theITbaby

the IT city, the I.T. Baby

misc

Dealing with dynamite

I’m not particularly good with dealing with people to begin with, let alone when they’re angry and don’t know why and looking to pick a fight, which is what my 4yo has been doing relatively often.

The other day, her first day of science camp, she came home and was fine and then Katie Kaboom kicked in for no reason we could tell and she was one step from exploding for about 40 minutes. This was one of two times she’s ever backed off of the exploding.

When Katie Kaboom comes on she’s defiant, will not go and calm down, takes everything you do as somehow part of a lead up to a fight, and basically she’s entirely unpleasant to be around.

40 minutes of grunting, whining, stomping, and refusing to get out of your face. If you leave or ignore her she gets louder and blows up. This 3-4 times a week. Anything can trigger it – not enough sleep, not enough food, too much food, hot, cold, whatever. There’s next to no reason for it. She just gets mad and then works as hard as possible to create as much drama as possible.

Give her 3 options label one of them as bad, she’ll choose it. Tell her she’s not being punished she just needs to come back to us, she’ll kick someone. Tell her to go to her room to calm down, nope. Louder grunting and stomping.

So this is what I deal with knowing that in most cases I will not see it get better, I’ll see it devolve into crying, screaming, kicking, and full blown Katie Kaboom.

She’ll grow out of it they say (professionals, not just a random they.)

I’m supposed to write up a request for a 504 / IAP meeting as we’re way past any ability to have a job with Maggie getting kicked out on average once a week. She hit 15 kickouts last week (Monday and Wednesday). 30something times we’ve gone down there to calm her. 50+ communications from the teacher regarding behavior. 7 meetings with behaviorist 1, 1 meeting with behaviorist 2.

Between her attitude and Metro schools being closed for a snowflake this year I’ve been out three weeks already. Really am struggling to figure out how anyone with kids can do anything in Metro Nashville, let alone anyone with a kid dealing with temper issues.

Paul King

Paul King lives in Nashville Tennessee with his wife, two daughters and cats. He writes for Pocketables, theITBaby, and is an IT consultant along with doing tech support for a film production company.