Well, the school couldn’t figure out anything. Apparently most programs aren’t accepting new students 4 weeks from the end of the year. So John gets to stay home with me again tomorrow. He’s still being cooperative but he’s being a little bit antsy. Bart took him lawnmower shopping tonight. He’ll be done being contagious tomorrow morning, so I figure if he wants to contaminate the rest of the world tonight he can go do that.
Tonight I have started trying to pretend like I don’t take my kids and their behaviors as seriously as I do. This is helping for the moment. I even pretended to do a little Kung Fu with Jimmy when he was “stuck on stupid” and crying about something dumb and it worked. I guess me doing Kung Fu makes him laugh. Of course, me doing Kung Fu would bring a giggle to the most stoic of folks.
One of the things that the psychiatrist at the psych hospital said is that we allow John to suck all the positive energy out of our family when we take him so seriously. He encouraged us to have more fun with our other kids and if John wasn’t going to be appropriate, we didn’t need to include him. John’s assessment of our family that he completed was very positive, which is encouraging. His only complaint was that we weren’t very happy. The sad thing is that we are much more happy (or at least have more fun) when he is not here. Now I just have to figure out how to have fun and enjoy life when he is here. At this moment, I feel like we can do it.
Other advice at the psych hospital was that we needed to be even more strict with our rules and expectations. We used to run the house that way until a couple years ago when the county insinuated that our parenting was making our kids rebel. Funny how that comes full circle, huh?
Now I’m heading upstairs to watch the final episode of 7th Heaven. 7 years ago in February their family went to 7 children the same week we did and I’ve been following them for longer than the 7 years. It is amazing that they aren’t going to be on any more, but I’m going to watch the finale tonight -- either alone or joined by some of my children.
Tonight I have started trying to pretend like I don’t take my kids and their behaviors as seriously as I do. This is helping for the moment. I even pretended to do a little Kung Fu with Jimmy when he was “stuck on stupid” and crying about something dumb and it worked. I guess me doing Kung Fu makes him laugh. Of course, me doing Kung Fu would bring a giggle to the most stoic of folks.
One of the things that the psychiatrist at the psych hospital said is that we allow John to suck all the positive energy out of our family when we take him so seriously. He encouraged us to have more fun with our other kids and if John wasn’t going to be appropriate, we didn’t need to include him. John’s assessment of our family that he completed was very positive, which is encouraging. His only complaint was that we weren’t very happy. The sad thing is that we are much more happy (or at least have more fun) when he is not here. Now I just have to figure out how to have fun and enjoy life when he is here. At this moment, I feel like we can do it.
Other advice at the psych hospital was that we needed to be even more strict with our rules and expectations. We used to run the house that way until a couple years ago when the county insinuated that our parenting was making our kids rebel. Funny how that comes full circle, huh?
Now I’m heading upstairs to watch the final episode of 7th Heaven. 7 years ago in February their family went to 7 children the same week we did and I’ve been following them for longer than the 7 years. It is amazing that they aren’t going to be on any more, but I’m going to watch the finale tonight -- either alone or joined by some of my children.
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