Once my sweet, sensitive boy, Braden has become this little being who is seemingly filled with anger and a desire to be mean to everyone in his path. This is a new thing, maybe a month ago we started seeing a change in him. He has started yelling, hitting, and basically doing everything he can to make everyone around him miserable. We have been avoiding taking him into public lately because of his outrageous outbursts that he has displayed of late. Just thinking about this change in him makes me want to burst into tears, I miss the little boy that up until a few short weeks ago gave kisses and hugs freely, and rarely raised his voice or became mad about anything. I do not have any idea what to do. I fear that this is more than a phase even though I keep telling everyone else that I think this change is only temporary.
I do not want to have to feel like life with him has turned into one big struggle. I do not want to fear how he will react every time someone so much as looks at him, much less tries to interact with him. I have no idea what is causing him to act as he has been, but I desperately want this madness to stop. I want to see him smiling like he is in the photo below (a smile that I really had to work for, mind you)rather than so often grimacing as he has been of late. What do I do? I just feel so lost in dealing with him right now and I don't want to feel this way anymore.
3 comments:
Shana,
While my tenure as a mother has had its moments shine to the contrary, my training in the areas of psychology assure me (and they should assure you as well) that your child is not dreadful(though you may feel at times he is and I certainly have felt at times that MY children can act like they are).
It is important to remember that emotional reactions play a vital role in our lives and when you remove them from an equation there is a lot less left to work with. Your sweet tempered little boy is still beneath there somewhere. He is just growing up and learning to interact with the big, tough, world around him. He's trying to figure out how to get his way, how hard to push, and so on.
Worrying about him doesn't make you a bad person, it makes you a great mother. Good people will line up to tell you that he will be just fine and mean well. What they don't understand is their assurances will not assuage your fears.
So when the claws next come out, try to remember to meet them calmly because his emotions will feed off of yours. (Though having been there, I can attest to how hard that can be)
And while you might fear he has entered a lifelong horrific phase, waiting on the other side of this difficult period of time will be a young boy who will grow into a great man. Rest assured that you will have a lot to do with both whether now you have a lot of faith in that fact or not.
MMBF: Thank-you. You totally made me cry. Deep down I know that he will come through this just fine, as will I, it is just hard when we are in the thick of it and I feel like we can't even leave the house because I don't know how to deal with his meltdowns in public. At least at home when I feel like I am absolutely going to loose it I can have him spend some time in his room until we have both had a chance to calm down. *sigh*
OK, so I just want you to go back in time to about, oh, 8 months ago, at the end of my last summer vacation. I, as you may remember, was feeling angry all the time, really butting heads with Elliot, wondering if I was depressed or something because I was just having such a HARD TIME being a mama. Yeah, Braden is oh, 8 months younger than Elliot, right? :)
I'm not going to lie to you...he still pushes my buttons and my limits a lot. But much of the sweetness has returned, as he becomes more and more capable of dealing with his emotions. Obviously he's still learning, and we still have meltdowns when he's overwhelmed and tired. But I believe that his intellectual and emotional growth has started to even out a little. He is able, more and more, to understand what it is he is feeling and why, and even to explain that to us. It will get better!
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