Teaching unpredictable kids

Jacob and Matthew have both been diagnosed at this time with drug/alcohol usage from their birth parents while they were in utero.  What this does it is essentially creates "swiss cheese brain".  In many situations life clicks and the boys do great.  They can understand all that is being said, respond to it appropriately and things are great.  However there are other times when life just doesn't go as planned and they are confused and it is up to the adults in the situation to monitor and make changes so that life remains calm and the situation is once again under control.

Yesterday was a perfect example of Jacob dealing with "swiss cheese brain".  Jacob and a friend were hanging out and they had a truly awesome time.  Between games of basketball, some time on the xbox and just being 11 year old boys all was fabulous.  However, Jacob and I had been to the grocery store earlier in the day and Jacob had decided he wanted pizza and chicken wings for dinner.  We bought these items and since my plan was to be home most of the day, this seemed to be an easy plan for dinner.

However, life happened and at 6:00 the boys and I were happily at the park playing basketball with Jacob's friend.  He was happy and all was going great until it was time to leave.  Jacob then became frustrated..  Leaving his friend was tough however, once we got into the car he was also clear that he was angry because now it was 6:30, we had to go pick up Matt from a friends house and it was getting to be too late for me to cook chicken wings.  To Jacob, THIS was the part of the day which became unmanageable to cope with.  I had promised chicken wings, we had bought chicken wings and we were having chicken wings for dinner, in his mind, no matter what!

This is when it became important for me to figure things out as the mom.  I now had a few choices:

1. Go head to head with jacob and tell him that chicken wings were not even close to an option
2. try to figure out a way to make chicken wings
3. talk Jacob through our choices and allow him to help me make a decision.

Yesterday I had time, patience and energy on my side and I decided that I would go with option 3.  Jacob and I talked and I told him that after we picked up Matthew I would go home, see how long it would take to make the chicken wings, but while they were cooking he had to shower and get ready for bed as we would be eating later than usual and I would need him ready for bed so we could transition quickly after we ate.

Yesterday this plan worked.  We talked about all of the fun he had with his friend all day and that if I had been home cooking chicken wings he would have missed out on the fun.

Yesterday his swiss cheese brain allowed for Jacob to hear me and respond and together we worked out a reasonable solution.

Yesterday the day ended perfectly.  Yesterday we won the swiss cheese brain battle!