You've all given me a lot to consider. Pud is 7 and is an only child. He gets a lot of my one-on-one attention. I would guess his love language is touch; mine isn't. He seems to be getting along fine at school. The only comment I've gotten is that he "dominates" the class by blurting out the answers before others have a chance to "figure it out". The math teacher told me he is very smart. They were doing fact families the other day (5+0=5, 5-0=5, etc) and the teacher was waiting for someone to tell her another fact. Pud told her 0-5=-5. Well, of course, they haven't learned that so she told him he was right but they weren't going to study that yet. She told me not to let him do too much math at home because then he'd have nothing to learn at school. I didn't tell her about long division!
I am thinking about what someone said about "minimums". If I could just get him to get dressed and brush his teeth and do his chore (it's been to unload the dishwasher every day but maybe I could find a different one since he is so resistant). I don't know how to get him to brush his teeth - short of holding him down and physically forcing the toothbrush in his mouth and scrubbing (which my husband can do but I don't know if I could, strengthwise). The teeth-brushing is a priority right now because he went to the dentist for a cleaning about 3 weeks ago and his teeth were awful. The hygenist and the dentist both emphasized that he HAD to do a better job brushing.
It's frustrating because we've tried rewards, consequences, taking things away, sticker charts, time-outs, everything we can think of. Nothing seems to reach him. I'm thinking of two strategies for the teeth: brush them for him every night or put him in the bathroom at 8 pm and tell him he has to stay there until he brushes. If that means he falls asleep in there, then I guess that's what would happen. I don't know. He seems to be one of those kids we read about in the DNA article that doesn't learn from consequences.
I've asked him repeatedly what upsets him, how he feels when he hits, what is going on in his head when he acts up. I get: "I don't want to do what you tell me to do".
I got this question on the spanking: "how come it's okay for you to hit me but it's not okay for me to hit you?". Umm, well, because I'm the parent?
Thanks for all the suggestions. I'll have to think about it and decide what to work on specifically first. Figure out what are the most important things? And, I'll work on more touching. I know he's almost always in our bed or on the floor at the foot of our bed in the mornings. He says he just wants to be close to us.
I'll have to reread all of these posts several times and learn from your experiences.
