Life with an explosive child

I like to think of our house as cosy, but really it is just small. We have about 1,400 square feet for the five of us, and although the house suits us just fine and the location is perfect, sometimes we do feel like we’re on top of each other. Yesterday Artist Boy suddenly decided he wanted to do some composing at the piano, and given the layout of our house and the central location of the piano, there was really no way to escape the sound short of banishing oneself to the basement or an upstairs bedroom.

Needless to say, Bouncy Boy wanted to be playing in the living room, where his Legos are. And he didn’t want to hear Artist Boy’s noodling on the piano. He really, most emphatically, didn’t want to hear it.

This is something we’ve been working on with Bouncy Boy a lot. He is a very noisy boy himself, and it seems like we are constantly asking him to be quiet because he is hurting our ears. So, on the one hand, I really wanted to respect his wish for peace and quiet. We should all try not to hurt each other’s ears, right?

On the other hand, Artist Boy was simply working out some (lovely) chord progressions. All three of our kids play musical instruments and it is a big part of our family life. I want Artist Boy to compose at the piano!

Bouncy Boy often responds pretty well to empathy (more about this in another post) and I tried to talk him down out of his high dudgeon by commiserating and suggesting that he take his Legos to another part of the house. Bouncy Boy did calm down enough to propose another solution: maybe Artist Boy could borrow Bouncy Boy’s little toy electric keyboard and use that instead, since it’s portable and has a volume control. What a good try! Of course Artist Boy didn’t want to use a little toy electric keyboard, nor did I blame him, but it was such a shame that Bouncy Boy didn’t get a reward for his excellent attempt at problem solving. The incident ended with Artist Boy still at the piano, Bouncy Boy yelling rude words and stomping off to his room, and me feeling sad and frustrated.