Stickin' To My Guns

Of all the parenting challenges, the hardest for me is discipline. I’m sure it is for most parents. We’d all love for our children to be perfectly behaved and when they’re not, to just do as they’re told. That is certainly not reality, at least in our household. My children are strong-willed (willful), creative (manipulative) and, as mentioned in a previous post, outnumber me.

I subscribe to the theory of democratic parenting: respectful leadership that requires parents to be both firm and friendly. It encourages rather than discourages the child and gives them the independence to make choices while holding them to the consequences of those choices, both natural and logical. In theory it is wonderful and when I am consistent with it, it is incredible, strengthening my relationship with my children and boosting their self-esteem. But when I’m tired or just tired of the grind (which is often), I find myself slipping in the vicious circle of empty threats, bribes, nagging, yelling, all the things I detest hearing come out of my mouth.

After a particularly trying couple of weeks (first the stomach flu then being with the kids 24/7 during March Break), let’s just say that the behaviour in our house has deteriorated. The sibling fights have escalated, the talking back has reached an all-time high punctuated with curse words and one of my daughters has developed a violent streak that has resulted in bruises on her brother’s arms and back. It’s not a good scene.

After a successful (and peaceful) trip to buy new rubber boots with the kids, I thought it would be fun to cap off the week with take-out from a favourite burger joint. The kids convinced me that we should dine in instead. I figured, “Why not? It is the last day of March Break after all.” Within 5 minutes of me placing the order, the nonsense began, the unrelenting teasing, crying, shouting and retaliation. The place was full of patrons and I tried to quietly admonish the kids to behave themselves. After the third warning I sensed all eyes on me (how I wished there a whole in the floor somewhere into which I could disappear). And it dawned on me. Enough of the empty threats. I turned around and changed our order to take-out. I’m not sure who was more surprised, the kids or me.

I then had to wait for our order to be prepared while the kids disintegrated into full-blown meltdown: tears, wailing, begging, pleading. I knew that I had to stick to my parenting guns. Certainly if I backed down now they would learn that I will never follow through on my “threats” and that tantrums will always get them what they want. I did some deep-breathing, stayed calm, took our food and left with the children to join my husband to eat at home.

When the tears stopped and we had a talk, we ended up enjoying a pleasant family meal. While the “restaurant incident” wasn’t pretty to watch I’m hoping (praying!) that when I’m ready to attempt another meal out, they will know that I mean business.

It’s Not Me, It’s Them

Image: www.picable.com


My children have taken misbehaving to a whole new level. They start by getting silly and fooling around by themselves. A sibling will join in the fun and they feed off of each other’s energy and antics. The third will attempt to join in and all hell breaks loose. Usually, two will turn on one. There will be tears. Maybe some retaliation, some violence, an object or two might be thrown. Then they join forces in the world of silly. The volume reaches ear-deafening levels and all rules are thrown out the window (maybe with a toy or two). Suddenly, as quickly as it all began, it feels like the three of them have turned on me, conspiring to make me yell or cry or crazy or any combination of the above.

It’s hard not to take that personally.

I know deep down that it is not a conspiracy. There are no clandestine midnight meetings where they are secretly planning ways to make me lose it. But how is it that they know exactly what drives me to drink?

Children are masters at learning which of their parents’ buttons to press. Mine definitely have my number. Loud noises, silliness that escalates until someone gets hurt, whining, stubbornness... Well, they have a long list to choose from.

Parenting guru Alyson Schafer writes in her second book Honey I Wrecked The Kids (aka my bible) that the most likely reason that children fight or misbehave is a subconscious effort to gain undue attention. It’s true. When my children are playing quietly and getting along fantastically, I breathe a sigh of relief and find ways to make use of the quiet time: tidying the house, cooking dinner, checking email, blogging. I am not paying attention to them. But one wrong move and I’m all over them. Things can escalate quickly and although it is negative, they most certainly have my attention.

So what can I do? I reread Alyson’s chapter on dealing with attention-seekers and will try her suggestions of ignoring the behaviour (that’s going to be a toughie), distracting and redirecting (takes some creativity but works) and natural/logical consequences. What is more important, I’m going to try to “catch” them being good and give them positive attention when I can (read: put down my iPhone and spend more focussed time with them). Hopefully they'll feel their "attention quota" is being met and they won't look for it in negative ways.

And I will remind myself NOT to take it personally when they do.

They Smell Fear

Disclaimer: I am about to whine about solo-parenting while my husband is away. I can only imagine what single parents go through every day. My hat is off to you if you are a single parent.

Have I mentioned that my husband travels for work? A lot? When he started this job almost two years ago, we anticipated a few trips to NYC, maybe Montreal and Vancouver a couple times of year. Then they hired a new CEO who loves to travel and loves to travel with my husband. Apart from 2 or 4-day trips here and there, I can expect him to be gone most of the week for an entire month at least four times a year. I just spent part of my evening updating my giant colour-coded fridge calendar with his business trips for the next three months. Then I had a big glass of wine.

You’d think I’d be used to it by now. I mean, it’s been almost a year of this. And yet, when he has a small break from the road like the past 3 months, the beginning of another period of solo-parenting fills me with dread. John left yesterday for Florida. Yes, in the middle of winter. For a conference in Hollywood Beach. Life’s tough.

Like dogs, I honestly believe that kids can smell fear. As his departure time approached, I could feel the panic building up in me, the anxiety about dealing with three kids on my own for five days with no pinch-hitter or respite from the grind. The minute his car pulled away from the house, the kids went berserk. I don’t know if I can accurately describe it but imagine a play-date that has gone horribly wrong, “punks gone wild” or something similar. I had just over an hour to cook dinner, feed the animals and corral them into the minivan to get my son to a play-off hockey game. Gah.

When the game was done, we were home and the kidlets were wrestled into bed, I had the revelation that the kids feed off my stress. If I’m freaking out inside, I’m not going to be parenting the way I want to be. The kids will take this as their cue to behave like miscreants. And then I’ll freak out even more and then... You get the picture. 

Looking at my calendar, I have to psyche myself up, keep calm and carry on, get and stay organized and most importantly remember to have fun with my kids. I know that when I hit my solo-parenting stride, things run surprisingly smooth and I feel like I can handle (almost) anything.

Still...it’s going to be a long three months.