Just trying to not get an exertion head ache again 
I have no real idea because I am old and canāt remember but I am pretty sure 145 x 6 is a rep PR.
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Can you say cardio!! Good work with the multiple sets.
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mate I was blowing out of all holes on the last set of squats and those Bulgarians. LOL
@Cyrrex @Koestrizer Not sure who else was around at the time but I spoke to Mortdk the other day and he is well. Said to say hello.
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@TrainForPain and @wiseman83 we had another son melt down yesterday and I know you both like to hear updates so thought I would share this one.
My son (10) and daughter (12) walked home from school yesterday and mum being the nice person she is let my son take $5 to school to spend at the 7/11 servo (gas station) on the way home. The agreement was he could spend it but had to share it with his sister. He agrees and decides they can get a slurpee each and a cocky bar to share.
They get their drinks and walk home together, my son quickly realises that he has made a mistake and mixed too many flavours together in his drink and it tasted gross. (every time they get a Slurpee I tell them to stick to one flavour and donāt mix but he has a problem listening). So before gets home he throws it in the bin.
When he gets home is already fuming from messing up his drink. Mum tells him to share out his chocky bar and actually asks him to split it into thirds as his other sister might also like some.
My son is really not happy about this, in his mind he had less that his sister because his drink was bad, and it was his pocket money. So it is only fair that he has the whole chocky bar.
Mum tries to explain that the agreement was to share and it is not his sisters fault that he didnāt like his drink. BAMMMM! He explodes, this generally involves him clenching his fists, screaming, going red in the face, growling. He then hits his sister with his hat and throws the hat at mum, hits his sister (just a slap but still not nice) and then picks up his school bag and launches it at mum whilst screaming.
Wife manages to stay calm (ish) and sends him to his room after she throws the chocky bar in the bin.
He screams and shouts and bashes his way to his room and then slams the door and stays in his room yelling and growling at the top of his voice.
Wife texts me as I am leaving work to tell me to prepare for world war 3 when I get home. I get home 10 mins later and he is still in his room and still screaming. I ask my wife is it is ok for me to talk to him, in these situations I always ask because I donāt want my involvement to undermine her. She says go for it.
I go into his room, which meant pushing the door hard to push back all the stuff he had thrown and put against the door to stop me coming in. I tidy his room without speaking and eventually sit down on the bed. Takes me 5 mins of calm talking to get him to stop clenching his fists and calm down enough to speak to me. He eventually tells me he is so angry because it is not fair, it was his money and he didnāt get to have his drink. I ask him to give me a hug and we manage to then talk through the situation and how he felt and how else he could have dealt with it. He ended up calm and went down and apologized to mum.
I am really struggling to help him control his emotions and deal with things without aggression. Wife is genuinely worried that as he gets bigger this could become a much bigger problem. He is too small to really hurt anytime now, but that wont always be the case.
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Conditioning tonight was sand bag pick and carry combined with burpees.
82kg (180lbs) bag. Pick carry 20m turn back 20m and then 10 burpees.
Did 5 rounds.
Sweating and breathing really hard by the end.
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Sorry to hear about this.
Weāve had similar kinds of things with our almost-5 year old. One thing would go wrong in her world and it would flip a switch in her head and sheād start throwing things and attacking her teachers. The school did their best to handle it, but it just kept escalating. Though it happened occasionally at home, it became a daily thing at school. We also did āall the right thingsā. My wife is a pediatrician; we had some resources to draw on.
We got her into seeing an occupational therapist weekly and things are night and day.
I donāt go to those appointments (Iāve been to a couple), but one thing they work on is tying the cognitive bits with the sensory bits. āWhat does it physically feel like to be angry? (my face gets hot) What can you do when you feel that way? (get a drink of water)ā. Basically once sheās in the emotional high, itās too late; so they work on recognizing certain emotional and sensory landmarks, and re-pattern her behavior.
Thereās also a decent amount of physical activity in their gym. For her, itās a lot of swinging and spinning. Something about her propriocetive system needing extra stimulation to calm down. Some kids go crazy when overstimulated, others the opposite.
I donāt really understand it. But the results have been good.
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Todays conditioning
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You and me both. He has seen a therapist that has done similar activities with him about recognising the feelings and how they physically manifest. Itās all just a work in progress.
That would be a mess to clean up for sure. Might need to start putting tarps down.
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Thatās really hard man. Sounds very similar to my boy. I will say, things have actually improved as heās grown (heās 13) vs becoming scarier. I think youāre crushing it as parents.
I donāt have a ton of great advice. Iām not super trusting of therapy in the States, so Iāve generally avoided.
Two things that seem to help: expectations/ goals and exercise.
My expectations donāt matter; itās what does he expect of himself. When he has his own goals and holds himself accountable, he really throws himself into it. My own son likes to earn things, no matter how small. He loves movies, so heās been pretty successful at earning movies by doing certain things. When heās on this path of earning, it tends to be challenging enough that heās focused there and it seems like the situations yours ran into yesterday bother him a little less. We increase the challenge a little each time. He really struggles socially, even though he would like to have friends, so his current challenge is he has to invite a friend to watch the movie with him. Itās crazy how much stress this causes him, but it seems to help him forgive others when he thinks something isnāt fair because he recognizes he needs some grace himself.
Exercise is probably self-explanatory for all of us on here, but the world has changed so much in a couple decades it is hard to fathom. My son has to be forced into any activity, and heās so anxious all the time that he literally cannot calm himself enough to think or not explode until he is at a point of near physical exhaustion. I think of it as somewhat akin to training a dog - when heās too tired to worry about doing it his way, he can learn.
Weāve tried the more traditional therapies, of which the literature is dubious (come at me, Internet), but seem to get the most mileage out of the above two.
I know itās really hard, but if I could go back in time at any of his ages and change anything, it would be for me to chill out. Heās maturing, even if not at the exact pace I would choose every day. He doesnāt necessarily want the same things I want him to want, so thatās my problem (not his) and heās not missing out. Some situations are harder for him than some other kids, but that doesnāt mean he canāt; it just takes him extra effort. We all have those āareas of opportunity,ā and his just happen to be some of these things. At the end of the day, though, itās always when weāve just decided that things will never work out and weāre doing everything wrong and weāre doomed that he hits a big milestone and turns a corner.
Sorry for my own ramble, thereās likely some catharsis in my post, but weāre right here with you.
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This is awesome to hear, by the way!
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Really appreciate the share mate it is always good to hear from other parents experience and even just knowing its not just you that is struggling helps a lot.
This is really my issue in a nut shell. I think my expectations of how he should behave are not really achievable, partly because I am being a hard arse and need to chill out a little, and mostly because I donāt really understand him. He can go from the most loving caring kid to a total disaster and whilst sometimes it is easy to see the escalation and I can help him change direction, other times it is out of no where. I really want him to be able to see or feel the escalation and change direction on his own. I know it will come and he is way better now than 12 months ago, just need to keep being there to pick up the pieces.
I really do need to learn how to chill out though, I am not really good at this and I seem to be āonā all the time.
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It must be the full moon making everyone emotionally unhinged. Problems with both of mine today.
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you could well be right
On both the recent parenting posts (your dishes explosion and the boy) i feel you. Iāve mentioned being under a lot of stress lately, and one source of that stress is some issues with one of the kids.
It is draining.
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Wednesday 2 August - week 4
Axle deadlift
Bar x 10
60 x 5
100 x 3
Mixed grip
140 x 2
155 x 5 x 3 sets - (341 lbs) - RPE 5, 5, 4
155 x max - 13 reps - PR PARTY !!
First set felt heavy. Warm up by set 3. Happy with 13, grip was going towards the end and lungs were totally spent. Lower back pump was baaaaaad.
Axle overhead push press
60 x 3 (132 lbs)
65 x 3 (143 lbs)
70 x 3 (154 lbs)
75 x 3 (165 lbs)
80 x 3 (176 lbs)
Lower back was trashed after deadlift. Cleaning the bar was the hard bit.
Bent over Axle rows
80 x 10 x 3 sets (198 lbs)
Even more lower back pump, didnāt think it would be possible. Good grip work too.
Dips
3 sets - 20, 20,
Feeling swole
Another really good session. Feeling the fatigue but also feeling strong. Really wanted 2 more
Reps on that deadlift today. And whilst they were there if I really pushed, I am now glad I didnāt. Based on how tight my back is, I reckon I have done the max amount that I can and still recover well enough to smash out the rest of the work this week.
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Thatās the perfect way of describing it. But I also feel like I make it more draining than it has to be. Like sometimes I am trying to win an argument with a 10 yr old just because.
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