The Boy Follows Suit

The boy’s greatest enemy is himself. He isn’t self-aware enough to realize it yet.

He was working on his laptop going through the chapters to write a new program from his book. He had already worked through a bunch of minor problems with his code, basically stuff that he didn’t copy correctly from the book onto his computer. So by his standards, he was ahead of the game. Not having gotten so frustrated that he started getting mad at his computer.

It was shortly after that when the computer started giving him a little trouble. He was trying to save his file and the computer wasn’t responding as quickly as he expected. His frustration started building and I told him to just give it a minute. Unfortunately, he couldn’t contain himself.

The Wife told him to walk away at that point and that was when he snapped at her. I snapped back at him in turn. The Wife remained calm and tried to say something else. She never got to finish her comment because the boy rudely cut her off, assuming he knew what she was going to say.

That was when his compute privileges were revoked.

Things continued to get worse for him. He was mad because he felt we were being unfair to him. He didn’t understand what he’d done, he claimed because all he did was “say something.” He accused me of not listening to him. Finally, he attempted to stomp off up to his room.

He eventually calmed down, but he didn’t get his computer privileges reinstated.

For the now, his temper continues to be his greatest weakness. He makes all kinds of poor decisions under its influence including yelling at us, smart mouthing us and generally displaying an inability to contain himself. To some extent it has to do with his age, but it’s also a part of him as well. The Wife and I have to keep that in mind while he sorts out how to deal with it.