Looking forward to tomorrow....

Looking forward to tomorrow...it can't be worse than today! Just kidding, in spite of the rages and the 911 call, today wasn't so so bad. The kids and I played Rock Band for a couple of hours tonight and had a good time.

About an hour or two before dinner, Shauna was being snotty about something and I gave her a time-out. She refused to set the timer so I told her if she didn't set the timer, the time-out would never start and she would never get out. Her reply was, "I don't care, I'm not setting it." And upstairs she went, screaming and crying about how much she hates this family, etc.

Now it is sort of unusual for Shauna to throw a tantrum. For the most part, she has always been cooperative, sweet and even tempered. Lately, however, she has been starting to get quite an attitude and refusing to do chores or other things she is asked. Sometimes she will do them, but she makes sighs, rolls her eyes, moans and complains the whole time.

After about an hour and a half upstairs, she came down and asked if she could have dinner. I said yes, as soon as you set your timer and take your time-out. Well, she exploded and began screaming and yelling all over again. She screamed and stomped her way up to her room and continued to scream at the top of her lungs (surprised the neighbors didn't call 911) for about a half an hour or so.

When the screaming stopped, I went into her room, at which time she started screaming, get out. I told her that when she was done tantruming and was ready to talk about things, just let me know and I will be happy to talk to you. She came down about 10 minutes later, eyes almost swollen shut. She walked right up to me and let me hug her.

Alex and Hannah felt sorry for her and helped her fix herself some dinner, which we had just finished putting away. She ate and then I talked to her a little bit. I told her that she needed to come up some other ways of handling her anger, besides screaming and throwing things around her room. Her first suggestion was, "you mean like cutting myself?" then she suggested that I let her have a pillow and scissors so she could stab the pillow because that would make her feel better. Hmmmmm....then she told me that she had a scissors in her room and was thinking about killing herself with it. I asked why she wanted to kill herself and she said so we would all feel bad about being mean to her, but then she thought about her friends and figured they would be sad, too, so she didn't do it. Ugh!

After those confessions, we talked about how suicide and cutting never help, etc. I also told her she might have to talk to a doctor about her feelings. I know she was only feeling sorry for herself and not seriously considering any of the above, but it makes me cringe that a 10 year old is even thinking that way. I am going to talk to her again tomorrow and see if she can come up with some other ideas for venting her frustration.

Oh, by the way, Hannah told me that the reason she had to hit me to feel better during her rage was because I never got her the punching bag she asked for. Once again it is all Mom's fault!