PARENTING EXPERIMENT Making it past the first 60 minutes. I am sure there are far more qualified parents, from whom Id welcome comments and perspective, that have already been through this more than once, but its still worth sharing with the FB parenting community. 12 and a 1/2 GOING ON DONT TELL ME WHAT TO DO AND I KNOW WAY MORE STUFF THAN YOU! I have to admit, so far, my kids have been pretty awesome. So even as I write this I feel blessed. Recently my 12 year-old has been getting a bit more outspoken, which I totally welcome, its just weird how much can change in a period of 6-9 months. By far the hardest thing for me to do is discipline my kids, because Its hard work. Generally disciplining a child in any way means that its more work for the parent. *Example* - No screen time today translates to, oh shit, I now have to be more involved as a parent. Not only is that challenging if we are honest with ourselves, but dealing with seeing my kids sad is hard for me to accept. I dont want them to ever be sad. I also know that they, whether its purposeful or not, are master manipulators. *Example* - Son comes in after going to bed last night almost in tears saying his elbow hurts (pointing to his shoulder). Funny when he did a front flip into bed it didnt seem to bother him. I know its a 99 percent chance hes full of it, and yet, this is my flesh right here. But back to the 12 year-old. Yesterday for the first time since she started middle-school she found out that she was going to get a C in a class as a final grade. Recently this lucky kid was the recipient of an iPhone of her very own, surprising to me was finding out a large percentage of 6th graders actually have cell phones. We still look at having a new iPhone as quite a privilege. So our deal was that as long as she got all As and Bs we would get her the phone. Keep in mind, she is very capable of getting As and Bs. If I didnt think she was I wouldnt have set her up to fail. The deal was if she got a C or lower she would get it taken away for a week, with other and greater consequences for lower grades. I was hoping to never have to take it way, but alas yesterday on the way home from school it was a terrible ride. There were lots of tears about the realization of no phone as well as the lower grades. I want my kids to like me, I dont want them to think I am a punk Gestapo who wants to kill their fun. What, Dad? Healthy food and no screen time, youre killing me slowly! There is nothing better than a reciprocated I love you from one of my children, but there was none of this to be had while doling out consequences. There was a lot of talking (through her tears) of why I was doing this, and that it had nothing to do with how much I loved her and so on and so forth. There was sulking, and moody looks, everything in me wanted to just forgive her and not take the phone and have her love me as much as she did that morning! But I held strong and shut the phone down for day one of 7. For about 60 minutes it was really rough going, and then guess what? She came back to life, she accepted her consequence and she was back to a normal human being. I have a strong feeling as she gets older it may take longer than 60 minutes for things to be cool, but I am glad I waited this out. She even kissed me good night like she always does! Next time I will be prepared to be strong for at least 2 hours!
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 19:04:01 +0000
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