How to: Be a Parenting Genius

Ha! I wish I had the answer then I would have some reassurance that we're doing it mostly right. There a few things that I have managed to successfully learn about parenting. First, each child is different and what works for one child will not necessarily work with a sibling. Second, sometimes you have to totally change things up because what has worked in the past for a child may no longer work as they grow and mature.

That changing things up...that's where I worry that we're not doing things completely right. It necessitates invoking creativity, something that I'm not super great at. But on occassion, I do impress myself with my creativity. This week was one of those times when I thought my reaction to a certain situation was pretty good.

I hope you enjoy this little vignette about our adventures in parenting/disciplining this week...

Early this week, one of the teen-agers in our house got into a wee bit of trouble during class. The teen-ager had the misfortune of being in class with the other teen-ager in our house when the write-up occurred. Of course, the sibling was immediately texting to tattle inform me that the other one had just been written up. "Why?" I texted back. "For not listening, not working, and eating in the costume shop."
Where did the food come from I wondered. Apparently, the offending child had stolen the snacks set aside for the cast and crew.

Now this teen-ager is not a bad kid, just different than the sibling. The sibling would never think of goofing off in a class or trying to sneak something that wasn't theirs. Matter of fact, I don't believe that child has been in trouble since 1st grade. Apparently having to eat soap for sassing a teacher made enough of an impact that acting up was never considered again. We tried many of the same tactics with the other sibling with mixed results.

Anyway, my initial reaction (and Dave's reaction) to the newest infraction was to totally come down hard on the goofing-off teen-ager. Restrict, take away all privileges, make life miserable. But we had already done that the last time and I think we must have sounded like Charlie Brown's teacher "Blahblahblah". Obviously we needed something new, something a little different and creative.

This is what I came up with...

On the way home from work I stopped at the grocery store...I had to go any way as we were running low on essentials. When I got home with the groceries, the in-trouble teen-ager met me at the door and asked "Can we go to the gym now?"

I responded with "I am so sorry and so embarrassed. I had no idea that I wasn't packing you a big enough lunch and that you had to resort to stealing food. Unfortunately, our gym time was taken up by my going to grocery store so I could make sure there was enough food so you didn't have to steal food any more. But when your dad gets home maybe he can take you to the gym."

The teen-ager hung his head and headed to exile in the basement until Dave got home.

They did go to the gym and on the way home, the teen-ager had to buy pretzels to replace the stolen ones. And Dave made it perfectly clear that not only were the pretzels to be replaced, but a sincere, heartfelt apology was to be expressed to the teacher the next day.

I happened to see the teacher the next night. By report, the teen-ager was much better behaved and got right to work, doing everything that was asked.

Here's to hoping the lesson sunk in and the behavior will be permanently changed.