Stevie, that sounds awful! Hope your arm it's better soon!


Cuddles don't happen much here, I just get pushed away. I do offer them, but he almost always says no.

He get heaps of choices, which is a whole other issue LOL ("do you want the red yoghurt or blue?" "red pease." I open the red one, screaming tantrum for blue ).

I do need to do more stopping and breathing before reacting. It's just hard in the moment.

I do the identifying emotions too, sometimes it works, other times he just screams at me more. I've had a great deal of success with that with other children (at work), but Isaac just won't stop and listen long enough to get a sentence out. Sometimes he will if I ask him to turn on his ears, sometimes not. It's very hit and miss.

But then there are other times were he just wants to whine, grizzle, roll on the floor, whatever (god knows I have these moments sometimes too). When he's like this, I tell him that I'm going to give him some space, but if he wants a cuddle I'd love to give him one. Then I get on with what I'm doing for a couple of minutes and pop back and ask him again if he needs a cuddle or whatever. Eventually he does and once we're at that point it's pretty much over and done with.
This would work sometimes I think, but what about the times where time is an issue? This morning we had to get dressed and go to the market. It took 2 hours because he was being so difficult, which meant we were an hour late to meet DF for lunch. I can't just let him go because we have things that need to be done. The same thing happened last week with playgroup. We were late because he refused to cooperate.

I'll have a look for that book, it sounds good.