This morning, just after I hung up from a phone call, my son called out, “Mom, there’s a little, sharp piece of glass on my floor.” Knowing his baby brother and sister were in the room with him, I rushed to see what they had all gotten into, thinking maybe they’d knocked over a lamp. Instead, I found a glass broken half-in, half-out of the closet, surrounded by spilled ball pit balls.
My face betrayed my frustration and surprise. (Glasses belong in the kitchen, not in the bedroom closet.) My son explained, “Mom, I didn’t think it would actually beak. I was just preten- smashing it.”
Ahhh. Breathe. Don’t yell. Try to keep the sharpness out of your tone and move everyone to safety so you can clean this mess. I coached myself. Meanwhile, the phone rang, the Behavior Modification Specialist who had just arrived came into the room and, in less than 30 minutes, what had been a decent morning began to dissolve into chaos. (Isn’t that what always happens when you take one phone all, then troubleshoot what happens while you’re on the phone, just to have the phone ring again?) …continue reading
