Right, thats it!

I am very behind on my blog - yet again but it has been half term to be fair and I haven't had a moments peace as I have also had t'husband off on holiday as well, so 2 boys and a husband demanding my attention = no time for me! 

The week began well, although we didn't do much as there is still so much to do around the house and as the boy's school tag 3 of their inset days onto the whit half term we decided we would do most things this week before they went back to school, so it would be quieter such as digger land, cinema etc.

However, best laid plans and all as they say. As the week went on their behaviour got progressively worse. We went out for a walk each day sometimes for a couple of miles or on bikes or scooters but it didn't help. We have been feeling Little Man's medication is not quite as effective as it was anyway, but this week it felt like we were back to pre-medication for ADHD and Mini Man is very, very good at copying Little Man's behaviour.

I think the worse thing I find with my boys is their lack of respect.  Its like it doesn't exist.  Toys are constantly being broken and the attitude is 'oh well, we will get another one', books ripped, clothes torn and I am not just talking general kids wear and tear here, I am meaning Little Man taking a pair of scissors to his pyjamas 'to see what happens if he cuts them', even the furniture is not looked after, they think it is an assault course and trampoline, a while back there was an incident which involved a full bottle of my favourite (expensive of course) perfume, and well a then empty bottle and fume induced headaches each morning when we woke up for about a week. I now can't stand the smell of my once favourite perfume! This week alone, they have broken a window in the playhouse because they thought they might as well as it was cracked, smashed toys with bricks in the garden, pulled the curtains and pole down from the small bedroom leaving a big chuck of plaster missing and no way of putting it back up that we can see, and ripped pages out of a book of mine which holds a fair bit of sentiment for me, oh and somehow my clematis plants in the garden and my climbing roses seem to have magically shrunk to about 1 foot tall by themselves.  So as you can imagine I was a very unhappy Mummy by Sunday.

As each incident has been disciplined in its own right and they certainly do not get away with blue murder as one might think from their behaviour by Sunday I had had it.  I had already threatened anything more broken would result in them losing a favourite toy for me to take to a charity shop and so I did.  This was met with complete wailing and whole world collapsing by Mini Man, but Little Man flipped and went mental (that's for another post, another day).  I went as far as putting toys in a bag and driving round the block to prove my point (I hasten to add that t'husband was at home so I didn't leave them there alone!). I didn't take the toys to a charity shop, they are still in my car, as the one Mini Man gave up was a very expensive Hornby train for his train set which we couldn't afford to replace, but I wanted to prove a point.

Due to Little Man's melt down, and then continued aggressive behaviour, we then took the step of getting them both to pick 6 toys they wanted to play with each, and the rest, Wii, and DS included have been put in the loft, everything is up there.  They have been allowed to keep their 6 toys, all books, games such as jig saw, operation, monopoly, domino's etc which we can all play and GeoMag etc, but everything is gone and they have to earn it back each week. 

I think the message has hit home. Today we put Little Man on the next dose up as an experiment (he has a medication review on Wednesday anyhow, and we know this next dose is OK as it is what he started on a year ago but we felt it was too strong for him). Needless to say we have had model behaviour today and a fab day. Sadly Digger land was taken away sometime last week as a punishment so instead while we planted our new hedge, the boys gathered stones off the drive, found some green army men in the garden (which had slipped through the loft net) and set up a battlement, and played for over an hour at trying to knock each others battlement and army men down by bowling stones.  Later they dressed up and were playing a game.  It was so refreshing to see them playing together, using their imagination and enjoying it.

i hope the lesson has been learnt. I felt awful doing what we did, but they need to learn respect and learn that things can't be treated badly. fingers crossed!