO things, not what we DON'T do. I thought that maybe if he dind't have a huge reaction from me, he wouldn't be so tempted to do it over and over.
I also can't even spend time with him since I'm walking around cleaning up after him all day. It's like dominos. It takes forever to set up but two seconds to destroy.
I feel a rage building up. I have no idea how to respond to this. I try and try to rack my brains but everytime I go over it, I just get angry. I'm making such an effort to be calm about it, to not focus on the mess or his desire to make it and not help finish put it back together. But I"m so frazzled trying to pick things up, that I can't even find much time to spend with him doing things he likes. And when I do try to do things he likes, he just turns it into a huge mess. His dad's solution is to just hide the toy box and hide the legos and hide the train tracks and only bring them out when there is direct supervision. But that never happens because I have three children and one of them is a new baby. And then he has nothing to do and plays in the kitchen. So his dad puts cabinet locks on everything. So then he plays in the bathroom. I put a stop to the lock everything up madness. But now what?
Right now, he's about to dump his huge lego bucket out so I have to go remove it from him and get back to finishing this... I haven't said anything but I can hear the noise of the legos getting crazier than if he were just searching through them. (I'm sitting here and not playing with him because I'm nursing Nadia to sleep and if I sit next to him and nurse her, he'll holler in her face to wake her up and think it's funny).
I tried to put Nadia down so I could play with him and Amelie woke up. Now I'm trying to nurse her to sleep (and again, if I nurse her near him, he'll wake her up). I try to include him in things like changing diapers and bathing the baby and helping me fold clothes and wash dishes because they have to get done and if I can do them with him, we can spend more time together. But he says no. He won't even get dressed. He spends his day naked around the house and even hates to go places. When we do leave, he wants me to dress him. I can be in the garage and getting in the car and he won't put his own clothes on. He'll stand in the doorway and yell for me to put his clothes on. As soon as I get near him, he runs away. So I play silly tickle monster or some other energetic game to get him to let me dress him. It's exhausting! When I was pregnant, I just didn't do it and we hardly left the house. We do have a dog and a big yard and cousins who come to play sometimes.
I wish I could say this is a new thing since the baby was born, but it's not. I even had a thread some months back called mess man. He really enjoys projects on a grand scheme. When we go outside to blow bubbles, he gets bored quickly and then dumps the bubble solution on the ground and smears it everywhere. If I leave a bottle of soap or shampoo or tube of toothpaste in his reach, he'll empty them.
But this new attitude of refusing to participate in the 2nd phase of his project, cleanup, is new. I guess he's testing me. But my anger at the way it's adding exponentially to my workload is clouding my ability to respond appropriately. HELP! I feel paralyzed. I don't want to be mean and say or do the wrong thing. I have expressed how it makes me upset that he has all the fun without me and doesn't want to do the rest of the activity with me. *sigh*
You know, I think he might be sick of me pussyfooting around issues. Last night I was scrubbing the sidewalk chalk off the kitchen floor and it was hard work. I gave him the option of helping (I actually didn't expect his help with that one) and he didn't want to. Fine. But after 20 mins of scrubbing on my hands and knees, he found more chalk and wanted to draw. I said things like, "not tonight, I've just cleaned it up." or "we're done with chalk for today" or "please put the chalk away" or "i don't want you to mess up my clean floor", things like that.
So he looked at me, scribbled on the floor, and said "Mommy, you should just say NO"
