Defiance

I asked a question last week about SODAS. Thank you for your insight. This week my question is how to handle Rule of 3 turning into extreme defiance. The following scenario has happened multiple times and we could really use some advice. My son earned all the Rule of 3 consequences and has refused to accept them. He has followed some other simple instructions calmly, but when I have approached him to ask if he's ready to talk about the Rule of 3 situation and accept his consequences so the 24 hour loss of privileges can begin he has said no. At bedtime he tried really hard to seek negative attention by refusing to brush his teeth, stay in his room, shut his door and more. He would yell out, "mom, mom, mom…" and come out and ask questions. When we went to bed he came to our door and repeated, "mom, mom, mom…" again. My husband and I realize he is doing his best to get us to respond in the ways we have in the past, but we are just ignoring him. As I'm writing this it seems he has gone downstairs, though I'm not sure if he's in his room or not. When he was younger and I was homeschooling I was so worn out by his defiance, refusal to obey, and incessant calling out to me and not leaving me alone. He was an only child for 6 1/2 years so trying to play with the other children was not an option. I felt completely stuck. We backed off enforcing the 4 basic skills and Rule of 3 for those reasons. We do not home school anymore because it was just not healthy for any of us. As I stated last week we really want to be more diligent about practicing self government principles, but we do not know the best way to handle our son when he becomes so defiant he refuses to do anything; including going to school, or church, and will pester to no end it seems. I have a lot more to say and maybe I need a mentoring call, but is it appropriate to have a separate consequence in addition to the Rule of 3 to handle extreme defiance? If so, what are some ideas? Of course, it will be the case that he will refuse that consequence as well, at least initially. I look forward to any advice you can offer.

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