Problem Child At The A To Z Challenge

Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.  One of my many favorite sayings, but not what I'm here to talk about today.  As you know we have three male Minions.  Minion #2 is the classic "middle child" and sadly is a lot like me....poor kid.  99.9% of the time he is a really good kid, he's smart (I know we all say that about our kids but this time it's true, he's in 1st grade and at a 5th grade reading level and 3rd grade math level), polite and generally well behaved.  Lately not so much though.

The past 4-5 weeks have been hell for us.  He has been ridiculous with behavior, acting out in public and getting into trouble at school.  We have been banging our heads against a wall with this, we've tried everything grounding, taking video games away, more chores, everything and each time we get the "I promise to be better" and then we get the "Fuck you, I'm going to be a little shithead."

Yesterday was the last straw, he came home with a note from his teacher saying his behavior has been getting worse and disrupting the classes.  I lost my shit with this.  Up one side of him and down the other.  I felt really bad during and after, but we had enough.  I had to go to Scouts (which we made him miss because of this) and when I got home the Trophy said things went well and he may have finally got it....and then we heard a noise upstairs.  Sure as shit, he was up again an hour and a half after his bedtime.  Again we lost it.

Long story short he finally said he was afraid of the dark....no shit, we knew that but then we saw his nightlight was off.  It works fine, no blown bulb, no short, but it wasn't on.  We asked if he turned it off and he said yes, last month...4-5 weeks ago...hmmm the pieces are falling into place.  Come toe fins out a kid at school, one of his "friends" teased him saying a 7 year old shouldn't have a nightlight and that was babyish.

Sons of bitches!  All this time he was afraid to tell us he was being picked on at school.  The Trophy went to school today to talk to the teacher, #2 wrote a note to give to the teachers apologizing for his behavior and to let them know what was going on.  All is good right now and the teacher is going to take care of the picking on.