Dealing with Stubborn

I see how James is progressing in so many ways so it seems as though I should be encouraged and not so discouraged with him, but the facts are, he's fighting me tooth and nail all day, every day, over everything from doing up buttons to eating what is set before him. He is fighting hard for control. Nothing I do is making a difference. Everything I ask of him is a 20 minute fight. Getting him out of bed, getting him dressed, getting him to make the bed.... everything.

I tried changing it up. Yesterday I had him bring his Bible and come sit on my bed instead of getting dressed and making his bed right off. He's reading Genesis to me verse by verse. He enjoys that. He's excited about that. BUT the second I asked him to do something slightly different then what he wants to do we are in a battle. He was done with reading Genesis for the day and was reading James 1:2-8. This has been his memory verse for school this past month. He knows it by heart, so when he finished reading it, I asked him to say it from memory for me and he instantly shut down. With about 15 or 20 minutes of working with him to give up his fight he finally decided to obey - cause he didn't want the consequence of sitting on the stool in his room. He said the verses with hardly a mistake. We then went on to other things and school and chores and he fought me on nearly everything ALL.DAY. including lunch. Trying to do some phonics was a nightmare because he purposely does it wrong and says,

"I DONT want to do SCHOOL!!"

"I DON'T want to OBEY!"

"I DON'T want to!!!!"

When in a better mood we talk about those stubborn feelings. We talk about where it comes from. Why it doesn't help him to give in to those feelings. WHILE he's talking about it it all makes sense to him. He promises to do it different, etc...

This morning I called him out of bed several times. He had his clothes all laid out the night before, but do you think he would actually put them on? or make the bed? I gave him consequences, tried to use a little logic, used the timer, and finally let him know I had had it. I was angry. I got loud. AND when I get loud he moves. BUT I HATE IT!!!!!! I bawled my eyes out driving all the way to school and back. My tolerance level is at an all time low and I'm frustrated with that, too.

I was just as frustrated and loud with Missy because she also is purposely doing things to see if she can get away with it, but it's different than what James is doing. She does stuff behind my back, he is doing it to my face. I understand that she has trust issues. I understand that she won't make progress until she learns to trust. In a sense that makes it easier and I even have a little sympathy for her predicament because she is missing some basic building blocks in her life (understanding, intellect, trust, etc...). While he is being disrespectful and testing, lazy and wanting his own way. The strange thing is, it's like a switch. He's happy, sweet, having fun and in an instant he's stubborn, disrespectful and ugly. We have lots of good time. He finished his first real reader yesterday. It was exciting. He also fought me over long vowel words pretending he didn't understand the concept while I was working my tail off to help him. After a time-out I handed him the book and said I wouldn't help him at all because of his attitude and he did it fine. He loved picking apples, but when he decided he was done he was no fun after that.

Anyway, he is at school and she is on the time-out stool because she isn't lucky enough to have school to escape to.

Interestingly enough, he has not wet his pants in two days, which is the thing he was testing me with before.

I'm begging the Lord for a breakthrough. I'm really struggling to keep my head above water. I need a complete overhaul of methods. I need a complete overhaul on myself before I just fall apart.

Rainbow over the house yesterday