Your child is shouting, refusing to get dressed and is being defiant in every single way you/they can possibly think of.
You shout back, you are sick of this. Why is it every day? Why is it the same fight over every little thing you ask them? You are tired. You are worn down. You just need a break, you just need them to get dressed.
Sound even vaguely familiar? I found myself in this very situation yet again this week. Riley has had a hard time recently. He has struggled with processing and turned in on himself a little, well to be honest a lot and getting him to do even the most basics of tasks is a complete battle.
I found myself the other morning in a shouting match with him. Why wasn’t he getting dressed? Why wasn’t he brushing his teeth? Could he just please put the milk away? Then he ran away and hid, still shouting at me. I took a breath to shout back and stopped. I looked at what I was doing and realised the situation I had put us into. Riley’s stress level had gone up ten fold, so had mine. There was no winning this. Even if I ‘won’ the shouting match, I would be left with a shivering, hiding, anxious mess of a child who would have lost his trust in me, there was no winning.
I took a breath, calmed myself, went through and apologised, this is something that is hard as an adult to do to a child, as we are taught it is a sign of weakness, something you should never show a child. I disagree. It teaches them you are human.
I calmly explained why I needed him to do the things I did, that I understand he is struggling right now and that if he gets ready these are the things we can do to help with this (we set up a sensory tuff spot). This helped and Riley was able to come out of hiding and continue, at his own pace, getting ready. I had to accept no amount of pushing was going to get him to go any faster. He was at his limit, his cup was full and he was doing his best.
Being the grown up is hard. We struggle too but we can take that breath and let it go, our children, especially our neurodiverse ones can’t. Let it go, stop the shouting and do what is right for your kid even if that means swallowing your pride, going against your parenting ideals (you know the ones we had before we had our children) and stand down.
