A little bit louder and a little bit worse.

That’s the only lyric in my head yesterday as I left Dr. KATB’s office yesterday. He is the behavioral psychologist we have been working with for a long time for help getting Gage’s behavior managed although its been nearly a year since we’ve seen him. We’d been cruising along over the year on dialysis and then the transplant came and WHAM! Gage is out of sync again. Our donor’s family swears he’s got an attitude because he has a female kidney.

The overriding opinion is that we are engaging with Gage too much (negativity). And the payoff for him is more attention. He approved of the other techniques we are using; positive praise/reinforcement (this is a mainstay) as well as the punitive actions we are taking for bad behavior. We discussed several examples of Gage’s behavior over the summer and we discussed how we can manage it differently.

So, to recap:

• We agreed Gage is a different boy now that he has a new kidney and he deserves a chance TO BE MANAGED before getting him evaluated for drugs (for ADHD, etc).
• We realized that we might be giving Gage attention for the wrong things (like over discussing how he knows more than he does). And we agreed it needs to stop. Last night.
• We agreed that we need to continue to ignore Gage’s behavior when we can. Like when he is standing on the arm of the recliner to get a reaction from me. And last night when he did it, I IGNORED HIM, he got down.
• Continue…no debates! Who’s in charge of this circus anyway?
• Natural consequences for bad choices. Depends on what it is and when it is as to the consequence. This seems to be working and we’ll stay on it.
• Keep things fresh (and him wondering) by changing around the rules without Gage knowing. Do not tell him any part of the strategy at any time.
• Did I say NO DEBATING WITH HIM? This is particularly funny to me because for a long time Gage has been evaluated on a regular basis and found to be behind developmentally in language. (A couple of nights ago he wouldn’t go to bed and came downstairs to tell me "Daddy said that whenever I wanted to practice karate he would do it with me." Well Gage, I’m pretty sure HE MEANT DAYLIGHT HOURS. But nice try.) He will always try to get us in a technicality. He’s smart that way. What fun for us!
• We talked about making sure the praise we are giving is turning into how we want the kids to please us and make us happy. So that is the focus instead of the widget.
• We’re all happy (noted with praise!) that Gage and Quinn are no longer beating the crap out of each other. Because that was just plain insanity. But putting both kids in timeout for any fighting no matter who did what worked extremely well.
• We agree that I am having residual feelings in need of expression ("I’m F.I.N.E." says my friend Jean) and writing about it all helps. So, I guess the obvious thing is to keep writing.
• See Dr. KATB next week and repeat.
• Take some time for myself. Go to the spa, or dinner with friends. Or maybe a movie! (Well, the doc didn’t really say any of that, but in case Julian is reading along).

I’m all for good behavior this weekend, okay?