Behavior, Continued

During a normal school and work week, one of the hardest parts of our day is the time just after getting home until we all sit down for dinner.  It's a tough transition here because Colin and Kailey can't seem to get themselves into playing independently and for obvious reasons, are both vying for our attention (which is a challenge as we unpack from the day and get dinner ready).  The majority of the behavior issues we see are due to the fact that they cannot play nicely together at this time.  Colin often is in trouble or timeout during this time, not because he is being malicious to her, but because she wants nothing to do with his attention (in her face wanting to play with her).  As I mentioned yesterday, she is DRAMA and often displays her displeasure with foul faces and and whining/crying.  

While I know that this is a time for both to test their limits (and us!), it is not always easy.  One of the series of pictures I caught tonight at dinner show how much Colin is imitating right now.  I am sure that a lot of his behaviors have to do with Colin imitating others (good and bad) and is trying these things out.  I also think that once the communication barrier starts to fall down, he will then be able to express himself more easily.  

During dinner, Colin wanted to sit as close to Chris as possible.  Every motion that Chris did with his fork and food, Colin watched carefully and did the same thing at the same time.  

I just desperately wish this imitating of behaviors w.orked for potty training as well!  I know that I posted a few months back about how much of a challenge potty training was because Colin became increasingly agitated with it.  We eventually decided to take a break and revisit this issue at a later time when we thought he would be more ready.  During these past few months, nothing has changed in terms of his interest level or even talking about going.  Occasionally, he will tell us that he is going pee-pees in his diaper, but that's really the extent.

I am not going to lie, but the anxiety level surrounding the accomplishing of this skill is through the roof.  I know that he will do this in his own time when he is ready, but I also think we need to start exposing him more and more so that it just becomes part of his routine.  I went to the store tonight and bought some supplies to create some sort of "potty chart".  We need to come up with some symbols or pictures that Colxin can adhere to the chart (I bought velcro stickers to apply to whatever laminated pictures we come up with).  I want this to be fun, but after night #1 starting with anger tears from him, I just feel overwhelmed in terms of how we are going to get through this.  We know that the method of many times in a day is just not going to work with him.  In any skill, he has never been ok with overwhelming him when he just doesn't want to do something.  So, we are going to start with after dinner every night for awhile until he adjusts to that and then just starting adding more per day.

Sigh, I REALLY wish I didn't have to do this one!