I think something might have happened last night for the better. It started when I woke up yesterday. I got both of the girls up, his daughter and mine and had them get ready for school. My BF wasn't feeling well so he was still in bed. His son was already up when I got the girls up so I got them all breakfast while my BF was slpeeping. Right before I left I told his son that he needed to leave the new puppy alone and not let her out of her kennel unless his dad was up or else he would loose puppy time for the rest of the day. After that I went into the garage, helped the girls get into their boosters, and buckled them up. Right as I was climbing into the driver seat the little boy opens the door and screams at me that his dad said he could let the puppy out and then slammed the door. I went right back in the house and asked his dad if said that. He told me that he didn't give his son permission. Here's the thing when my BF is asleep and you ask him something he will pretty much say yes to anything and not even realize that he said that. So as I was leaving to take the girls to school and to go to work I made it a point to tell him to not let the puppy out.

After being yelled at by 3 year old, almost four, I was pretty upset for most of the day while I was at work. When I got home my BF noticed that I was upset and wanted to talk to me about what was bothering me. So we went outside and I explained to him what his son did. He apoligized for telling his son yes when he was half asleep and I explained that, that part wasn't the problem. I know how he is when he's half asleep. I told him what bothered me about the whole encounter was that after I told his son no he went and asked his father and then took it upon himself to open the garage door and let me know that his father, the head of the house told him he could, so whatever I said didn't matter and that's just how it's going to be. I then explained to him that the reason why the child treats me that way is because he sees his father undermining me all the time, which is basically disrespecting me and that he has taken away any sort of authority I had in the house with his son. He told me that he doesn't understand why he is the way he is with his son and sugested that maybe both of us should go and get some counseling together so that he can figure out why. I agreed to this.

After that we went back into the house and he pulled both his son and I to the side and explained to his son that he needs to start listening to me and that he was going to bed after dinner because he screamed at me which is exactly what happened. He began with the old tried and true temper tantrum again. Again I went back to his room and asked him to please stop screaming, and that if he didn't I was going to close the door, that I didn't want to do that, but he needed to stop. I walked away and a couple of minutes later he was screaming again. I went back and closed the door. He came out about five minutes later and told his father that the lamp sitting on top of his nine foot dresser turned off. We went into his room and my BF turned the lamp on and asked him how it turned off. That little boy climbed up that dresser and turned his lamp off just to get his dad in the room. I still can't believe he would go that far. I mean he climed up a huge dresser. Anyways, my BF then took the lamp out of his room, which made it pretty dark, told him that as soon as he got in bed and quit screaming that he would open the door, and then closed it behind him. Both of us sat next to the door and he played the door war game with his son and I encouraged him to follow through by constantly letting him know that his son was in a warm safe enviornment, he was not being mean, that his son made a choice to climb up his dresser to turn the light off, which he could have seriously hurt himself doing, and all he was asking of him was to lay down and quit screaming. His son tried everything that worked in the past and even went as faf as to flip out by the door and literally throw himself up against it pounding on it. I've seen tantrums before, I have a 6 year old. But nothing like this. We sat outside that door for about hour until he got in bed and quit screaming and then my BF opened the door went in and told him that he loved him and that tomorrow was a new day.

After that I explained to him again that it's not mean to teach your kids that they have boundaries. They'll have boundaries throughout their entire life. It will benifit them in the future, and we're not going to have to enforce punishments like this for long. His son is not used to being the one that doesn't have absolute power and he is not going to give it up without a fight. Hopefully he will continue with this because it's only going to get worse as the kid gets older and I Probably wont be around to deal with it.