Parenting

There is the old saying that being a parent is the toughest job in the world.  Tonight I couldn't agree more.  I have been tested and tested again by my son!  It is not that he has done anything specifically bad that got him into serious trouble.  Instead it is just his stubbornness and unwillingness to agree or do anything that is told of him.  For Zack to do something that is expected of him he must fully understand and agree with it.  When he doesn't understand or agree with what he is being told he questions and negotiates.  Tonight he pushed me too far with his questions and his desire to negotiate.  I lost it!

When I lose it with him I am sure you can hear my voice for miles.  I don't do anything like spank him or hit him - as I don't ever do physical violence.  Instead I just yell, scream and implement consequences.  Tonight's disagreement centered around a subject that has been sore point with him for ages.  I refuse to allow him to take his hand held video games system, the Nintendo 3DS to school with him.  His whole argument is that the school bus ride is SO long that he gets bored and he needs his game system to prevent himself from getting bored.  He also makes the argument that all the other kids do it.  My response to him is that he is not all the other kids, he is my kid and he will do what his father tells him.

He decided to argue about this as he was going to bed this evening.  After a long day in which I did lots of things for him, I just could not stand to hear him try and weasel his way into taking his game system to school.  I exploded like a freaking atomic bomb.  And despite my first outburst he kept on pushing his case and that is when I really lost it.  As a result he has many consequences coming to him in the next several days.  The least of which is his loss of video games and TV for the remaining days of this week.  Needless to say that did go over well with him.  To which my reply was, TOUGH CRAP ZACK!  I am starting to shake again as I re-tell and write down this story.

I get so upset about this particular situation because we have discussed it at least several hundred times in the last 2 years.  My feeling is I don't even have to explain my motivation on this one to him.  However given you are my audience I am sure you would like to understand my thinking.  My whole motivation behind this is that if he takes his Nintendo 3DS to school there is a good chance that he is going to take it out of his backpack during the day and attempt to play it during school hours.  Zack is not a kid who has a lot of self control when it comes to video games.  So I am certain if he took his 3DS to school he would be playing during school hours and I just don't even want that temptation to be there for him.

OK - I need to take a deep breathe and calm down as I feel that my head is going to explode!  I think what makes everything so absolutely hard is that I am doing all of this on my own.  There is no back up to me and I have to raise this young man on my own.  On top of that I feel so incredible isolated.  I don't know how to get around this anymore but I really do feel like it is me against the world.  There seems to be no back up - no help.  I am in this game all alone and it just stinks at times.

This has been a truly whiny post.  I had been planning on writing an exciting post about our upcoming trip to Costa Rica, but instead I wrote this.  Gees - how absolutely pathetic is that!  Sometimes I really just do not know if I am coming or going as my head seems to be spinning half the time.

On a positive note regarding Zack, he had a psychiatrist appointment this afternoon and he got a lot of positive comments from her.  She was absolutely amazed in how different he appeared from the last time he saw her in early January.  She thought he wasn't even the same kid.  That is very good thing, however I just wish there was a pill that could drive the stubbornness out of him!

Oh well - time to try and get myself to calm down so I can actually sleep tonight.

On a really good note - the situation with my back continues to move forward - Yay!  It still hurts when I wake up but after getting something to eat and taking a few Advil, the pain totally disappeared for most of the day.  My back is healing and it will be better.  I can't wait until I can get back to the gym or get on my bike but that won't be until I return from Costa Rica.  

As always - Thanks for reading my ramblings!