No Respect

Dear Grandma,
It's starting already, Aiden is saying hurtful things to me.  Yesterday we walked down to the mailbox to get the mail and he was mad at me for letting Brennan get the bag of ads out of the bottom holder.  He started complaining to me about how unfair it was and I told him to quiet down, he was embarrassing me.  Brennan and I started back to the house without Aiden and that just made him madder.  I asked him to ride his bike back to the house and go to his room for being disrespectful in public.  He rode off, then turned his head around to yell back at me "I don't like you anymore!"  Because I knew he was mad I didn't let it bother me.  But when we told Andy about it last night Andy told Aiden he needed to tell me he was sorry, and he wouldn't do it.  Where did we go wrong with this boy?  He's forgotten all about being respectful and treating people kindly.  And then this morning he accused me of lying about whether or not his TV show was on.  That one bothered me.  I asked him where he came up with the idea that I would ever lie to him.  He didn't answer.  I honestly do not know what to do about this.  I wish you were here to give me advice.  Aiden was always such a sweet, kind little boy, he never gave us any trouble.  Then this crazy summer hit and all heck broke loose.  I pray that with school starting next week he'll snap back to his sweet little self.

I had to bring 'Mean Mommy' out today.  I asked the boys to pick up their toys in the living room so I could vacuum but they just laid there.  So I grabbed all the toys, put them in a box and went about my business.  After lunch, same thing - I asked them to pick up their toys and they didn't, so into the box they went. This time Aiden realized what I was doing and asked me if I was giving those toys to another little boy since he didn't pick them up.  I told him I didn't know what I was doing with them but since they didn't care enough about the toys to pick them up I was going to take them away.  The contents of the box includes their favorite tractors and wagon, their Nerf gun and a bunch of random 'junk' that they don't care too much about.  We'll see if this makes any difference next time I ask them to pick up.

Have a great weekend, Grandma!
Love,
Erin