So lately Trey has been going through a sort of attitude problem. Lets just say he thinks he is the best thing since sliced bread. He has been extremely bossy and feels that many of the family rules do not need to apply to him. One piece of the attitude is that he truly believes that he is stronger than me. Because he is stronger than me he believes he will not be able to get in trouble due to the fact that he can run faster than me to get away, keep me from opening the door to his room, and hide under his covers which I will be unable to open to punish him for his behavior. Well he has been testing me with many little tests which I have been unaware of until yesterday when hindsight put it all into perspective. Yesterday included a number of arm wrestling (literally) battles between Trey and myself. I thought it was all in good fun...Trey telling me he is stronger than me and me telling him lets arm wrestle to determine who is the strongest. Well with each defeat Trey's pride began to buckle. During the day he and I had maybe 10 arm wrestling battles all followed by his defeat and giggles on his part. The last one came in the evening with Dad watching. Now you have to picture us playing Lions and Water Buffalo's to see that a storm was brewing. Trey can only handle not being the strongest Water Buffalo or Lion for so long until he gets pretty angry and begins to shout around the house that he is the strongest person much stronger than Mom. So, another arm wrestle battle was underway. It began with smiles :) :) :) It transitioned to cries of "cheater, cheater, moms cheating". (Uh no, he was the one using 2 hands of course) I let it go back and forth for a time until I finally put his arm down. Resulting in the end of the battle and bursts of tears as he laid his head into me. I knew what was happening and going on in that brain of his. How am I going to get away with not following the rules and doing what ever I want to? The self proclaimed Kingpin had just been knocked out. Dad asked him why he was crying so hard, knowing full well why, but wanted to hear it out loud. Trey, through his tears full of frustration said "I am so mad that Mom is stronger than me." This battle has allowed Trey's attitude to right side itself. He and I had been struggling with him not listening and following directions, and demanding me as well as others to do things for him. Today was a different story. He has listened and obeyed our rules for him. We have had a great day! If I only knew it would have taken an arm wrestling contest to get him to see that he was not going to beat me in this large game of life, I would have gotten it over with on Monday:)
For those of you who know Trey you know that when he thinks he is right about something it is the truth to him. So this left me no room to poke around and let him win! He had to know that his Mom can enforce the rules of our home if need be.
3 comments:
Oh Michelle! I went through the exact same thing with Noah when he was Trey's age. He kept telling me that since I was a girl, I couldn't do--(pretty much anything). Finally, one day I had had it with him telling me that he could "take me" and I wrestled the kid down, pinned his hands behind his back and wasn't kind about it- he knew I meant business. He immediately quit with the attitude. He just needed to settle it in his mind I guess.
I'm glad Trey is doing better now. It must be a boy thing.
Sooo glad to hear someone else take the approach I did:)
Now he is doing push ups every morning in hopes that he will soon be stronger than me. I think it must be that struggle for manhood coming earlier than I expected.
Next time try Monopoly... I bet you could build hotels like nobody's business!
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