All good things must come to end... and today was the end of a very fun visit. Buster came to me, his face all crinkled up, "They are LEAVING?" and broke down and sobbed his heart out. Certain other little fellows were not happy about leaving, either.
As soon as the car was out of sight both twins immediately said, "Let's go to town, let's get in the car, lets, lets, lets...." They are conditioned to cover pain and sadness with busyness. Steve and I both don't think this is necessarily a healthy way to deal with such emotions, so we all gathered in the living room and talked and read for awhile and just let the quiet reality set in. I'd rather experience and face the feelings not just run away or create a frenetic flurry of activity to cover them up. There were a few more tears, but they have adjusted.
Buster's obsession with toys is driving me crazy! He gets into one thing and it lasts for days and that's all he can do and think about. If I ask him to go outside or do a little job - even if it's the usual routine, it gets him annoyed because it interferes with his hyper concentration on one thing! When this happens the toy disappears for a long while. I don't know how else to deal with it. My nephews had a game that he LOVED! After the 2nd day of not being able to do anything else I forbade him to play it at all. The last few days it has been his race car track. It used to be he could only play with it set up the way the diagram on the box showed. In fact he could only use certain cars in certain spots and there was absolutely no varying it. The three nephews however, have an imagination and wouldn't think of using the track in the same way twice... He finally got the idea and then it became an obsession. First thing in the morning he popped out of bed and played with it ALL day insisting that one or another of the kids play with him at all times right until it was bedtime. Swimming, biking, picking berries, eating, stories.... were all annoying because it interfered with his focus. The race car track disappeared yesterday before lunch and he has asked for it dozens of times since, but I don't see any benefit in letting him have it back for awhile. It's use will be a privilege earned and for set amounts of time. I can't remember my three girls ever being very interested in toys, really. These kids weren't too interested at first, either, but now it's gone the other way totally crazy and I'm not really liking it.
1 comment:
Sometimes kids like ours get hyper-focussed on something and it becomes a bit of an obsession because it fills there need for control. Fudge used to be like that with video games we weaned him off and now he does not play them at all although he is still obsessed with them, now he does the same thing with board games and comic books, I set the time, give a 5 minute warning when it is almost up and if he is unable to stop I take the thing away. If it really becomes an issue I sometimes make him give the thing to charity, I did it a few times and now he is a lot better about stopping when asked. Good luck
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