A Money Making Endeavor

After the Valentine's week from you know where, with Ben eating contraband candy every day, I went into last week thinking things would get better.  Boy was I wrong.  It seemed like Ben decided to eat unapproved food every single day.  Chips from his friend at lunch, someones cookie at recess, on and on.  Not wanting to dwell on the negative, I tried to reinforce the positive. . . with bribery.  On Thursday night I told him that I understood how hard it was to say no to food that tasted good, but that I wanted him to make the healthy choice and say no.  So I made a deal with him that if he brought home whatever it was that he wanted to eat, instead of eating it, I would pay him a dollar.  He got very excited so I thought my plan would work.  And then on Friday, he ate someones chips.  UGH! 

You have to understand that even two chips of the unapproved variety can result in three days worth of bad behavior - especially when it's an every day occurrence.  Ben gets extremely angry and has almost zero frustration tolerance.  Things like homework, brushing his teeth, vision therapy, and any other small instruction can result in a horrible angry mess of a six year old.  And there is no reasoning with him when he's in a rage.  We have learned techniques to deal with his rages, teaching him how to isolate himself when he's in one so he can calm himself down.  Once he's out of it you can talk to him about what happened and try to help him learn from it.  I learned these techniques in this book:  The Explosive Child.  I highly, highly recommend this book to anyone who has a child that rages.  You know who you are. 

So we dealt with his reaction from the chips on Friday, and then on Saturday, and Sunday morning.  By Sunday afternoon he was pretty much back to his good self.  I call that "Fun Ben".  (Instead of "Angry Ben").  Last night after we did some homework together (Darrin and Lia were in another part of the house so we had no distractions), I calmly talked to Ben about him eating unapproved food.  I explained to him that as much as I loved him, I did not like to be around "Angry Ben".  I told him that what he ate at school was his choice, because I wasn't there to watch him.  And I said that if he made bad choices, and ate unapproved food, and "Angry Ben" came out, that I was not going to take "Angry Ben" anywhere with us.  I told him that he would stay home while Darrin, Lia and I went out to do something fun. 

This hurt Ben very much and he actually started to cry.  I told him that I wasn't trying to make him upset, but he needed to understand how bad it was for the rest of us when he decided to eat bad food that makes him angry.  And that we choose not to be around him when he's like that.  Then I told him that he could help me decide what he wanted to have in his lunch, and that if there were any foods he saw his friends eating at school, that he could tell me about them and I would try my best to find or make them in an approved version.  This made him perk up a bit and he said he thought that was a great idea.  I felt like we really had a break through last night and I crossed my fingers and toes that he would make the right choices today. 

When I got home this evening, before I could even get in the door, Ben yelled to me "MOM!  I brought home COOKIES!!!"  And he ran and grabbed a bag of animal cookies that his friend had given him.  He also told me "Mom, I even ate a chip from my friend, but then I remembered and I spit it out RIGHT AWAY!".  The funny thing is, I believe him.  I could just tell that he was telling me the truth.  You can bet I gave him his dollar right away.  I hope this week I get to pay him four more dollars so we can do something fun together this weekend.  It's worth every penny.