Iced caramel coffee, Large. Mickey ds style today. In my world coffee in any form is a win! So let me start by saying it’s already 4 in the afternoon! And I just got home from another disastrous trip to the store. No suprise, I have come to expect certain things in my life to now to happen,  getting through a trip into any public place without a scene being made isn’t one of them.  Getting into it with someone in the check out line, people staring at me thinking all of the bad things accompanied by my boy screaming and thrashing himself around like he has a mechanical bull under him. My only thoughts In these moments are “don’t let him hit his head” .  The constant fear of hard surfaces that never leaves me. If you have a child with self injurious behaviors you understand this fear well. Danger forever present at any moment my child assumes he is not getting what he wants or is being told to do anything he doesn’t want to do. For me, he is worse than he is with most others. I guess he is most comphortable to display his distaste for all things I say to him with out even hearing one of them sometimes. Just immediately yells No! even if I’m not saying anything bad to him.  I could say hay you want this million bucks to go buy candy!??? He would say No, No candy!! Then a few mins later would actually process what I said and adjust his response to yes candy! So I’m still trying to figure out which approach is the best for him for these issues. I’ve tryed to extinguish this and teach him to listen for what I’m telling him , so far my best tool I’ve found is visuals. My child calms down in the presence of good visuals of what I’m expecting out of him. So after I write this  I’m going to make one  that says No Means No & Don’t scream  and No hitting, kicking, etc.  So we’re out of store. My son wants to go look at the superheroes in the toy area. I kindly obliged and took him to the superhero area in the store. We saw Batman and we saw a Superman his favorite. He’s already got tons of each one, but he wants these two I cannot afford both. I told him to pick one he did not like that. He wanted both and was trying to open the packages of them before I paid and I had to take them give them to my daughter to hold then he starts thrashing around in the cart making a scene. People are looking at me, giving me the look of I’m a horrible parent, of course in murdering things under their breath as you know, I assume something to the lines of man that woman needs to whoop that kids butt. 

Try to explain to my son he needs to make a choice. He says no no choice and since I’ve already been feeling the pressure of people looking at me and all of this I did the bad thing and was like well. Forget it. I guess he’s getting both and threw them in the cart and went directly to go pay by the time I was done my son was still throwing a fit. My daughter had to take him to the car and then the whole way home because I would not get the toys out of the bag that I put in the trunk until we got home Batman versus Superman they both won kid and superheroes one Mom zero was the score. I guess Mom’s can’t always be the superhero of the story I don’t always do everything right at least I understand and realize when I’m doing something wrong that it is wrong and that I’m reinforcing the bad behavior I guess acknowledgment is half of the battle admitting you have a problem . Hi my name is Shannon. I’m an RBT and I have a problem. My problem is reinforcing my kids bad behavior when I know better. But I am doing what I know all of us parents have done and still do a lot , give in to the child due to the stress it is causing in that moment knowing we will pay for that choice later. 

But the show must go on. So I am feeling accomplish I am a writer In some of my free time and I wrote two articles today. I started my 2 class for my degree today and I have been working on creating a awesome complete course and workbook on Verbal Operants and Verbal Behavior that is something I am very proud of how it’s turning out.  Thanks for listening to me vent. I might have lost today, but the battle is still on for tomorrow and I’m still getting things accomplished regardless can’t let that hold me down https://substack.com/@myabatrainerllcowner?r=6x0zwn&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=profile&shareImageVariant=light