Aaugh!!!!!

Never underestimate the strength, the will, or the misplaced anger of a 7 year-old boy. Ian has been on a rampage all afternoon. The momentum and intensity just kept building after each meltdown until. . .



The strange part is, I am not sure who fell harder - Ian or me.

Let me back up a bit. The first catastrophic even occured just before dinner when Steve and Ainsley were racing on the Plasma cars. Steve misjudged a turn and ran over Ian's foot. Ian completely lost it. Not his foot, just his composure. He started screaming at Steve and pounding him, then ran off to finish his tantrum in the bathroom. It took 15 minutes for us to figure out what had happened, then another 10 minutes to convince him that it was an accident. Eventually, he calmed down and joined us for pizza at the table.

After dinner, Ian decided to stretch out on the living room floor and pretend to sleep. He took off his glasses and left them near his head. Then along came Ainsley, sneaking up on him on hear hands and knees, when she accidentally smashed his glasses. We combed the area rug for pieces of the broken lens. The frames are probably salvageable, but I'm not telling him that just yet.

A few minutes later, we all went upstairs to begin the kids' bedtime rituals. Ian's attitude was stuck somewhere between annoying self-pity and stealthy viciousness. I placed a basket of his clean clothes next to his closet and suggested he start putting them away. When he refused, Steve and I encouraged him to put down the toy he was playing with for just a few minutes until the clothes were put away. Still he seemed to be ignoring us. Steve touched Ian's hands to get his attention, and the war began. Screaming, hitting, kicking, punching, crying. It would have been unbelievable behavior if I hadn't seen it many times before.

It took both Steve and I to pry the offending Buzz Lightyear claw launcher from Ian's superhero grip. With the toy now out of the picture, Ian began a piercing scream that made the dog get up and leave the room. He then ripped his OTHER pair of glasses off his face and bent them in half. They are now history.

I hope you were paying attention to the time frame here, because all of this took place IN LESS THAN 30 MINUTES!!! Two pairs of glasses valued at about $300 each down the toilet in half and hour. Unfortunately, this is not the first time such extreme circumstances have taken place in our house. It was just 4 short months ago that we went through this same crisis. It took weeks to get a replacement pair. This is not good news for a kid who is probably legally blind without corrective lenses.

I have already informed him that part of his punishment is cleaning up the dog poop in the back yard 3 days a week starting tomorrow and continuing forever. When Sugar gets old and dies, I'm going to make him go to neighbors houses and pick up their dog poop. And if no one else on our street has a dog, then I'll have poop shipped in from the Dog Pound.

I feel very strongly that Ian needs to lose a privilege as well. Deciding which one is the tough part. He is really good at making the rest of us pay dearly when he doesn't get what he wants, which just makes me more resolved to make the punishment stick. So, do I want to make a big impact on Ian AND guarantee that the rest of the family will be tortured by his whining for the duration? Or. . .is being unable to see until the new pair of glasses gets here going to do the trick? Where do I draw the line between tough love and just being cruel?



I am going to have to sleep on this one tonight. I must not have paid attention during the chapter on punishing a kid who intentionally breaks expensive things in the The Great Big Book on How to Raise and Aspie without Going Postal. Feel free to make your suggestions in the comment section below. I am at a loss.