Memoirs of a Parent

Last night, while going through our bedtime routine Hulk had a breakdown.
I don't know how other six year olds breakdown but for Hulk, it is a quick deterioration into a rather large infant who cannot do anything for himself.

Part of our bedtime routine involves Hulk reading a verse out of the scriptures. It's just one verse, J and I don't do any other reading. If he needs help, we give it to him after he asks for it but otherwise he does the reading of that ONE verse and then we talk about it after.

Last night he became stuck on the word "gave". He read "give", J gently corrected him by saying, "gave". Hulk paused and then read "give", I gently corrected him by saying, "gave".

And it was all downhill from there.

Hulk broke into loud crying, slammed his body against Little Viking Girl's twin sized bed, and fell to the floor. We asked him to sit up and continue reading but he loudly declared that he was physically incapable and it was our fault. There's something satirically comical about a six year old who is pretending they can't do something.

At this point I usually walk away.

I don't negotiate with terrorists.

But it was bedtime, he was detracting from Little Viking Girl's bedtime experience, and my parents were hoping to have a short video call with him after we had gotten the kids ready for bed.

So I gave him options: he could finish reading the verse, correctly and without whining or he could go straight to bed.

He continued to whine and scream.

He went straight to bed.

As J and I were leaving his room he made sure to yell at us that we were bad parents.

I made sure to tell him that I love him.

Five minutes later he was asleep.