Reed

I normally don't share the nitty gritty of our life on this blog.  I know it isn't an accurate depiction of life, but in the future when I look back, I don't really want to have my memory clouded with anything other than happy times.  And happy times are normally what we have at our house.  Unfortunately, we have not so good days as well.  These are days that I know will pass, but I wanted to write it down mainly for the benefit of my son.

I say benefit of my son, because if he happens to have a child who is very similar to him, I hope that we will still have these words written below that I can show him and say "see, you did this too".  I hope that he grows out of this phase very quickly for it puts a strain on all of us.  My heart aches for my little guy who struggles to control his emotions, especially when he is a little tired.

Last night is a perfect example of what we, including Reed, go through on a regular basis.   Now, before I detail the outbursts, I want to mention that when we aren't in these moments Reed is an incredible little boy.  He says things like please and thank you without being prompted.  He watches over his sister to make sure she is okay and has what she needs.  He gives us all hugs and kisses randomly.  He says "whatever you say mom" when I ask him to do things.  He plays with his toys alone when I am dealing with Carson without any complaints.  It is those moments when he is a total rockstar that help me make it through the next outburst without crumbling.  Because honestly, these outbursts are hard to handle.  They certainly test our patience.  So, here we go.

Last night at church dinner, after Reed had finished his meal, he was running around like most kids do after eating (although he hadn't eaten nearly enough).  Even though he didn't eat, I still let him go get an ice cream.  Throughout the meal and ice cream eating, he was continuously ignoring my requests for him to sit and stop running.  These aren't things I generally am too concerned about, especially when everyone else is being chaotic.  It is certainly hard to convince my very active 4 year old that sitting is a better idea than running around when that is what he is seeing.  Again, not too concerning.  The concerning part comes when he is continuously hitting his friend for picking up Carson's toy that had fallen on the ground or just saying something about the food on this plate.  He then complained that his friend was making eating ice cream a race and then turned around two seconds later to brag to his friend that he was winning.  He is an extremely sensitive kid and he likes to be the one in charge, making the rules, saying what goes.  Unfortunately for him, all little kids have opinions.  He does not deal well.

After finally finishing dinner without any major altercations, we headed out to the playground.  I assumed that this would be just what he needed.  Open space to run and have fun.  After being outside for a mere 5 minutes, he had already punched his friend in the head for doing something he wanted to do.  I told him that was inappropriate and if he touched his friend again, we were leaving immediately.  He screamed at me and then calmed down. There were several times when I had to keep him in check, but he seemed to understand.  We then moved to another playground that both of the boys agreed they wanted to play on.

After 10 to 15 minutes of playtime, I noticed Reed punching two little boys who are brothers.  He, of course, ran away from me when I tried to get on to him.  Once I caught up to him and told him that we had to leave because he chose to hit his friends, this is when the outburst began.  He screamed at the top of his lungs at me.  Calling me stupid, his friends stupid, etc.  I thought that he was coming down from his outburst and agreeing to leave when I picked him up.  He proceeded to punch me in the jaw.  Let me say that it is incredibly hard to not spank a child who has just punched you in the jaw, but what does that help?  I continued to talk and talk to him trying to calm him down.  He continued flailing, hitting, kicking.  I finally calmed him down enough to get him to leave the playground, although he screamed at me the entire way to the car.  Once we got to the car, I put him in the back and he picked up his golf club to swing at me.  Ugh.

If you have any advice or suggestions for things we should try with our little guy, we would very much appreciate it.  My heart aches for him.  I think that maybe he won't have any friends if he continues to act like this.  Or maybe he will stop getting invited to play dates, which I can't really blame the moms for considering.  Maybe we should try no sugar, no processed foods?  We are honestly willing to try anything to help Reed.  This too shall pass, right?  It can't pass soon enough.  It is definitely one of the most difficult parenting dilemmas we have faced.

Today was a great day at our house.  No outbursts.  At all.  He was a rockstar and even said at the end of the day what a good boy he had been.  I really do think that he wants to act better, but he just can't.  It is always so heartbreaking to see him get upset after he finally calms down.  We feel so helpless.  We love him so very much and we just know that if we stay calm and keep on keeping on, this will be a phase that we laugh about one day.  Or maybe we won't, but at least we will breathe a sigh of relief that these outbursts are a distant memory.