“You know that new word you want me to learn? What is it, patience? I don’t like that very much.”
I love Adam more than anything, but he expects a response before he even asks the question. When you tell him to wait a second, he thinks you mean an actual second and even that is too long for him to get a response. So yes, I’ve been trying to teach our 5-year-old patience, often without much success. But that’s not all we’ve been working on these days, and it’s not always easy.
Depending on the day, Adam will challenge just about everything we do, unless it’s his idea. That’s made his behavior a big focus. I know deep down (at least I think) that he is trying to establish boundaries and then push them, but let’s say that’s an understatement with our little guy. We didn’t have these challenges with Brandon, so it’s something completely different.
Sometimes Adam’s frustrations have seen him get physical, mostly with Brandon. He’ll try to take something away from his big brother, occasionally take a swing or even try to scratch or bite. As you can imagine, that doesn’t go over well with anyone. And while we have to deal with the action, we are trying to figure out the why. What is causing him to do this? We often aren’t sure whether he’s trying to get attention or why he is doing it, but we find ourselves regularly reminding him we use our words and keep our hands (and teeth) to ourselves.
It’s not like Adam doesn’t know how to behave, what’s expected of him or what the rules are. He actually knows the rules very well and can point out when he’s following them. There are just times where he chooses to ignore them, or at least that’s how it seems. And as a parent, not much prepares you for when you’ve had a rough day at work and come home to defiance and meltdowns from your 5-year-old. Where he objects to anything that isn’t his own idea, done his way, without us offering any opinion about what he’s chosen to do. Or the teenager-like attitude and eye rolling he has already learned. Or when he makes it even better by putting his finger in his ears to let you know he doesn’t really hear what you are saying. When you look at it like that, it’s almost comical. But in the moment, it feels anything but a laughing matter. Normally by then, I’m practicing breathing to try to stay calm, because when I get worked up, he seems to devolve even more. As much as I know I have to be the parent, I also don’t want to be the angry daddy. So how do I thread the needle?
Part of parenting is figuring out why your child is acting out (again no manual) and also what the best way to deal with it is. Is he trying to get attention or is he hangry? Does he not feel good or did he not sleep well? Or is he just having a rough day? Sometimes he can tell us with his words when he calms down, other times he’s really not sure what motivates the action.
But trying to figure that out is important. It’s also really hard and really frustrating and really exhausting. We’re pushing through though, of course. Because whatever the reason for this stage in his life, Adam is such a great kid. And luckily, one of us has some patience.
