Accountability thread 12 Oct 2014

[fruitofthewomb]

We had terrible week. Oldest maybe got 2 days of school done. Other dd got in 3 days of work. Oldest is having some medical issues that have left me drained emotionally & baby isn't sleeping well so I am also drained physically. Other two kids were little terrors all week. I just couldn't pull it together today.

[maize]

We had terrible week. Oldest maybe got 2 days of school done. Other dd got in 3 days of work. Oldest is having some medical issues that have left me drained emotionally & baby isn't sleeping well so I am also drained physically. Other two kids were little terrors all week. I just couldn't pull it together today.

 

(((hugs))) I hope you are all able to rest on the weekend and that next week goes more smoothly.

[maize]

Our Chinese tutor had to take her car to the shop so couldn't come today, which is fine since it means the kids have more time with their grandparents who are only in town for a few days.

[Kathie in VA]

Oh, I wish. That was just the opening shot across the bow. Full blown contest of wills *all day long* over *everything*.

 

But......I did get her through everything.

 

I know I've brought it upon myself somewhat, lots of inconsistency this year and letting her push off things. But, I am crazy mad at her today. She was just a JERK and everything out of her mouth was rude/disrespectful.

 

I got threatened/bribed 3 times that "she wouldn't do x unless she got y". Um...nope, not gonna happen child.

 

Multiple issues with breakfast/lunch. DH brought in surprise donuts. She got one and went to grandson's room to eat it. Nope, followed her into there and told her to go eat at the table. "I didn't hear you". Repeat instruction. "I didn't hear you". Physically walk her to the table and sit her down....2 minutes later she's, with donut still in hand, getting up to go back there. Um.. NOPE! Repeat for lunch.

 

Ask her to go brush her teeth. She goes in bathroom, comes out and starts throwing a stuffed animal around the room. I repeat, go brush your teeth. "I can't find my toothpaste." Walk her into the bathroom and it is sitting right there. "Oh, I didn't see it." I'm 100% convinced that she didn't actually brush her teeth because she didn't pass the smell test. At this point, I let teeth go, and give her an outfit to put on, she's spending 20 minutes "in the bathroom". Finally I just walk out the door with out her.

 

Get back home, sit down to do bible. She starts screaming, "Oh, WHY do we HAVE to do bible" over the back of the couch. She gave me the perfect target so *smack*. Then she spent 10 minutes fake crying through bible.

 

Moving on....more attitude in the next subject. Give up, move on to *chores*. I made her stand next to me during laundry, dishes, and I even started making her clean her room. I had her pick up all the dirty clothes off her floor and take them to her hamper in the laundry room. It kind of got some laundry from allover piled on top and when she brought in her clothes she snarked (yes the tone was rude) about how "I" needed to "do the laundry". I said, "great suggestion, you can start on it now since you want to be so disrespectful about it". Its about 3 loads worth and I made her load/unload the first one today. She says she is now "ready to do school".

 

Start up again....more attitude. Okay, trampoline time. I tell her she needs to bounce for 15 minutes. She bounces less than 1 minute and starts playing/laying down. It takes her 40 minutes to jump 10 minutes. Leave to go get baby. She falls asleep for *5 minutes*.

 

Get home and try again. This time I load up her copy work and just hand it to and walk away. Correct it two times for "defiance" games before she gets it right. Now we try narration. I had to lock up the cat to keep her from jumping up off the couch to throw herself on him. Once I did that school went well. We did reading, also surprisingly went well but not long. Next up spelling, skipped the tiles and just tackled the test we missed last week. Spelled great but the cat escaped and so we had issues with the cat being a distraction, again. Skipped Spanish.

 

Now onto Math. I didn't even try for instruction the first time around. I just handed her the worksheets and walked away. It went okay after she came to me for "help". Uncovered a problem from an area we have already covered and need to make sure we address. Once math was done, the behavior went back down hill.

 

Went to the store and the whole way there it was "If I'm good can I get....", NOPE.

 

And it was all because she didn't get enough sleep. After the 3 days of issues with TV, I'm done. She is not allowed TV AT ALL on the weekdays anymore. Between her screaming for 2 hours over not getting to watch a certain show (because she chose to watch other things) and how I needed to let her stay up to watch it at bedtime on Monday, her trying to get me to blow off school subjects so she could go 'watch tv' on Tuesday, and sneaking off to the baby's room to watch TV for 2 hours after bedtime on Wednesday....the TV is GONE. And that is essentially why she was such a jerk today....she wanted to watch TV and she was going to bully me to do it.

 

Stefanie

Hugs. I can relate. Btdt. Typically for me I get them back on track before the end of the day. Then hubby gets home. He's quick to notice when I've had a day like that. I normally don't want to say anything because I really want peace and by that time it is peacefull. But the history of the day is not hidden from DAD. They then get a talkin from Dad. Usually next day is then better. Somehow correction from Dad seems to wake them up more then when I correct them.

 

Anyway, HUGS. You are not alone with these issues.

[Kathie in VA]

It's been ... a week! So dh got a job offer! But now we need to move to Alabama! Nice place I just really didn't want move away from our great high school co-op, new neighbor friends, old friends, great church, great Boy Scouts troop which my dh is leading, etc. oh well. Time to minimize homeschooling to prep the house for sale by spring! Dh will commute back here on most weekends till we are ready to move. We hope to finish the school year first.

 

9th grader and college guy are keeping up with their work (although college guy should be getting better grades!).

 

Need to work more to ensure 4th grader doesn't fall behind as I quickly get pulled away and her work stalls.

[Sdel]

Hugs. I can relate. Btdt. Typically for me I get them back on track before the end of the day. Then hubby gets home. He's quick to notice when I've had a day like that. I normally don't want to say anything because I really want peace and by that time it is peacefull. But the history of the day is not hidden from DAD. They then get a talkin from Dad. Usually next day is then better. Somehow correction from Dad seems to wake them up more then when I correct them.

 

Anyway, HUGS. You are not alone with these issues.

 

Hmm....I wish.  DH let me sleep in this morning since he was off.  I woke up at 9 to him having let DD6 watch almost 2 hours of TV by that point.  He KNEW what I dealt with yesterday and thanks to him I get a lovely repeat....and it has been a repeat.  The first response to my announcement that school would start soon was, 'I'm not going to do school unless you let me finish x episode."   Then I couldn't get him out of our school space because he was "watching the news" but flipping it between the cartoons and the news every five minutes.  He literally told me for an hour and a half he was going to take the baby and run errands "in just a minute" so we could focus on school.

 

Thanks dad.  And she's been fighting me on everything and when she 'can't do it' she ends with some version of "Can I watch TV when we are done?".  So, what else am I supposed to think other than she is playing games to try to get me to end school so she can watch TV?  At this point, until I get what I feel is honest effort, her school isn't ending. 

 

I took her outside to "run the circle" to tire her out.  We took the soccer ball with us and told her she could dribble the ball while we went and we would work on Spanish words.  She's been in soccer for 3 years, she CAN dribble, she KNOWS what dribbling means.  She "shot" the ball into EVERY neighbors yard, explicitly against instructions.  Then she kept the ball/herself so far away from me she couldn't hear the Spanish words.   At about the half way mark she "shot" the ball underneath a neighbors truck.  I refused to retrieve it or allow her to because she deliberately didn't follow instructions, she had a huge cry fest.  I sent her to her room.  While she was there I did go back to get the ball.  When I got back she had cried herself to sleep. 

 

She is now taking her much needed nap.  But SOMETHING has got to give.  She can't act like this just because she is tired, because most days she flat out refuses to go to sleep.  I'd say 15% of our school days are this bad, with 50% of them having some sleep related defiance issue before work is done, but 50% of our total days end up with her this bad by bedtime.  When she is well rested, she is just the most polite, well behaved child.  Once she gets tired she just comes unglued.  She just does WHATEVER it takes to push buttons to get the drama to keep herself awake. 

 

Stefanie

[Critterfixer]

Sdel, what has been done to investigate her sleep issues? I must have missed those threads. 

How old is she?

[Sdel]

Sdel, what has been done to investigate her sleep issues? I must have missed those threads. 

How old is she?

 

She is 6, almost 7.  Not much to actually explore I don't think.  She sleeps fine, *when* she gets to sleep, but she is *very* active in her sleep (she's NEVER allowed to sleep with us) .  She doesn't *always* refuse to sleep, and a lot of times she will actually voluntarily go to sleep on her own, after 9 pm.  She's refused naps since 3 although I've been able to force them by strapping her down in her seat belt and driving.  There are a lot of times when we are running errands, she's acting out demanding she isn't tired only to look back 5 minutes later and she is passed out.  But, she MUST, under no circumstances otherwise, get 12 hours or by the end of they day she's a monster.  My TV issues are that she'll be tired, but use the TV as her avenue to "stay awake" in the evening.  She also surprisingly does rec. sports really well at that time to.....because it gives her something to focus on in order to stay away.

 

She just has absolutely no willingness to listen to her body.  Although, I think another half of the problem is she's a night owl.  Her dad and I both are, but our schedule doesn't let us be 100% as night owl as we want.  I don't have a problem letting her stay up late....except she HAS to correspondingly sleep in the next morning.  Heck, if she'd do that, I'd be much more functional in general.  She can be the same way about eating although that problem occurs less often. 

 

Stefanie

[Critterfixer]

I think I'd be exploring it. I was a night owl much of my life, only to become much more natural in my sleep habits once my gluten intolerance was dealt with. I had a lot of inhalant allergies, too. When those went away for the most part when I quit eating wheat, I was not only sleeping better, but my DH and my Mother noted that a great deal of my "sharp" points went away as well. I was much less irritable. 

Not saying she could have food intolerance, but what you are describing with your daughter seems unusual to me. But then, I've only got two kids, and I didn't have to deal with anything out of the ordinary in their sleep habits. 

[Sdel]

I think I'd be exploring it. I was a night owl much of my life, only to become much more natural in my sleep habits once my gluten intolerance was dealt with. I had a lot of inhalant allergies, too. When those went away for the most part when I quit eating wheat, I was not only sleeping better, but my DH and my Mother noted that a great deal of my "sharp" points went away as well. I was much less irritable. 

Not saying she could have food intolerance, but what you are describing with your daughter seems unusual to me. But then, I've only got two kids, and I didn't have to deal with anything out of the ordinary in their sleep habits. 

 

I am working on my DH to agree to things about food issues, but until he is on board nothing I do will be effective.  I personally want to cut out sugar, gluten/grains and food dyes.  My father's side of the family has a significant allergy history.  My grandmother was allergic to over 10 foods, one of which is corn.  My dad was allergic to beans, and I am as well.  DD doesn't seem to be though and she loves beans.  I have 70+ environmental allergies (including all animals, and we have 7).  DD doesn't seem to have the animal allergies though.  She is currently suffering from some environmental allergies, but the sleep issues are all the time.  But, she does come by the night owl thing honestly.  It's been almost 7 years since I've been off the night shift and I still can't get to sleep until sometime around 1 am.  Even on the rare occasions that I do go to bed "on time" I'm super fuzzy before 1 pm.

 

Stefanie

[Soror]

sdel, hugs, I would be investigating sleep issues as well. I don't think what you describe is normal. I mean part of it could be that she needs strict adherence and militance to a schedule but the degree to which your describing sounds like there is an underlying factor. I know food have been huge causes of sleep issues here so I would investigate that possibility.

[Kathie in VA]

In addition to food issues, look into snoring. Appearently if you snore lots then you aren't sleeping well and you wake up tired. My 9 year old gal snores and sleeps too restlessly to join us in our bed. I've been told that this might be the cause of her headaches. Lack of real sleep causes problems.

 

My teen also had trouble falling asleep. We ended up buying Melotonin supplements. Now my dh also uses them when he can't fall asleep.

 

Best bet is to talk with your pediatrician. Maybe if you have suggestions from a Dr. then your hubby will be more inclined to help you implement them.

[maize]

It's been ... a week! So dh got a job offer! But now we need to move to Alabama! Nice place I just really didn't want move away from our great high school co-op, new neighbor friends, old friends, great church, great Boy Scouts troop which my dh is leading, etc. oh well. Time to minimize homeschooling to prep the house for sale by spring! Dh will commute back here on most weekends till we are ready to move. We hope to finish the school year first.

 

9th grader and college guy are keeping up with their work (although college guy should be getting better grades!).

 

Need to work more to ensure 4th grader doesn't fall behind as I quickly get pulled away and her work stalls.

Congratulations on the job offer!

 

Dh has actually been applying for jobs in Alabama (Huntsville area) so we may be joining you one day. If we move i will also be sad about all the great things we would be leaving behind.

[Kathie in VA]

Congratulations on the job offer!

 

Dh has actually been applying for jobs in Alabama (Huntsville area) so we may be joining you one day. If we move i will also be sad about all the great things we would be leaving behind.

Yep same area here. That seems to be where many job are moving to today.

[Sdel]

Thanks for the support ladies.  We'll keep things under advisement.

 

As far as school, she slept for 2 1/2 hours and when she woke up she did her math beautifully without even an ounce of attitude or complaint.  That is the child that I love homeschooling with and honestly it the reason why I've stayed resistant to sending her to school.  She is so smart, and I think she could be quite advanced, once we get past the grouches.

 

But I did have a blow out with DH over it last night.  He's agreed to tweak her diet for a while and see if it helps, then if it doesn't talk to her pediatrician and see about neuropsych testing.  I threw both my family history of allergies and HIS family history of autism at him.  She has 2 cousins diagnosed and DH has been supposed to be setting up testing for her older brother for months now because his psych thinks he might be slightly on the spectrum.  Heck, at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if DD was slightly on the spectrum as well.  She was also a 28 week preemie.  For all I know, maybe we didn't get away as unscathed as we thought from that.

 

Stefanie