Michael likes to win and sometimes doesn't take losing well. Perhaps that's just the way it is with 5 year olds. I've lectured time and time again about how winning is not the point of playing games, and how big boys should know how to be good losers. He gets it, I think, but can't control himself when he is tired.
The other night I happened to win two games of "crazy eights" in a row and his reaction was to take all the cards and throw them all over the floor. He had had a long day-it was getting close to 9pm, and I guess he just wasn't in a losing mood.
I wasn't mad about his outburst; I just told him I'm sad that he acted that way, and that he needed to clean up the cards.
He refused, and I made it clear that he couldn't go to bed until he cleaned them up. He tried to force his way and get past me to go into the bedroom and I blocked the way, firmly taking him back to mess.
He cried, screamed, and threw a tantrum-almost trying to hit me, but he backed off from that (progress?). After a bit of that, I finally got him talking about it. Interestingly, his perspective on the matter was that I (Dad) should clean them up because I had made him feel bad by winning. Hmm....I don't think so. So I tried to keep explaining to him that it was his mess and he needed to clean it up, that we can't live together if we don't follow rules etc. etc.
Our stand-off continued for almost an hour! During that time I threated to put him outside, carried him back to the kitchen a few times (he's getting heavy, but I can still manage), alternated between a sweet persuasive voice and a loud harsh voice. "What's your choice going to be, to clean up and go to bed, or stay out here all night?"
Finally, after I shut the door on him and left him in the kitchen for a bit, he relented and cleaned up. It was an exhausting hour for me, but I'm happy I was able to keep to my policy of no hitting. He was really pushing the limit of my patience there. Hopefully he now knows he's not going to get away with behavior like that.
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