I spoke to mum. Didn't get any real idea of how she was going to help manage his behaviour and I really didn't know what to suggest aside from zero tolerance, but I get the impression it was just a sheep staring back at me nodding. My idea of zero tolerance is in all likelihood different from hers. She said that when he is very grumpy she sends him to play on his own in his room. In some situations I'd be okay with that. Everyone has the right to be grumpy and directing a child to take some alone time is a good thing versus punishment for feeling that way. That being said, is she doing this after an incident too...who knows, but then there is the problem, there are little to no consequences. Being sent to your room to play with toys isn't a negative consequence in my opinion. Mum was really just speechless a lot as I told her while her son was walking round her in circles trying to rip her keys and lanyard out of her hand, while she clung on to them, instead of getting down to his level and taking control of the situation by telling him firmly that he must stop, and making him stop. Everything is a bribe or negotiation. And then every other weekend that they are dads place they pretty much spend their time being paraded round toy shops and return to mums place on the Sunday like its Xmas or birthday time with a bunch of new toys and sore bellies from junk food. It's no wonder the kids are all over the place, but mum needs to try something different to curb this behaviour with her son when it's effecting the others. She left my front porch saying, lets hope this phase passes quickly. Doesn't sound like much of an investment to work on behaviour changes SIGH!!

Lets just hope that today is a better day. It felt mildly better to vent but I'm unfortunately feeling pessimistic about it being any better today. I'm up early after a late evening at my daughters grade 8 high school open house and feeling zapped already. I'm going to rotate some toys and move the room round a little and have playdoh set up for arrivals. Hopefully just a simple change like that may start the day off more positively and hopefully we wont all be terrorized by him.