Okay, so! The good news first. T is loving, loving, loving gym and swim camp. Although - he's not mentioning so much about the gym part, so he may just be swimming. That would be a good question to ask his counselors, wouldn't it? I'm a great mom like that.
Now the bad news. T is hating, hating, hating gymnastics.
I saw nothing tonight that explained his level of upset last week or this week. And this week was not pretty.
Of course after witnessing S's tantrums all. freakin. day. long, I was ready to throw a tantrum or two myself.
So here's how it went down. We were home from camp, letting T play a little Wii. It was time to go and I went upstairs to change clothes because I was going to work out after T's class. We tell T it's time to go. R ends up losing his temper over (what else) having to repeat himself endlessly for the kids to do something simple - like put on shoes. T is upset about being yelled at, so he gets into the car with me and off we go to gymnastics with no issues. We get to the Y - no issues. Walk into the gymnastics room - no issues.
The regular teacher isn't there, still no issues. T is there with one more boy and they start warming up. T and his friend start goofing off - instigated by T, of course - both T and his friend get in trouble. Then T decides he's tired and comes and sits down beside me. Okay, he spent 3 hours this afternoon being really active and he just ran like the wind, so I'm not surprised that he's tired. But had he been doing what the coach asked him and not goofing off, he wouldn't be nearly so tired. I send him back to the mat to finish the warm up. A few minutes later, here he comes again. I ask him to go back, he refuses. Actually, he refuses obnoxiously. So I tell him to go back and follow the coach's directions. Again with the refusal and this time? There are tears.
Sigh.
I'm not completely heartless. But he's already been disruptive, which is NOT okay, and now that things aren't going the way he wants, he's pissed. Which, fine. Be angry. But you don't ruin everyone else's experience because you aren't actually in control of the universe. Just sayin'...
So T and I have a standoff. He refuses to rejoin the class (one more student has come in by this point) and I have to pull out the big guns and start taking away privileges. As they consequences mount, T gets angrier and angrier. He turns his back to me and refuses to respond. While I'm not backing down, at this point interaction with T is like taking a horse to water and trying to make it drink. Unless the horse decides he wants some water? That water remains un-drunk.
So I give him a minute. And since no one is paying attention to him, he starts what I can only describe as snorting snot as loudly and rudely as possible. What makes that worse (as if it wasn't already bad enough) is that right beside T is a huge box of tissues. And also? I loathe snot snorting. So ask him to stop, which means he steps it up a notch. I tell him to stop, which means he REALLY steps it up a notch, at which point I pick him up, carry him out of the room and sit him down for a chat in the hallway.
Not my brightest idea - mostly because I'm emotionally provoked. GAH! He's too angry to listen to reason, so I simply tell him that whether or not he participates in class, we are coming to every. single. one. We asked him, he said he wanted to do it, we paid for it, we are coming. Also important to know is that we will not be disrupting the class. If he isn't going to take part, then he will sit quietly and watch. Period.
This does not evoke a positive reaction from T. There's a lot of shouting and tears and anger on his part. When he starts to hit and kick at me, I calmly tell him that at this point in his young life he should know that I will be hitting and kicking back since he knows that behavior is not okay. He restrains himself but is still pretty angry. I wait until he's calmed down a bit and we go back in to watch.
Within five minutes, he wants to join the class again. I tell him that's fine with me, but he's going to have to apologize to the instructor and other kids first. This starts a fresh torrent of anger and tears. I'm on a roll today, right? He does eventually apologize, but he also sobs his heart out and I am having no luck in getting him to tell me what the problem really is. And I? I honestly have no idea.
One of the hardest things about being a parent? Is making your child do what you think (and hope) is the right thing, even when it breaks your heart to make them do it. Parenting - it's certainly not for wusses.
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