3.11

No posts for a few days...not because Eriq isn't being his wonderful self, but just too busy!

The last 24 hours has been up and down with Eriq.  He came home from his mom's on Sunday with the usual attitude.  He's always like that when he returns from her house.  We often wonder if it's because she has not structure there and lets him do whatever he wants or if it's because she complains to Eriq about our parenting decisions.

Anyway, last night he was outright rude to his Dad.  I overheard part of the conversation with them and Eriq was rude, and back talking his dad.  Jim is sometimes too nice, and said very little.  I, on the other hand, told Eriq to knock it off and he will not speak to adult in this house in that tone.  He quickly eased the attitude for a bit.

However, after dinner we had a long talk about the constantly stealing in our house.  It was brought to our attention on Friday, before he left, that Bella's box of Girl Scout cookies that she purchased had been opened and almost completely eaten.  Eriq admitted to taking it after confronted with the evidence of cookie and cookie crumbs in his pants pockets.  He is made to do Bella's chores for a week, isn't allowed upstairs and had to write an aplogy note to Bella.  The note was the most interesting because it gives us an insight into the how and why Eriq steals things.  It said, summed up, that he had inquired with Nicholas if he and Bella got their cookies yet, so he know they had them.  One day when he was in Bella's room, he saw them so, when his dad went out to get the mail one day, he ran up to Bella's room, shoved all of the cookies in his pants and ran back downstairs before his dad came back in so it would look like he was in the bathroom.  OMG!  My first thought was how many steps of planning did it take to steal a box of cookies????

We talked to Eriq about his stealing and as always, he has no idea why he does it.  I suspect it's because he is jealous of the things that they have, and he doesn't, which is why he takes them.  I also pointed out that he always takes things from me, Nicholas and Bella, but never his dad.  We chatted about things for a while and I asked him to come up with a plan we could do to get him to stop stealing.  Eriq has no plan and no ideas; surprise!  He finally, after some prodding, suggested selling his items to pay for the items he steals.  LMAO.  I had to restrain myself on that one.  We have been doing that for the two years we have been in the new house!  We've tried selling his items, making him do chores or shovel show to pay for the items, apology notes, close supervision and yet he steals things faster than we can keep up.  The idea of selling his things would work with a normal child...but Eriq isn't normal.  So....instead of a punishment, we decided to offer an incentive.  I told Eriq that we will buy him a new Under Armor hoodie if he doesn't steal anything for 30 days.  He seemed quite excited about the deal and even bragged to his teachers about it.  Yet, I don't think he can go a week without stealing something.  What I suspect will happen is that he will steal it and get better at hiding the evidence so he still earns the hoodie. Nothing we do changes his behavior.  However, his tactics at getting away with things and not getting caught as easily are changing.

Last night we had a call from Patty Peckins, one of Eriq's online school teachers. She was concerned because the ipad they allowed Eriq to use for school is no longer function because in  her words, "he messed with the settings."  We asked Eriq about it and he claims that the ipad did a software update and rebooted and wouldn't turn on after that.  I hate to suspect things of a child, but I wonder if Eriq didn't do something to it.  It was only two weeks ago that we found a stolen cell phone in his possession that had been used to access the internet and watch porn videos and download pornographic images.  Is it wrong to suspect him when there is no evidence?  Ms. Peckins is going to turn it over to the IT guys at her school and if there are pornographic images on there, as a result of Eriq, he will be removed from the school.  Hum.

This morning there was an issue with Eriq and his dad.  I wasn't there to witness all of it, but when I asked Jim about it he said that Eriq was mad that he had to wear a coat, and threw it across the room at his dad.  Jim took the coat and threw it back, hitting Eriq in the back with the zipper.  Eriq got mad and stormed out of the house.  We're not even sure what the issue was because Eriq fails to communicate anything with us!

UGH!

J