This morning started out fabulous. David was well rested, I was fairly well rested, and we were up on time to see everyone else off to school. I first give David quiet time in the morning, gives him a chance to get himself in sync with the day. This morning was no different, after a quick breakfast of Cinnamon Life Cereal, he got his meds and went to his quiet space.
Later in the morning, I heard some noises that told me fairly quickly he was doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing. So I stalked quietly into the area near his quiet space, and he quick jumped up, shoved what he was doing under a blanket and came out and asked me wahtI was doing.
I explained that I thought he was doing something that was off-limits. He denied it, as is typical of any ten year old who gets caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing. In his case, we need to be more vigilant so that he doesn’t hurt himself or someone else.
So I sent him to the living room with a blanket for quiet dark time. This is where he covers his whole body with a blanket for not more than ten consecutive minutes. While he was attempting to get himself under control, I went back into his quiet area to see what he had been doing.
I found missing keys. David has this thing / compulsion / obsession about keys. Real keys, fake keys it doesn’t matter. He had key rings with keys we haven’t used in years, plus he had my extra set of keys for our world. all of these were mixed together. In talking with him about the keys, he blamed his older brother. I know that his brother didn’t do it, because I had moved the keys to the top of my dresser this morning after everyone had left for school. Which means that David went into our bedroom without permission. (he likes to dig through other peoples stuff and take whatever interests him. In his defense, I forgot to lock the door this morning.) So I told him he was lying. This evolved into a huge meltdown. David doesn’t handle confrontations well. So he had quiet time with his father for an hour this morning. No toys, just a book.
In the end, he admitted to stealing the keys and lying about it. He doesn’t understand the compulsion to take keys from other people. He doesn’t understand why he lies all the time when confronted with behavior. I don’t understand either, but it is part of what makes him the person that he is. At least I didn’t find any empty cat food containers in his dresser again.
So for now, David is limited in his roaming around the house ability. He can go in his quiet area, but for not more than 15 minutes without coming out to report what he is doing. Why? Because he can get in a lot of mischief if he is left unmonitored, and having him report to me allows me to do chores like laundry, dishes and baking.
So over all, while we had an incident this morning with negative behavior, we got through it, we resolved a meltdown without anyone getting hurt, and he took ownership of his behavior. All positive things in our book.
Cheers to a good day!