Since I am such a Rocky Horror fan ... let's "Time Warp" shall we? Great! :)
When Austin was a toddler, I used to put him in time-out as a method of discipline. The thing with Austin was, you could put him in time-out, after time-out, after time-out and still get the same result ... nada, nothing ... it would not change his behaviour, frustrating to say the least. I am still baffled looking back now, how I had the patience to deal with this time and time again. Oh well, I should not question and just be grateful.
I did not think, at the time, that wearing holes in my carpet hallway from all the walking back and forth to Austin's room was strange. Back and forth, back and forth ... on, and on, and on it went! CRAZY! Eventually, he was distracted by something else and poof, he would stop whatever it was (say running in the house or jumping on the furniture). He never really did anything out of the ordinary, just typical boy stuff. I find it interesting that he just stopped on his own ... maybe he got bored? Who knows, but I should have seen this as a problem. People told me it was typical behaviour for boys ... yeah right! Not so, my dear people, not so, at least not in this situation. It is no wonder I burnt off almost all my baby weight when Austin turned 2! ;)
Now, the reason I am writing about this is because of a "lightbulb moment". (That's what I call it when I see something in Austin looking back.) How did I come to this "lightbulb moment"? Well, when I could put Kaleigh, at 18 months old, for a 2 minute time-out ONCE, I did say ONCE, she would stop the behaviour immediately. I could not believe it! I was stunned! She would go to the bedroom by herself, sit on the bed, wait for me to go and get her and not repeat the behaviour that put her in her room in the first place! WOW! Talk about foreign territory! This was all happening just as we started to have Austin diagnosed. Like I said before, looking back is not easy because I feel like I failed Austin in a way. I should have known but I didn't. He never had tantrums, so I didn't see this as a sign that something might be amiss. Also, this is a boy who hit every milestone. Can't you just imagine?
Hope you are all having a wonderful New Year! *HUGS*
2 comments:
We all do the best we can with the information we have available to us. I look back at stuff in my son's toddler years, and I think, "Oh, man! If only I'd known then what I know now!" But we didn't. We did the best we could and hopefully our kids will be okay. All we can do is love them and give them our best intentions. I'm sure you did the same! (((hugs)))
Hi Jaxmom! Yes, you are right. I adore Austin. :) It is amazing how looking back and writing about these experiences is inspiring when you see how far he has come. Thank you! *HUGS* :)
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