hjffkj Posted March 30, 2021 Share Posted March 30, 2021 You are the children's emotional release. Today of my 6 children 4 of them have used me as their emotional release. Baby is teething and weaning so she is a miserable mess who only wants to screech at me, easy enough to deal with on a regular day. Ds4 didn't have his mango cut the right time so screamed next to me for 30 minutes waking said baby up who joined in the screaming. Then once he was done screaming he saw that the shared mangoes now only had 2 big pieces left (for him) but he wanted three pieces!! So, he screamed for another half hour and hit me when he could get to me. Then ds8 got mad at his rollerblades for some reason and threw them across the room. When I inquired what was wrong and to please consider who he might hit when doing something liked that he screamed at me and that turned into him doing shitty things around the house for the last 2 hours and then screaming at me when I ask him not to take his anger out on other people. And then dd10 jsut had a normal emotional melt down about her fear that one of our dogs was going to die soon (a friends dog just died.) So, a reasonable issue that I really had no more emotional energy to help with. I just keep telling myself that they aren't usually like this, it is actually really rare. But man why does it always have to be me who gets the worst of their worst. Vent over. 3 1 20 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 30, 2021 Share Posted March 30, 2021 Aww, I’m sorry mama. That sounds like a rough day for all. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommyoffive Posted March 30, 2021 Share Posted March 30, 2021 Oh man that sounds like a really hard day. I am sorry. And I agree it is hard being the brunt of it it all. I hope you get to do something for yourself and enjoy of little bit of downtime. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaybee Posted March 30, 2021 Share Posted March 30, 2021 Hugs. Some days are just hard like that. Hopefully baby will settle down well tonight, and you will get some good downtime. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjffkj Posted March 30, 2021 Author Share Posted March 30, 2021 20 minutes ago, mommyoffive said: Oh man that sounds like a really hard day. I am sorry. And I agree it is hard being the brunt of it it all. I hope you get to do something for yourself and enjoy of little bit of downtime. Bedtime is a hard 8:30 tonight and then it is just me and baby until dh gets off at 9. Then I'm continuing to work on my Lego roller coaster set while dh gets the baby to sleep, unless I somehow get her to sleep before 9. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saraha Posted March 30, 2021 Share Posted March 30, 2021 Ugh, this day will be over soon 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairfarmhand Posted March 30, 2021 Share Posted March 30, 2021 You can do it! Just a few more hours! 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 There's this wonderful tincture called Calm Child, and I'm not above drugging everyone in the house with that or nice stiffly brewed chamomile tea. Hope tomorrow is better! 2 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corraleno Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 I hope you're able to have a nice, quiet evening, and that everyone is a lot happier tomorrow. (((hugs))) 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 Rough day for you! I'm sorry. I don't miss those days at all. Hope you get some sleep and that tomorrow is so much better! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ditto Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 What a rough day for all of you. I hope tomorrow is much better. As hard as those days are, I do miss my kids being little. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ditto Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 49 minutes ago, hjffkj said: Bedtime is a hard 8:30 tonight and then it is just me and baby until dh gets off at 9. Then I'm continuing to work on my Lego roller coaster set while dh gets the baby to sleep, unless I somehow get her to sleep before 9. Don't you love a good plan? Crossing my fingers for you that they are asleep soon and you have a very peaceful evening. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katy Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 I’m sorry you had such a hard day. It happens to you because you’re the safest person and they know they can blow their fuse with you and you’ll still love them. You’re a great mom. Get some rest, I bet things will look better tomorrow. I said a prayer they would anyway. 4 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KungFuPanda Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 3 hours ago, hjffkj said: You are the children's emotional release. Today of my 6 children 4 of them have used me as their emotional release. Baby is teething and weaning so she is a miserable mess who only wants to screech at me, easy enough to deal with on a regular day. Ds4 didn't have his mango cut the right time so screamed next to me for 30 minutes waking said baby up who joined in the screaming. Then once he was done screaming he saw that the shared mangoes now only had 2 big pieces left (for him) but he wanted three pieces!! So, he screamed for another half hour and hit me when he could get to me. Then ds8 got mad at his rollerblades for some reason and threw them across the room. When I inquired what was wrong and to please consider who he might hit when doing something liked that he screamed at me and that turned into him doing shitty things around the house for the last 2 hours and then screaming at me when I ask him not to take his anger out on other people. And then dd10 jsut had a normal emotional melt down about her fear that one of our dogs was going to die soon (a friends dog just died.) So, a reasonable issue that I really had no more emotional energy to help with. I just keep telling myself that they aren't usually like this, it is actually really rare. But man why does it always have to be me who gets the worst of their worst. Vent over. I've been a bit misty lately because my kids are grown now, but I think you cured me. I do not miss days like that. They really were just HARD. I hope the baby at least went down easily and that tomorrow is MUCH easier. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjffkj Posted March 31, 2021 Author Share Posted March 31, 2021 Thank you all. Dh got the baby to sleep relatively easily, listened to me vent about my day, and now we are watching a favorite show that has me laughing quite a bit. Tomorrow will be better. And I do know that we mothers get the brunt of the emotions because we are they feel safest with us but in the moment it is hard to be comforted by that thought. 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 I noticed the moon is full. Even my dog is acting weird. My kids used to get really bad at the beginning of every school year. I kind of saw it coming and just tried to be numb to the lashing out, and tried to focus on the underlying need. Of course this required me to be in a neutral mood to start with, and also I only had 2 kids. Now that my kids are older, to be honest, I just go to bed when it gets to be too much. When they were younger, sending them to bed early was sometimes useful. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kassia Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 6 hours ago, hjffkj said: Thank you all. Dh got the baby to sleep relatively easily, listened to me vent about my day, and now we are watching a favorite show that has me laughing quite a bit. Tomorrow will be better. I'm glad your day ended well! 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlett Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 8 hours ago, hjffkj said: Thank you all. Dh got the baby to sleep relatively easily, listened to me vent about my day, and now we are watching a favorite show that has me laughing quite a bit. Tomorrow will be better. And I do know that we mothers get the brunt of the emotions because we are they feel safest with us but in the moment it is hard to be comforted by that thought. I hope today is better for you. The days are long but the years are short aren’t they? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 (edited) 9 hours ago, hjffkj said: And I do know that we mothers get the brunt of the emotions because we are they feel safest with us but in the moment it is hard to be comforted by that thought. I don't think accepting that is necessary. We say that in autism, that they have behaviors with the person they feel safest with. That doesn't mean we don't *teach* them so it happens less. You could try: -The Five Point Scale--Just google this. You can use it to help them gauge the *size* of their problem and the *size* reaction to see whether it's appropriate. Like a 5 is CALL THE POLICE! So are you having a CALL THE POLICE level reaction over "he took my cookie" kwim? Or if you hurt yourself and it's a 3, are you having a 5 like it's an amputation? So you could have a group lesson on size of reaction, talk through the things that happened yesterday. Going cognitive (putting numbers to things, being analytical) is a way to snap kids who are getting stuck in a reaction. You can also literally just say "Wow, this is a 5! Call the police!" haha. So it would give you some common language to try to tone things down. -Critical Thinking Triangle--https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Msv8RIoV3aM Here's a youtube video on it and https://mindwingconcepts.com/products/critical-thinking-triangle-poster-mini-poster?_pos=2&_sid=897c9b244&_ss=r here is a picture of the poster. It's just a concept. Your kids probably have intact language, but they need to be prompted to use it instead of screaming and driving people crazy. And the language is: I FEEL ________ BECAUSE __________ SO I WILL __________. That's it. Think about how that simple framework would allow you to get them to say "I feel angry because I was having a hard time on my rollerblades so I will..." and suddenly their PLAN (that third piece, the plan) shows up as really crappy and inappropriate and it's OBVIOUS because they had to admit it. Obviously when you're angry a better plan is to do things that calm you down (take a walk, go in my room and read, take a break, do a kid yoga video on youtube, etc.). -Zones of Regulation--https://www.socialthinking.com/Products/zones-of-regulation-curriculum You could look into it. I mean, I get if you just wanted a JAWM thread, but it seems like you have some room here to bump their self awareness and maybe get these discussions going. The Zones are an exceptionally simple concept, and you could, with just a little pinterest study, probably do it yourself. Or of course you could snag the curriculum. For instance, with the throwing the roller blades, the place to solve that was *before* he was throwing. He was yellow zone and losing control and his internal monitoring did not step in and say "Hey, I'm yellow zone, I'm going to go take a break and get back to green zone." Instead, he let it go till he was red and losing control and taking it out on everyone. And the kicker is, once he got to that point he stayed there a long time. So it wasn't like it was without consequence. The flipside of that is teaching them explicitly to start noticing their bodies and emotions when they're yellow, way before they're all the way to red, and getting them problem solving and heading it off. So they might go red, but they'd know how to get back to green and they'd go back faster. For some kids, that requires explicit instruction. These are just free things you can do to get some instruction on board to calm this stuff down. Initially when you posted, I was going to tell you my "We need to sit and think about Jesus" story, haha. I had a mom who was mentoring me (much older and wiser she was) say that's how she handled it. And sometimes just that is enough! Sometimes when things get elevated we can bring them all on the bed and say "We need to sit and think about Jesus." (or the park, or happy things, or the beach, or whatever you think about) And that's Mom driving taking a break. But when you've got this much screaming, you've got people not using their language to self advocate. And maybe just a little framework could get you there, a pushback, like holding up the triangle and walking them through the three sides (feeling, problem, plan) would up their language. And maybe you're like oh they don't do it that much, lay off. My ds with ASD2 has been enough of a challenge with this that I take seriously that anyone is saying they're being hit or living with kids staying elevated a long time and not knowing their calming strategies.These are not super hard strategies to implement and they might be just enough. Edited March 31, 2021 by PeterPan 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairfarmhand Posted March 31, 2021 Share Posted March 31, 2021 It’s hard being the family’s emotional barf bucket. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjffkj Posted March 31, 2021 Author Share Posted March 31, 2021 So far so good. Everyone is in a much better mood 5 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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