Although he is almost 7 years old Doc behaves like a 4 year old. His speech is still sloppy, even though he knows how to pronounce words better, he just doesn’t bother. He acts helpless when he’s told to do the simplest things. He seems to think “I don’t know” is a good answer for everything. And so on and so forth. Today at day camp, he was throwing rocks at cars. And he has a lot of anger that he throws at his dad. All normal enough stuff.
Most 6 and 7 year olds are just starting to recognize they aren’t the only person in the world, that the universe is populated with other people that matter, too. It’s a tough nut to swallow because being the center of attention is a good gig that we get used to from birth.
Doc needs to understand that he can be just as important as everyone else without having to be king. We need to expect more of him and hold him to accountable when he doesn’t live up to it. It doesn’t have to be tough, but he’ll think it is because he’s been dodging what’s been put in his path so far. (It’s amazing the lengths kids will go to avoid doing something that would have been easier to just do in the first place). We’ll also need the cooperation of his brothers which may be the hardest thing of all to get.
Understanding kids isn’t difficult. But what you have to do with the information sure can be.