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Word of the day: semantics

Ladystark's picture

Ss14 therapist was by today, and after they had their session, i told her about sunday.

We were going to a place to eat, and meet up with my friend. It was her kids birthdays, and our anniversary. We were all getting ready to leave, and i  told ss14 if he is coming with us to please watch the meaness, and saying rude things to my son.   Ss14 and my son is 9, and all day saturday the boys were rough housing and saying stuff like ill kill you, and ss gets stuck on calling my son "short", like its his name, he also fake punches my son in the face.

My son is a physical kid, and just as ss14 does not know when to quit with his mouth, my son does not know when to stop with hands.  Ugh its irritating.

I also talked to my son more direct about keeping hands to himself.

I dont feel setting and expectation was wrong.

Well ss falls back into his usual pattern and wants to argue about what he can and cannot say. I dont feed into it, so he chooses not to go.

Fine by me, so much better when he is not involved anyway.

BUT dh was hurt, and we argued a bit on the ride there. But whateva, im used to that. 

The therapist said she did not see anything wrong with asking the boys to curb the rough housing.

Ss14  starts whining that he did not go because i was not "specific" enough, and he did not want to get yelled at for saying the wrong thing. (Im getting tired of his victim act)

Therapist says " its semantics ss, and arguing like that you wont always "win".  And the big picture is you missed out on a nice time. "   she said she would talk more about that with him nexttime.   I think ss14 new name should be semanticteen.  Most of our arguments with him are usually him picking out one word, or phrase, and just going around and around.

 

One thing that irritated me was him smirking, and laughing, while the therpist and i were chatting.  He has been doing that more and more- everything is funny- or he just smirks while dh is being serious. 

Its only going to get worse. 

 

Comments

Veritas's picture

In a land far, far away, 40 years ago, I smirked at my mother.....oh yes I did, but just once in my life to her face and never again where she could see it :)...not much burns me up more than a smirk as if what I'm saying is irrelevant or foolish. Probably why I don't have kids...

MoominMama's picture

SS18 is supposed to have troubles communicating being on the AS but I have noticed that when it suits him he has no problems. for example he will sidetrack arguements, he distracts, uses excuse after excuse. Both of the skids have done this from the outset. In the beginning they would just barge into the conversation, talk over the top of us. It was all 'me, me, me'.

SS still tries it but I cut him short (if I talk at all to him) and DH is sick of his 'sh**' too.

Ladystark's picture

Im so tired of the way he argues.   Its draining. Ive stepped back alot, but watching dh try to argue with him now, ugh so frustrating.  Like you should have shut him down along time ago. Now he thinks its ok to argue with adults over one word- and smirk- or walk away when we are not done, but he is done!!     Ugh. Such a disrespectful teen.  

Oh and now when i decipline my son, i have to do it away from ss14, or make sure my son is not facing him. He makes faces at my son- or becomes silly trying to get him to laugh, or says things like makes fun of me being serious with my son.

Its so ridiculas over here when we need to decipline.

ESMOD's picture

I know it's "semantics" lol.... but maybe it would have been more accepted if you had asked both the boys to "be on their best  in public behavior? instead of semi-threatening them to not do something negative?

My parents would say things like "we are going to dinner with our Friends the X's.  It's a nice restaurant and we expect everyone to be on their best behavior"  It's a little bit more positive reinforcement vs an outright warning.  I know it's semantics but sometimes teeing up good behavior is more successful than threatening bad.