This morning we definitely had a full-fledged melt down. I was filing Zach’s nails- well, needless to say, he didn’t want me to do that. I forced the issue. I finished the job but by the end he was screaming as if I was driving splinters under his nails. When I put him down he just lay on the floor and cried and screamed.
Here is our current approach to this behavior- he can lay there and scream all he wants. One of us tries to stay in the room with him and talk to him calmly without holding him or even touching him. He can come to us if he wants to but we don’t go to him. We don’t want him to feel alone and/or like these emotions are bad but we want to be clear that this behavior is unacceptable.
As I told some of my mommy friends- I am actually kind of glad to get an opportunity to define for Zach what is and isn’t acceptable. I like boundaries… in a very 7th grade teacher sort of way.
We’ll see how this goes.
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