I've lost that loving feeling!

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I feel like a bad bad mommy today!
We are on holiday for a week now and ny sons behaviour is getting to me!
I really dont know whats going on with him.....his emotions is up and down.....his animosity is really starting to anoy me and hubby! He is seeking all my husbands attention all the time. Even if my husband has spend the whole day with him and my dad he gets upset because he wants his dads undevided attention!
He gets upset if we spend some time with my parents...we only see them every 4 months!
His rudeness and seemingly selfish attention seeking behaviour is really having a bad effect on our relationship at the moment.....I feel so guilty to admit this but I'm really feeling like I'm loosing that loving feeling towards him today! To make it worse is that it's difficult to read his feelings.....Why is he so attention seeking and what can we do to just have some kind of 'normal' holiday?

Why: boredom?

What to do: reduce intensity of cause(s)

Could something have happened to cause him to become so insecure? Could he have misheard or misinterpreted something he had overheard, or had a bad dream perhaps?

Sometimes holidays are harder to handle than the usual routine. Would it help to structure the time a bit (have meals at regular times, go outside for part of the day)? Maybe go over each day's plans once or several times when he gets up?

I often feel that in the absence of a predictable, pleasant series of activities our kids just cling to us as their secure base. This might be what he's doing with his father.
J.

I don't know what to tell you about what you can do to to help with your son's behavior, but don't worry about losing the 'loving feeling'. Remember that most emotions are just chemical responses to situations, and that all emotions stem from thoughts and values we hold . Love isn't always what we feel, but what we do. Stay true to the values and thoughts you hold, and what you know to be true beyond the current moment when you may be overwhelmed by feelings of frustration. It's natural to -feel- what you're feeling, just don't forget what you -know-.

SilverSolace, excellent point, feelings come and go. We are all born with the ability to feel the entire range of human emotions and it is perfectly normal to lose that warm fuzzy feeling for a loved one at times. I hear ya though. Today was a tough one with our ASD son too. He woke up cranky and I could tell that so I made every effort to give him the sensory input he likes (or have Dad do it which is usually better) and to make very few demands on him but it was still a relief when he went to bed tonight.

Thanx SilverSolace.....this makes alot of sense....and yes at the moment there is other people giving me different cognitive input re my son, causing me to look at things differently and having an effect on how I feel....you've givin me some understanding of why I'm feeling this way!
Bombaloo....how you described your son is EXACTLY how my son was for a few days....he wakes up VERY irritable.....what makes the situation difficult for me is that it's difficult to explain to visiting family members that this crankyness stemms from sensory stuff, shift in routine, not liking new people, exct. For some one from the outside it looks like the child is just rude, becoming difficult and spoiled....and then I start putting pressure on my son to behave and not act this way....causing more stress and bad behavior! Then I also start to think maybe they are right.....so yes....I'm going to go back to what I know and do and then I think every one will benifit!

J-bird has been clingy to me this holiday as well. I think it's cause they have nothing todo. Even myself I am finding myself going to my dad a lot for his attention because I'm really bored with nothing really to do other than be on the internet and be on the video games. But then I get bored afterwards so what else to do, but talk dad's ear off for hours. J-bird is the same way he has his legos and his lego games, but after that what else is there to do other than talk my ear off.

Maybe try a family game night or something for the holidays.

Well from the perspective of my childhood experiances.....there were times I could not control my behavior because of sensory problems and being overwhelmed so my reactions were natural to what I was experiancing but a lot of people could not undertand that and would think I was just complaining or whatever because they did not experiance the discomfort from sensory issues and feeling overwhelmed with maybe new people a different environment ect.

So in effect if the response was 'stop acting like that' I would get even more upset because I was not trying to act innappropriatly, just could not control my reactions to what I was experiancing. So it felt like people were being ignorant and expecting the impossible.

So I would say maybe try to find ways to reduce his stress/sensory issues, in my experiance that was usually the only thing that worked for me and still is. I mean I still get irritable and in pretty bad moods if I am too overwhelmed by stress and sensory issues, so as an adult I have the self control to go find a quiet place away from people to calm down.......but a child might not always see that as an option.