Saturdays are the hardest days of the week and knowing that we have only 3 weeks left to pack isn’t making it easier.
last night I had a not-so-pleasant conversation with John where he was quoting some of the “professionals” who have “helped” him over the last two years. He was stating that in “normal” families, both parents sit down with each child and ask them one on one, with no interruptions from anyone else, how they are feeling, what they are thinking, etc.
First of all, I am doubtful that this occurs very often. My parents had only 3 children and were awesome parents, but I don’t remember any times where both of them sat down in a room alone with me just to ask me how I was feeling and what I was thinking. I spent time one on one with my mom or dad a couple times a week for a few minutes, but the only time any of us got both parents to ourselves for any period of time was when we were in deep doo-doo.
John has no clue how to use unstructured time, and so we as parents know that if we are going to make it through the day we have to structure all of his time. He demands complete attention at all times. Obviously, he can’t have it, but he gets most of one of our attention almost every waking moment. Fortunately, the other kids are good at asking for time when they need it and they do pretty well.
I digress -- anyway, apparently most of one of us isn’t enough and he is demanding all of both of us, which just isn’t going to happen. We’re having an in-home therapist come on Monday (requirement of the county) and we’ll ask her how to best handle it, I guess. I’ll be interested in seeing what she thinks.
So, in order to make today survivable, we have to schedule activities. It’s not just for John, as our other kids have trouble with unstructured time, too, but it is going to cut way back on our packing time.
Our plan is to pack and clean until around 1:30 or 2 and then head to watch a cheap movie and have supper out.
The thing that amazes me is that John was able to keep himself busy at the Ranch by watching movies and TV, playing cards, etc. And he did very well in a cottage with 14 other kids, but says he is living in a house with too many children and there are only half as many.
I don’t know why I wrote all of this. Probably to open myself up to criticism. Or maybe just in an attempt to sort through my thoughts...
1 comment:
I have a high-maintenance son and a low-maintenance daughter who are now 17 and almost 19 respectively, and my daughter bitterly resents all the extra time and attention my son got from me (I'm a single parent). I wish now that I had done things differently, but my son was so in-your-face (not in an aggressive way) and omnipresent, it would have required a lot of I-don't-know-what to have helped him accept less from me. He, too, had trouble with unstructured time but eventually learned how to fill it, thank god. I wish I had a solution to offer you, but all I have is empathy.
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