Don't you just love the sudden mood swings of children? One minute they can be elated and everything's okay. The next minute they're sulking and refuse to do whatever it is that you're asking them to do.
One of the most difficult things about parenting is dealing with split-second mood changes; and I do mean split-second. Our children can be running around laughing and giggling, and then all of a sudden one of them is screaming at the other one to stop. Uh... what? Weren't the two of you just playing merrily?
This morning we had a bit of an incident when it comes to sudden mood changes. I was getting breakfast ready for Harper and Willow, and both girls were excited to be sitting down at the table and eating their waffles, cut into strips of course. Willow decided to grab all the place mats and set them all out on the table, even though they weren't needed. This didn't jive well with Harper. Harper went from excited for breakfast to angry at Willow for setting out place mats that weren't needed (or maybe she was mad because Willow was doing it and she wasn't... I honestly don't really know).
This escalated into me having to stop Harper from being a bit mean to Willow about the place mats, which consisted of taking them off the table and yelling at Willow. This then continued to escalate into me having to tell Harper to just stay out of the kitchen until her breakfast was ready. She decided that her mood was going to continue to sour and listening to me was no longer an option. Then I brought her upstairs and put her in her room for a time out for not listening and being rude to her sister. This time she listened, but that's when her mood change yet again.
When Harper gets into trouble, and she wasn't really in trouble, she was just being removed from the source of conflict, she shuts down. This is better than the screaming she did for about a month or two, but it's quite awkward at times. When she shuts down, she hides under her bed (she shares a bunk bed with her big sister Riannah). Yet another weird behavior to deal with.
After a couple minutes, I went back upstairs and opened her door, informing Harper that she could come downstairs whenever she was ready, knowing that she'd be hiding under her bed (this is her new way of dealing with situations, like this, when she gets sent to a timeout). However, instead of doing or usual "metaphorically pry her out from beneath her bed" bit, I let her know she could come downstairs when SHE was ready and left the room with the door open.
I went back downstairs and heard Harper stomp over to her door and close it. I then proceeded to make my breakfast and enjoy it with only Willow at the table. Half an hour later, Harper showed up in the kitchen with a smile and that excitement of eating breakfast had returned (along with redness on her face from crying, but that's okay). Once again, the mood had done a 180-degree turn and things were back to normal. She ate without incident, although she did get an "X" on her reward chart for the behavior (the kids get up to three Xs per day before losing their reward sticker that day that gets applied to their actual reward).
The rest of the day, Harper's behavior kept with her regular happy self and the day was great!
Of course, the same type of mood changes occurred later that day with the older two, but that's another story. All I know is, when I took the time to walk away and let Harper know she could go back to her day when SHE was ready, that seemed much more effective than me trying to metaphorically pry her out from under her bed (I say metaphorically because it's done with words, not actually prying her out from under her bed).
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