Today has been a reprieve. I went to the temple this morning with my mom and felt some peace and solace. I then went to lunch with some amazing ladies who always lift my spirits.
We have made some changes to our family. I am realizing I need to give up some control. We no longer have a NO TECHNOLOGY RULE TIL 7 PM. It felt like Kai was focusing too much on the 7pm part now. In meeting with our social worker yesterday, she suggested using a chart where he can earn time on his ipod.
CHART. UGGGG. I HATE CHORE CHARTS. ALWAYS HAVE. We have unstructured structure in our house. Our entire marriage, Hubby K has had rotating shift work so we have never developed a set schedule that works with a chore chart. Also, I really dislike micromanaging. Chore charts would work for a week and then I wouldn't be consistent.
However, Kai's emotional stage is a 3 and 4 year old right now and charts with stickers work at this age. I am willing to give it a shot. Last night, I explained to him how it's going to work. He wasn't happy about the change but I gave him the choice of the chart or no ipod. He picked the chart. Here's how it works. Each kid has a chart with 5 columns. Kai earns time by completing his homework, completing his AM exercises, PM exercises, a job I assign that day, and good behavior. He can use that time at any point during the day as long as those things are done. The other kids aren't really doing their charts. I told them to just make it look like they are using them. They don't need charts but it's important to Kai for everyone to have one.
As I type, he is playing his earned ipod time. When I gave it to him, I said, "Kai, when the timer goes off and you have to turn the ipod off, you cannot be sad or mad, ok?" He said ok. We'll see how it goes but I am hopeful. We have had a good day!!!! The stickers have worked.
We are also going to be a little bit looser with the tv. Now that we have broken his habit of wanting to do it all the time, we can have less control time wise. His time will still be monitored and he can't watch it until everything else has been completed first.
