Frustration

Randall finally started to do shape sorting yesterday evening when I presented him a fun game with his nesting box tower — you put one shape through the hole and take it out from the bottom in a luck draw style. We had never really got him working on shape sorters before because he had been so easily frustrated. It wouldn’t take him more than a couple of tries before he got upset and threw the shapes away. And this happens almost everyday when things don’t go his way. Other kids might have just done it in the beginning with their parents prompting them where each shape goes, but he wouldn’t. We don’t get to tell him what to do and what not. Almost everything he does should be based on his own will and his own understanding. Once he’s ready, he is happy. He is very determined over what he’s going to do, what he’d like to achieve and how he’s gonna do it, even when he’s asking for our help. Like if knows the battery cover of his toy can be opened and he wants it opened by us, we can’t tell him that we need a screwdriver to do this. And lately he has picked up this preference over what he wears and would protest strongly if we try to put on him clothes he doesn’t like.

This is called inflexibility. I have secretly wondered if it’s something that we have neglected or have done wrong that has made him like that, but more likely than not, it’s just him, his born temperament. We should definitely work on that with him together, to help him understand and adjust himself, deal with his frustrations and be more flexible and persistent. But where has it come from? me or daddy, or someone else in the family? I know I’m kind of a person who falls apart when things get out of control, and I’m definitely not the persistent style in things I’m not a master of. But somehow I was an easy kid, or maybe it’s because I just knew how to walk away from challenges I didn’t like?