It Worked!!

I can't believe it worked. I mean, I can...but seriously I had doubts. I've been reading Supernanny's book and our case managers and therapists have been giving me advice. We've been trying to figure out how to head Joey's temper tantrums off before he explodes. They've told me to redirect him, try to distract him, or include him in whatever's going on when he seems to be starting up.

Saturday morning, Joey turned off the light and closed the bathroom door while Josh was using the bathroom. Obviously this was intended to freak Josh out. It worked. Josh screamed, finished his business and ran out of the bathroom, across the room and slugged Joey hard in the side. I hadn't seen what Joey did, but I saw what Josh did. Josh was immediately put into timeout. For the entire 7 minutes, he cried and screamed and whined about how it was all Joey's fault. However noisy he was, he did stay in the timeout spot for the full 7 minutes. After, he explained what he had done wrong, apologized and gave me a big hug.

During Josh's timeout, Joey came downstairs and into the kitchen where I was doing dishes. He was strutting so I asked him if he thought it was cool to freak Josh out. He said he was just playing. I told him that I didn't consider his behavior "playing". He starting to whine..."You never believe me. You only like Josh. You don't even like me. You always believe him over me. You only like little kids. You're mean." ...etc. I pointed out that Josh is the one that was in timeout. This made him pause for a second, but he was able to just throw that little fact out and keep going. That was when it occurred to me that it looked like we were headed into a tantrum. So, I very calmly said, "Joey, would you please help me empty the dishwasher?" He paused, took a big Harumph and silently started emptying the dishwasher. After a few minutes, I started to leave the kitchen, then stopped, turned back and said "Thank you for helping me." He just looked at me then rolled his eyes. I said "Joey?" and he said "You're welcome." ...and it was over.

Wow. Amazing as well was that it worked again a few hours later. Then, a few hours after that, I asked him to come close on the sofa and I said "Joey, twice today it's looked like you were headed into a temper tantrum. Both times you were able to pull back out of it. I'm really proud of you for that." He nodded and looked cautious, but proud.

I went on "You seem edgy today. Do you feel edgy today?"

"No."

"I'd rather not go there if we can avoid it. Would you rather avoid that too?"

"Yes."

"Ok, let's see if we can get through the day."

"Okay." And we did. This is a miraculous step forward for us!!!