Friday, August 22, 2008

Negative Funk

School will complete its first full week today. I have heard no negative reports which is good. Great actually. I assume no news is good news!! The problem is when Bear gets home. He is in SUCH a negative funk each day. He comes in seeking an argument immediately. I feel like I am playing dodge ball. I wonder what he'd do if I started leaping around when he makes his comments : ) Could be fun. Anyway. I am searching out ways of him working off some negative energy when he gets home. I think I will try sending him outside for awhile after school. I saw on one of your blogs one of you bought a mini tramp. This reminds me that we have one and it is a great way of releasing some energy. Plus I know I read somewhere that the up and down movement actually does something that helps the brain. It is similar to the bouncing movement moms do with babies on the shoulder. RAD so often reminds me of a puzzle. We are constantly looking for the missing pieces to make life better for our child and our family.

11 comments:

Rachelle said...

Maybe dodge ball outside : )

~Bren~ said...

I also heard positive things of a tramp...if they do a jogging type bounce it has an EMDR effect.
Let me know if it works!

Lisa said...

Love it! The mini tramp is priceless in our home. Wish they made a mini-version of the mini tramp to carry with us wherever we go.
Bren...I am going to have to try that jogging bounce. That immediately got my interest!
Thanks Brenda!!!!

Brenda said...

I have used our mini tramp with the boys in the past. I guess I just put it away for the summer. It does calm them and they seem to actually like the feeling. We have done EMDR and what Bren says about jogging makes sense. EMDR uses any motion or sound that goes back and forth using both sides of the brain. So not only would you have the motion of right foot left foot but the sound of the feet hitting right/left. Thanks Bren

C said...

We have a mini-tramp. We actually bought one that has a contraption that counts your bounces (which the kids LOVED). It broke. Grrrrr. I need to fix it, as they're not as apt to get on it as before - without my prodding. :)

Nancy Thomas also quips that when they become teenagers, you want them to find positive ways to get the up and down motion ... ya' know ... instead of on other teenagers! LOLOLOLOLOL

familygregg said...

How about jumping rope?

ali said...

the tramp has been great for jackson too! the neighbors gave it to us in May. all the kids love it.

Brenda said...

Family Greg,

Bear has some trouble with jumping rope. Maybe if I bought one with a counter on it like Christine mentioned is on her tramp he would use it.

Christine,

I'd like for his hand to be doing the up and down motion of flipping burgers while he asks "do you want fries with that". We keep applying places.

Karen Deborah said...

just go for it! Get a big trampoline. I think the jumping around sounds pretty funny.

Anonymous said...

Are you able to get to him through humor? I rarely could with my oldest but with my youngest it helped a lot and we connect on a different level. Sometimes I don't know if it is really good or not though. I often have a hard time getting him to stop goofing around sometimes and sometimes I think it may have blurred the line between parent/child... like when he is disrespectful and treating me like another kid. I do have the luxury of only having him in the car when I pick him up from school though. He was always super grumpy but then I got him to talk by talking about the weird kids when I was in high school and now he likes to tell me about the weird kids at his school... and we laugh a lot. He also tells me about other stuff now but I learned he doesn't like it when I ask.

Raising kids is just hard. My kids don't have RAD but there are some similarities, especially with my oldest. I love how hard you work at it.

Unspeakable Joy said...

good luck! after school is always a frustrating time here too.