My Beautiful Boy

A couple of weeks ago Corey saw a jacket at the shop that he decided he ‘had’ to have.  Finances are a bit tight so we said no we can’t really afford it right now.  He wasn’t happy at all and days later was still going on and on and on about this jacket.  It got even worse when his older brother Ben started the soccer season and we had to buy new soccer boots and socks, shin pads etc for him.

“Why does he get everything”

“He gets everything and I get nothing”

I’m sure you can imagine what it was like.  After buying the shin pads he whined and cried for just about the rest of the day – “Why does Ben get everything?”

So I told him that because Ben was getting this stuff that perhaps I could put the jacket on layby for him and then it would take a few weeks to pay it off and then he will have it.  Of course that still wasn’t good enough, he wants it NOW!  After all, Ben is getting everything NOW!

So that night we talked about it with his Dad and we decided that we would put it on layby and that he had to make a real attempt at improving his behavior for the next 3 weeks.  If he has made a good attemt, then he will get the jacket in 3 weeks.

So, the jacket went on layby last Thursday – 6 days ago and his behavior…….  well he is trying I’ll give him that much.  There have been a couple of times when he’s been arguing or yelling at someone and I’ve told him to walk away and he did – usually he just ignores me and keeps on yelling.  There have been a few of the real anger moments and a few times when he has spoken nastily to me and each time I’ve just calmly said ‘remember the jacket’ and he’s apologised straight away.

I know that when he gets the jacket that he will probably just get really bad again, but at least we can see that he is putting in an effort.  I know it isn’t easy for him so at least he’s trying.  He can be such a good kid when he wants to be, but unfortunately we are seeing less and less of that good kid, so if we can get some times such as these when he actually tries to be good, then that’s something.

We still have 2 weeks left before he gets the jacket so hopefully it will be a reasonably good 2 weeks.  If he can do it then he deserves the jacket, I know it isn’t easy for him.