I'm all alone today...

This feels so weird. I'm in my house all by myself, well just me and Duncan that is. It is spring break. If my children are not in school, they are with me. ALWAYS! Occasionally one of them will be gone to a friend's house, or two of them will go to my parents house. But all three?

It is so quiet...

Their dad had asked if they could spend the night with him last night and the day today. After praying about it, I told him they could spend today with him, but not the night. Not yet.

But then, GameMaster got a better offer. His friend called to see if he could come over at 10am today to spend the day and the night. I don't find that as a coincidence. Why 10am - the exact time that their dad was coming to get them? Well, that made a really good excuse for GameMaster, who pretended like it was a really hard decision to not hurt his dad's feelings, but decided to go to the friend's house.

He's just not ready. He's still very hurt and angry. I think he's scared too. I know he is uncomfortable around him. I feel so sorry for him having to go through this.

But then there is his attitude. What am I going to do? Somebody needs to beat his butt, you know? If you see a 10 year old boy treating him mom and siblings this way, what do you think? "Somebody needs to beat his butt!" Right? Well, think again. I'm in a very difficult place where I need to be extremely consistent in disciplining him, without confusing him or abusing him further. At this point I need to say that I've never and would never abuse my child. But once you've been abused, it doesn't take much to be perceived as abuse. If I lose it and yell at him, he goes running in fear like I'm about to hit him or something! He's so overly sensitive.

And then I think, how much of that is he using as a way out of getting in trouble? To manipulate me? I just don't know! That is why it is all such a delicate balance.

Today, while he is away, I am going to be praying for God to show me a discipline plan for him. He is getting out of control and he knows it. He needs help getting himself back into control. And I need help figuring out how to do that!

One thing that I do know that works is laying it out clearly for him. You know... if you do THIS, then your consequence is THIS. That way he knows what to expect and he knows that his consequences are from his own choices. My job is to define the problem behaviors and the consequences. Then DO IT!! Every Time!