Lately we have been struggling with Jacques answering back, and general quickness to anxiety and frustration.
One of my pet peeves (besides being told by someone without a clue : “You shouldn’t let him talk to you that way”) is that when Jacques looses it, he says “What are you? Cuckoo?” Its horribly annoying, but what freaks me out is that there are other adults in Jacques life who are likely to blow their stack if they ever hear him say this. Not that I really care. However, since they think I “let” Jacques talk to me in a certain way, I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to diffuse the situation, because I will, of course, takes Jacques side. And that’s a whole big headache I’d rather not have.
So I have been talking to Jacques about the use of this word. I talked, and talked, and talked. And it had no effect for a very long time.
Its just so very hard to make Jacques understand these things. He just doesn’t seem to ever have any empathy for other people. He never holds the door open for the next person, and even if you let a door slam in his face to prove your point, he still doesn’t get it. But sometimes there is a glimmer. A couple of weeks ago, he got frustrated with me at speech therapy, started his yelling and said “What are you? Cccccc” and stopped dead. He didn’t apologize, but he went silent and looked at me. I told him I knew what he did, and I was very proud of him. The therapist looked a little confused. I think she thought I was praising Jacques for yelling at me.
It didn’t last long though, 10 minutes later he got upset again, and called me cuckoo. Over the last couple of weeks, Jacques has used the word less and less. In fact I don’t even remember him using it in over a week.
I hope we’ve made it through this one…..fingers crossed I am not cuckoo…..
