Room for Baggage

You can't talk to him that way!  It's just not fair.  Not from your spot on the corner of the couch.  Not half-reclined with your arm across your chest.  Yes, he is emotional and full of outbursts.  Many of them are uncalled for and most are unnecessary.  Yes, he is rowdy and full of energy.  Much of it is explosive and all of it is exhausting.  Yes, his arms flail and his legs kick and his voice booms out of control.  Some if it is age and stage.  Some of it is personality.  Some of it is circumstances.  Some of it is choice.  Some of it baffles him as much as it does us.

But it doesn't even matter why he does it, what's going on inside, whether there was a legitimate trigger, or how you are feeling at that particular moment.  If you snap at him, your reaction is the same as his: you aren't controlling your emotions or acting in a polite and acceptable way either.  Sure, yours is less disruptive, less prolonged, less of a full-body experience.  But it's just an adult version of the same thing: uncontrolled and improperly expressed emotions.

And you know what else?  If you're not down there on the floor interacting, you don't have the right to react.  You can get annoyed and it can tick you off that it's noisy, rude, or otherwise unacceptable behaviour.  Totally.  It irritates me too.  But you're not giving him an idea of what to pretend.  You're not inviting him to join you in an activity.  You're not racing cars or constructing towers or setting up farms or playing super heros.  Unless you are right there with him, engaged and redirecting as you go, you don't have the right to bark at him.

Please stop.  Please show him the love you say you have for him.  It won't be too much longer before he feels the disconnect that I see.