We call up a few times, and both start to settle a bit. Then all of a sudden Mojo is crying shouting ‘Please, no.’ I guess we both thought either nightmare or she has done something daft (not unusual).
So Mr M goes upstairs to sort it out.
At this point Eldest has been banned from her 2DS, Innotab 3s and Skylanders. For various reasons, most really boiling down to being ungrateful and mistreating them and the people around her.
He walks in to the room to find she had taken Mojo’s Innotab 3s up to bed – somehow. Was so engrossed in it she didn’t hear him come up the stairs. She had her back to the door and was facing the wall, slightly under to covers – I guess so that she wouldn’t be found out? Kid logic. Mojo had heard the noise of the tab and as her one has her own pictures on it she knew it was her one.
So anyway. Mr M calls me up.
I go up and I go through some of the issues of the past few days, I am talking to her. There is no shouting, because there is no point. I don’t think shouting is very effective – but nor is anything else I’ve tried apparently.
I explain that I feel that she is being really naughty, her actions show me that it doesn’t matter what people around her do, how well she is treated. I say it feels like she couldn’t care less about anything she has or more importantly how much energy and time is spent to make her happy, to keep her fed, warm and basically alive. It isn’t about the ‘stuff’ she gets from people, she is (like most) cherished by her family members and she has been rude and badly treating most of them. So it was a conversation that needed to happen more than once.
Except this time I hit a nerve. Somewhere along the line she heard ‘I don’t care about you anymore’ rather than ‘People really care about you, but you need to start caring back’.
I ask her, with nothing but hope:
‘What do I need to do or say to help you understand you are hurting people? When you act/say/do what you do you’re upsetting people.’
I wind up the lecture by saying – we love you but we can’t keep doing this, I can’t keep telling you off and putting bans on things if you don’t respect the reasons behind it.
So I leave.
Then it started. The huge, loud quite primal crying. It sounded a bit like waves. It got louder and louder until she screamed for me. I mean really screamed for me. No the usual ‘Mom c’mere’ but a ‘MOMMMYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY‘.
I go in to the room, and she says ‘I’m sorry, I really am this time. I mean it. I won’t be horrible anymore.’
I nod. It is surprising when your children are young, you have no idea how fast these moments will come around to slap you in the face. You think that your child won’t be like ‘those’ kids. Well, so did I. I forget sometimes, these are the things they learn on the way. They learn to respect, they learn to care and ultimately it is our job to help them learn these things.
I say ‘Well, you can say that now. What you really need to do is show it to the people around you. The people who love you.’
So the 1st arrives. Me and Mr M exchange the normal soppy blurb in the morning before we go and get the ladies ready for breakfast.
So, rather than come down she stays upstairs for an extra five minutes. I assume she is either a bit bashful this morning or alternatively – angry. I pour smallest some cereal and start the coffee machine.
Eldest arrives and hovers at the door.
‘The cereal is there’ and I point to the cereal. Well, with that she turns on her heel.
Mr. M nips off to the living room to see if she is in there. Say’s she isn’t. I say bah, she will be in the colouring house. He checks and she isn’t. There is a shuffling upstairs. So she is just up there. No worries.
I turn the dial on the coffee machine, he starts the dishes. Mojo is at the table munching her cereal. I didn’t hear the top set of stairs creaking, I did hear a little pitter patter along the landing but nothing on the second set of stairs, and then a woosh as she pulls the door open and makes off down the street…
* I don’t normally cut a post in two but this is quite a long one, will post the rest tomorrow *
