Colored on the church walls!!!

[wildswede]

This evening we had a celebration service for my recently passed grandfather, honestly, I wanted to get childcare for my son, however, caved after another, "He just needs to learn to behave" speech from my mother. DS did great through the hour long service, he had a small box of quiet fiddly things and made it without issue. Then there was a family dinner provided by the church, near the end of the evening, the ladies who were doing the meal came in and mentioned coloring on the walls... yes, my son and my nephew drew lines on several walls and across a few large, hanging prints in the hallway. I took the crayons, took both their hands and the three of us scrubbed the walls. However, we could not scrub the prints, the quality is not that great and to scrub them would scrub the original color off. The we got in the car and my mother started coming out of my mouth; for a good ninety seconds I could not stop yelling and right now we are home and I'm having a very hard time continuing with our regular bedtime routine... I am so angry that he would do this, I do not want to read stories or snuggle him, I'm afraid I would just start squeezing and not stop at this point! I messaged the lead pastor to let him know what happened and I had DS write a note of apology that we will bring in tomorrow. I'm having a hard time knowing how much to impress that this sort of behavior is vandalism and not acceptable, and then reminding myself that he is not even five years old and my expectations need to be reasonable. He has in-attention and autism symptoms, as well as a language disorder and I find myself having (and find that my family has) ridiculously high expectations of behavior for him. The hardest part about tonight wasn't even DS coloring on walls, it's that his cousin was also involved and everyone acts like it is MY responsibility to clean up because it must have been DS's fault. This happens a lot, the boys often get into trouble when they are together and it's made out to be completely my son's fault... my nephew is a pretty big liar and he's very sneaky so he doesn't get spanked. Not that it is all my nephew either, they both have a big role in the mischief they get up to. But, it's just assumed that I will be the one cleaning up after MY child because I am the permissive one and nephew would have NEVER done anything like that if my son wasn't around. How would you proceed? What would you all have done?

[sweetpeasmommy]

Breathe. Average 5 yos color on walls sometimes. Don't discuss it with your family. You emailed the pastor and can make amends. It's not really anyone else's business.

[wildswede]

I know, I have a hard time having reasonable expectations for DS. He's got things going on and I find myself holding him to expectations above what I would if he didn't have in-attention and autism symptoms... which, is ridiculous, but I think it's pretty common to hold kids with special needs to expectations higher than their typical peers. There's an article that addresses this tendency that I read over and over! Kiddo wound up falling asleep while I was in the shower. In hindsight, I think when my gut tells me that a sitter would be a better idea, I'm going to go with that and not worry so much about what my family thinks I should be doing. Figuring he sat in church for an hour, sat at dinner, my BIL yelled at him when he tried to to find some solace under a table... coloring on the walls was probably a blessing in disguise, when in those circumstances he could have wound up running out in the parking lot or the road, or actually torn down the hangings!

[marbles]

Originally Posted by sweetpeasmommy

Breathe. Average 5 yos color on walls sometimes. Don't discuss it with your family. You emailed the pastor and can make amends. It's not really anyone else's business.

Yes, kids do things they don't think about. My daughter is 4.5 and she's pretty responsible, but no way can she think through the value of wall hangings or the somber respectfulness usually expected at an event like that. I'm betting your son isn't able to think through all the ramifications of his actions, either. He was probably just trying to find something to do after having been bored. I think you could benefit from lots of bean-dip-passing with your family. Some people disagree with the way we raise our kids, but after a lot of "I understand" or "I know that's how you feel" followed by just not engaging, they've learned that parenting is not a topic that is up for discussion.
As for how to impress on your son the wrongness of what he's done: you've done it.

[ShiriChayim]

As a momma of two autistic kiddos I gotta say that getting through a service like that would be near to impossible for us, so it sounds like you did a pretty amazing job with him .

I hear two separate issues: the first is your ds's behavior (no, coloring on walls is not okay but you had him clean it up and made amends which was handled really well), and the second is your family's responses to your son and your own feelings about all of that. I think you're wise to say in the future you will listen to your gut about childcare for situations he's just not up to handling, but I would add onto it that you also stop listening to your mother's opinions on his behavior. It doesn't sound like she has a reasonable understanding or expectation of him, and that's just setting him up to fail. IME, "He just needs to learn to behave" is code for, "you just need to make it more miserable for him to misbehave so he never wants to do it again" (which sounds sadly similar to your mother's treatment of you in this situation) and not only does that just not work as you see in the case of your nephew, if there are special needs involved all the best information we have is that that kind of approach is incredibly detrimental to developmental abilities.

I found early on with my Warrior that I NEEDED to put very firm boundaries into place with family over who would be doing the parenting of our children (me and dh and absolutely no one else) and that just needed to be that. We've now come to a place where they respect us that much more for it.

[CelticJourney]

Heather nailed my thoughts. Anyone yelling at my child would have been sorry for doing so....I'm a bit of a mama bear

[lucie]

I think you handled it well--cleaning up and apologizing to the pastor is great.
My 5yo occasionally draws on walls or random things and when I ask her about it, she knows she's not supposed to do that but somehow at that moment it sounded like a good idea. They're not doing these things to be "naughty" or to make us mad... They're still little. And like you said, he did great sitting through the service and afterwards!
And I agree--there's no way I'd let it slip if someone yelled at my child like your BIL.
But to you. It's hard to parent when you feel like others are always watching and judging.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MariJo7]

Drawing on a wall is not something evil. In some places painting on walls may even be encouraged. Some kindergartens and schools do wall painting as a special activity, and when I was little, my good mother had arranged paper on the wall I could use for painting. Your boy just needs to learn which walls are for painting and which are not. .

[ArmsOfLove]

children that young often talk about things not true - for adults we call it lying, but that's because it has become a habit that holds on longer than the stage of words as magic. Children are driven by a bit of self preservation and if they are afraid of upsetting someone they care about and rely on, or if they feel guilty about things, or if they know that they will get in trouble, they really want to undo what was done. So they say they didn't do it - or whatever else. It reflects many things - and for some it is definitely vital that they avoid harsh punishments. In fact, harsh punishments foster greater liars because they are more invested in self preservation.

Beyond that, though, I find that many parents who punish harshly have two things going on that make these situations worse . . . 1) if they don't want to punish the child they tend to make excuses about their behavior so that everything is someone else's fault and 2) any other child present is leading their precious little baby astray

The whole situation screams that your family has decided that things they see in your son that they chalk up to poor discipline (many parents who embrace harsh discipline believe that any behavior issue in another child is just a lack of discipline and they dismiss "special needs" as excuses). It screams that your child is going to be set up to fail when around them.

If you do choose to be around them, which is obviously your choice completely and I'm not suggesting you shouldn't be, I would encourage you to forego time with the adults completely and be at the side of your child so that you can set him up for success If you can guide him through the event and teach him what to do in each situation, if you can stop him when you see him holding that crayon and heading for the wall, if you see your nephew moving to do something you can intervene and encourage him to more productive activities or get your child away from the scene.

If you choose to bring your ds around your family, you are putting him in a situation to be accused and to have your parenting questioned. Please make choices that reflect an acceptance of this

[camperjen]

It's really about your outside family, isn't it? I've had this happen. My son would do something completely age appropriate (yet not behaviorally appropriate for an older child), and I'd be totally embarrassed in front of people who have been critical of my parenting or people who I wanted to impress for some reason.

My heart goes out to you - you tried to do what's best for your family (a babysitter) and someone talked you out of it, and then something happened that you sorta knew *might* happen (thus your forethought for the babysitter), and then it becomes all sorts of embarrassing. I SO TOTALLY recognize that happening.

I agree with the earlier comment that you totally did the right thing in the moment - he was made to help clean it up and he wrote an apology note.

[kiloyd]

You handled it very well!

I would have the same feelings you have. With your son and the pressure your family puts on you.

That was a VERY long time for him to stay quiet and still.

[rjy9343]

You have done everything you can do to make it right. You have also learned how important it is to listen your instincts and get child care in the future. Deep breaths, grace is for mamas as well as children. My autistic four year old will draw on any surface she sees even though she knows not to do it because she is four.
In the event you are stuck in a situation like that again, I recommend the color wonder markers that only color on the special paper or washable crayons. Those two creations have saved the day for my family more than once.

[OnAMission]

My neuro-typical 4.5 year old will color on surfaces other than paper if left unsupervised. She wants to know what happens to the sheets! and her skin! and the walls! I just remind her that coloring goes only on the paper. We clean the surfaces the best we can, and the markers (and any other utensil that makes marks) just mysteriously disappear

I'm sorry you are feeling so much pressure from family. That can be really rough Those who posted above have really excellent advice!

[JoEllen]

First, you handled the situation beautifully. You didn't lose your cool, you had your son make amends, etc. Good job! All kids draw on walls at some point in their lives. There's no need for anyone to act like this is some brand new phenomenon.

I'm a strong believer in my mama gut. If my mama gut is telling me that it is better to get childcare than to take my children into any given situation, then I get childcare. I know what kinds of things my kids can and can't handle, and I go to great pains to avoid setting them up for failure. Your mother is a mother, but she's not their mother. She doesn't get a say.

It sounds like you have a bunch of people in your life that tend to be very judgmental of your parenting. I would avoid those people as much as humanly possible. I've had to do that with MIL and two SILs. They are openly judgmental of my parenting, and therefore are unhealthy influences for my children, so they are very rarely welcome in my home.

[mamacat]

Sounds like the big feelings you were having was all about the dynamics with you and relatives rather than about what happened with son.