When John is upset about something, he broods. He wanders around and kicks things, throws things, but not in a violent manner at this time. It’s just a presence, a toxic gas so to speak, that gets spread through the air ... he makes sure everyone experiences it and everyone feels it.
When he doesn’t get enough attention for that behavior, he starts in on me. He chooses something to initiate a control battle and begins to push my buttons. He brings up everything he can think of to try to get me going. Just within in the last hour he has tried to start an argument about our allowance pay schedule (I give the kids their allowance for 7 days from Friday to Thursday, they get the money on Fridays), how he is going to put a divider in his bedroom when we move even if we say he can’t, how allowances are too small, how it wasn’t fair that he had to do his chore when the room was dirty (????), how there was going to be nothing fun in our new town, and on and on and on.
Practicing the art of disengagement, I refused to bite at any hook. I did not get sucked in. It was a very long hour, but this time I won. He never saw that he upset me. Inside I was agitated, nervous, and stressed. On the outside I was cool as a cucumber.
But it is quite the endurance test. Quite the test.
When he doesn’t get enough attention for that behavior, he starts in on me. He chooses something to initiate a control battle and begins to push my buttons. He brings up everything he can think of to try to get me going. Just within in the last hour he has tried to start an argument about our allowance pay schedule (I give the kids their allowance for 7 days from Friday to Thursday, they get the money on Fridays), how he is going to put a divider in his bedroom when we move even if we say he can’t, how allowances are too small, how it wasn’t fair that he had to do his chore when the room was dirty (????), how there was going to be nothing fun in our new town, and on and on and on.
Practicing the art of disengagement, I refused to bite at any hook. I did not get sucked in. It was a very long hour, but this time I won. He never saw that he upset me. Inside I was agitated, nervous, and stressed. On the outside I was cool as a cucumber.
But it is quite the endurance test. Quite the test.
No comments:
Post a Comment