The room is done, and he has moved in, and he is very happy about it. We made him paint the walls and ceiling on his own, which he wasn't happy about at the time, but now he is very proud.

We talked with him about needs and created some house rules. We are making his priviledges contingent on behavior. If he breaks rules, he gets to chose the consequence from a list (lose 15 minutes computer time, has to go to bed at 9, a $3 fine, no phone calls for the night, and so on). He sure wasn't happy about that either, but is adjusting.

One big change on the part of DH and me is that we will no longer respond to him at all unless he is speaking respectfully. When he is being miserable, we walk away after saying, "I'll listen when you are ready to speak respectfully." He must have just wanted attention, or likes winding us up, because that has been very effective.

Another thing we did was practice with him ways to cope with his stress and anger. We taught him words and phrases to use to let us know how he is feeling, and expect him to use them rather than just be miserable. We told him what we do when we are feeling unable to interact with others appropriately due to stress or anger. His plan is to go hang out in his room and listen to music to cool down. This one is taking a bit longer to settle in, but it is better.

Things are better with him at school too. He did hit the kid back, which makes me really sad that it had to get to that, but now no one has touched him in almost two weeks, when before it was a daily thing. His anger level has been much lower since that fight.

One of his needs that came out of the conversation is that he was very bored after school. He didn't play basketball, and he doesn't want to join a club, so he just came home and was bored. We made a plan where twice a week he walks over to Great Grandma's house afterschool (his idea!) and shovels her driveway, helps her do errands, and is a kind of junior handyman. He also gets to use her superfast computer and watch cable TV with her. I pick him up on my way home. This has been incredibly successful, they are both really pleased with the arrangement.

Then his old TKD instructor called and asked him to please come help teach classes. Twice a week he walks to the elementary school after school and teaches three classes. Now we are covered for 4 days a week. I don't know what will happen once baseball starts, but I'm sure we can work it out.

So, things are looking up. He still thinks the world revolves around him and he deserves everything he wants, but we're working on that too.

Peace,
-Jo