no change

These last few days have been really trying. I find myself constantly going back and forth between thoughts of My Kid Should Know Better, to My Kid Is Special... and I don't mean special in that exceptional and unordinary kind of way; I'm talking special needs, the kind of special that requires specific handling. It's a little hard to explain. Like when people say that autistic kids just need more discipline, or time outs should still work, or spanking is still appropriate for children who are autistic... well they never met my kids.

Sure, I give my 2-year-old a swat now and then if he's doing something dangerous, like climbing the furniture and threatening to fall out the window. Or if he's wrestling with the 1-yr-old in a way that makes me fear a broken neck would result from it... It's the same fights, the same reprimands, the same, scoldings... the same, the same, the same.

My 5-year-old is no better. Everyday it's the same issues. Scoldings or swats come, but they make no real, lasting difference. I wonder if anything will. But the scoldings don't even help with whatever is happening in the present. I just get these looks where I see not so much defiance, but a compulsion to do whatever it was, again.

Sometimes there is straight up defiance, like when my 2-year-old stares right at me and says the words, "Don't touch," and grabs like the knives or whatever out of the kitchen drawers.

(Oh, didn't I tell you? I had to put baby locks on all the kitchen drawers and cabinets (like so many other ordinary parents), only to have them destroyed from repeated thrashing in an effort to break through. Now that's determination, I tell you! Never let anyone say that my kids are undetermined...)

I don't know. I'm just so tired of the same things. Things that never change. How do I change it? Is this normal?...

Originally uploaded by skaneatelessuites