Learning from Demetrius’ Fits…..
Oh yea, you all know this face and sound…
Thursdays are hard in the Grasso house. You are getting that ‘end of the week’ tired before the ‘its Friday and then two days off from work/school/etc…’ euphoria. We put a big cherry on top of it by having Demetrius do a couple of hours of therapy on Thursday afternoons.
So should we be surprised that on Thursday we sometimes have multiple meltdowns? Not just crying…but anger, door slamming, kicking and screaming on the floor meltdowns. And sometimes you can hear them coming…sometimes they come out of nowhere…we had one when I got home last night…or should I say it was the one I was privy to.
So what do you do? Of course we told him that he needed to go to his room, throwing a fit the whole way. However, it was obvious the kid was just run down, hungry and was operating on an empty tank. After slamming his door three times in a row (I always somewhat think his fits are funny, because he is such a happy-go-lucky and laid-back kid that he has to really work himself up to be mad and he can’t keep it going…and you can see him working at it to stay mad…unlike his sister, who can stoke her fire at a moments notice), I went in his room, put my arms around him and lifted him onto his bed, sat him on the end and knelt down so we were looking eyes-to-eyes…he went immediately from an ‘I’m angry’ cry to a ‘I’m tired’ cry. He also needed some tactile stimulation, so I bear hugged him as hard as I could.
The fit stopped, and I told him it was okay to be grumpy and mad, but he needed to tell us that he is tired and we’ll try to help….quiet time, et al…we also pretended we have a ‘quiet button’ that if we push it and whisper our numbers from 1 to 10, that it will calm us down. He bought it.
During dinner I watched him eat, he slouched. He was visibly tired, and had a hard time sitting up without leaning on the table or kind of falling into his chair. He isn’t very strong in his upper body, so it really shows when he is tired.
And then…
He had a bowl of ice cream…
And then…
He wanted to wrestle…
We did for a while (at first I resisted, I JUST ATE!, but figured that he was still craving some tactile stimulation). He then took his bath and basically passed out in bed (I read and cuddled Maya, but she fell asleep early and when I went in his room to kiss him goodnight he was already out).
I don’t think a lot of what I’m writing today is much different for Demetrius than it is for your son or daughter…all kids go through this. But I wonder if/when this happens with the Pink Bombshell if I’ll react differently? When it comes to our ‘normal’ kids, we typically react to them like their little adults – we don’t vest our intellectual energy and objectivity to filter through a number of variables to figure out what’s wrong, or that’s my experience, I think.
With Demetrius, only once in awhile is he just being a little @#$%…but I don’t know about you, but often I go to that as the FIRST OPTION with Maya, because she can talk back, will talk back, sass her way all the way to her room…but I don’t first think, “Hmmmm – why is she doing this?” I should do that more often. I’ve said it before, but she doesn’t get the breaks cut for her that he does… and the age of four I often expect reactions out of her differently because of him. Not fair for her.
Anyway, the point of all of this? Maybe next time one of yours throws down, you’ll remember this posting to see if you can find out what’s wrong first (for those times that he/she hasn’t thrown down because they just want another piece of candy….)…and if you aren’t the kind of that says, “March that butt right to your room!” as soon as the fit starts… well, you are way ahead of me most of the time.
