Sunday, May 3, 2009

Tantrums Do NOT Work In This House!

I guess this all started with us getting home very late from a bar-b-que last night. Both kids were up way past their bed times. Jay went into his room and fell asleep in his clothes.
This morning I was trying to get everyone ready for church. Jay was still in his dirty jeans from last night. I got him to put his church shirt on but he was having a tantrum about finishing getting dressed because he wanted to play video games. I made him go sit in the corner until he could calm down, treat me with respect and act appropriately. Every time he asked to get out of the corner he was whining so I said no. Every time I said no, he would go into melt-down phase again and the tantrum would start over. He sat in that corner until we were ready to walk out the door. What is a mom to do? We were already running late, Jay is in filthy pants, no shoes and a church shirt. He still has a bad attitude going too.
Do I just stay home and make him sit in time out the rest of the day? No, my Nursery assistant is not going to be at church today and since church has already started, I can't call a sub. So I tell Jay to go get in the car, it's time for church. He said he needed to get dressed. I told him sorry, you used your getting dressed time up by having your tantrum, now it is time to go. He thought I was bluffing and tried to call me on it by walking out the door. When he realized I was seriously going to make him go to church bare foot and with dirty clothes, he was terrified. He is so sensitive to people laughing at him and this would DEFINITELY be something he would think they would laugh at. He cried the whole way there and was begging us to let him sit in the car until church was over.
Nope, sorry buddy, you make bad choices, you live with the consequences. I made him walk into the foyer and sit down on the couch and listen to testimony meeting. He was pretty unhappy about the idea of going to Primary dressed as he was. I then showed him that his church pants and shoes were in my bag and that he could EARN them back by having a good attitude, being reverent and being an example to his sister. THAT worked! By the time they were singing the closing song in sacrament, Jay was dressed appropriately for church.
For some reason I am thinking it won't be so hard getting him ready for church next week.

3 comments:

Jen said...

You go girl! I'll have to try that sometime when someone in our house won't pick a dress...

Meka said...

Good job, I don't think you could have handled it any better!

Allison Juarez said...

Love it! So creative, and will probably have a much more lasting impression than spanking and yelling(which is probably what I would have ended up doing, along with pulling out my own hair! Lol)