Trust

It hit me this morning as Big K was relating an incident (aka tattling) about her brother, that I'm tired. It's exhausting to live with a child that you can't trust.

J-Man has no internal compulsion to be obedient. The only reason to do the right thing is to avoid getting in trouble. Consequences do not work (but don't worry, we still use them) because he can't see past the immediate satisfaction of getting or doing what he wants. He also lacks the ability to generalize from one situation to another. Therefore, even though he's six years old, he has to be supervised like a toddler. For example, I watch him when he uses the bathroom to make sure he doesn't stick his head in the toilet, flush four times or dig trenches in the bar of soap. He's done all of that and more...repeatedly.

If J-Man is unable to see an adult, it's every man, boy, girl and animal for him or herself. This applies not only to obedience issues, but also to his treatment of others. If he thinks that I can't see or hear him (heaven forbid I take a shower), he drops his mask. As he hasn't yet fine-tuned the "art of sneaky", I can often catch him at this. We also have a blanket rule applying to the cat. He's not allowed to touch her. The poor cat suffered some abuse in the first days after J-Man came home, so we're pretty vigilant now.

There's no respect for the property of others. J-Man spends a lot of time in a large baby gate playing with toys that I rotate in and out. If I lose track of him, I'm asking for trouble. He will steal or break things without a second thought and then get upset because his sisters are mad at him. I've found that prevention is the best medicine on this front.

And he is the most convincing liar you've ever seen. Unless I saw it with my own eyes (or one of the girls will vouch for it) I cannot believe anything (and I mean anything) that J-Man says. He will stake out a claim and stick with it. Even when I tell him that I know he's lying because I saw what he did he will continue, with conviction and while sobbing "you never believe me", to dig himself further into a hole. He must be threatened with something scary (like missing lunch) in order to 'fess up.

As I said, it's tiring. He's a perpetual toddler in a body that keeps getting bigger. We've decided to send him to school in the fall. Hopefully the structure will be good for him and the break from the constant battles will be good for me. I've never looked forward to September so much in my life.