Changes

Joel has lost the privilege of having anything in his bedroom. He now has a hotel. No personalization, nothing he owns. Just a bed that we've allowed him to sleep in.

He has come to hate being locked in his bedroom. HATES it. Big temper tantrum, kicking, screaming, hates it.

So we changed the rules. I won't lock him in his room.

At first.

He gets one try to stay in his bed. If he gets out of bed, the door gets locked.

It usually takes until I get to the top of the stairs before I hear him get out of bed. So I go back and tell him that since he couldn't obey and stay in his bed, the door will need to be locked. Usually he's ok with that.

Friday night wasn't usually. Screaming, yelling, banging on the door. Pulled out every dresser drawer and emptied it on the floor.

Saturday night wasn't bad. I don't even think he got locked in at first.

But after I put the girls to bed, I went into his room to check on him. He had taken the almost-full bottle of baby powder and created a snowstorm in his bedroom. Everywhere. Powder on every horizontal surface he could reach. He even climbed into Daniel's crib so he could reach a stack of Rubbermaid totes with too big/too small clothes in them.

So his bedroom got cleaned out. I took out the dresser, changing table, lamp, laundry basket, chair, ottoman. He lost all stuffed animals, blankets, extra pillows, water cup, toys, books.

His room now contains a bed, 1 blanket, 1 pillow, and a crib, simply because I didn't want to take it apart to get it out of the room.

The bad part is he does still have things in his closet. His shelves of clothes will call to him to be destroyed, I'm sure. I emptied the toy box of all toys, but I left the shelves and bins there. He probably won't bother the cases of diapers, and if he leaves those alone, he won't discover that the bottom boxes in the stacks contain not diapers, but the previously mentioned removed toys:)

Last night he stayed in bed after one warning. I closed the closet door to hopefully remove the temptation to tear it apart since I'd removed all other things to destroy. I had taken his nightlight in the purge, and he got out of bed to turn his light on and cry about it. I went back in, gave him back the nightlight, put him back in bed, and locked the door. I even stayed in the next room to listen for awhile, and he didn't get back out of bed.

We'll see how long it takes before he figures out how to destroy something else in there.