tough love

Yeah, we know, we brought it on ourselves. With the holidays and the puke a la palooza festival, combined with crummy weather and time off from school we are all a bit frazzled in my house. This is my excuse.

We have been pretty lax lately around here. Children who act out are spoken to, running inside is warned against, and the kids have had the privilege of their own tv for movies. We did not wind up with 2 children grateful and appreciative of the relaxation of the rules of our house. No one said, hey thanks momma, for giving me a break when I was sick, I really needed that.

So The Husband and I have been discussing the behavior of our children and how it has come to be that both girls have a charmless similarity to Veruca Salt (from Willy Wonka movie see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veruca_Salt). We do not want demanding and out of control children, we want nice ones. We decided to give the old 'token economy' technique a try. The Husband and I are reasonably compatible when it comes to rules in the house. We agree on the big things and most of the small things. Where we run into problems is in the what to do about it. Then we bicker back and forth while the offending child smirks and tries to slither away unnoticed. So I have been making an effort to not jump in when The Husband takes a stand. His method is to talk to the child until her ears actually fall off, then she has to pick them up off the floor and go to a time out. My method, known as Bribe and Threaten Parenting is more direct It goes like this:
"knock that off right now or you are going to time out" only you have to imagine my voice sounds like a shrill blender with ice cubes in it after repeating myself 400 times. I admit to having been less than consistent.

Anyway, we have agreed that both of our children are smart little girls who know what the rules are, and know what they should be doing. They also have no auditory disturbances or blockage, therefore there is no excuse for not listening. We have concluded that our children are deliberately ignoring us and doing whatever they want.

Coincidentally, late this afternoon Genea had put on a movie on their little tv and it was not working. The Husband administered his techo- o- geek proficiency to the problem and discovered that their movies had fingerprints and scratches all over them and they have not been putting them away, they have been stacking them together naked. We decided immediately to suspend their movie watching. When they cried and made lame excuses, we decided to take away all the toys that had batteries. All the little things that make noise and move around or dance, gone. Until we decide what nasty chores they will need to do to get them back. And then, they are going to need to earn the movies back and earn the ability to watch one as well. So we are tightening up! Implementing Tough Love! Much hysteria and crying ensued! The trauma! The sadness! The pant load of crap!

I put all of their little electronic toys in a cardboard box and left it where they can see it (no use them forgetting about the stuff). I went in to the kitchen to open a bag of pizza puffs to go in the toaster oven. Oh yeah, and I cooked beans too. Unloading the dishwasher. I hear the girls going back and forth. Genea in particular has a hard time getting herself something to do. Teena can spend an hour telling a story to her fork, Genea needs more direction and concrete ideas or she will pace back and forth. I can hear The Husband getting on them to find something to do or play with, then comes the tough love. He says, in a punishing tone, meant to convey the seriousness of his message and his frustration too, ''girls, stop crying and go watch TV until we decide you can behave''. Sigh. We have some work to do.