*Doing it Right?!

I will not pretend to be perfect or even an expert on the subject, but I am a parent of a teenage daughter that is asked constantly, how the kids I am raising are so well behaved and "normal". I will focus mostly on Ariel, because I have been her parent longest. She fills me with huge amounts of pride, and in the same sentence, can make me feel like I am literally going insane. I have tried many different methods of discipline with her over the years and I was always left feeling that she was impossible.......now that I am older, as is she, I think it was ME that was impossible. Let me explain. We have preconceived notions of what this child is "supposed" to be. And when this child colors outside of those preconceived lines, we balk. I am not saying that we (the parents) are always wrong in this.....but I am saying that we are NOT always right!

Ariel is 15 1/2, driving, hormonal, intelligent, sassy, emotional, insecure, hopelessly forgiving, unreliable around the house, completely devoted to her sports and activities, a mean big sister, very sharp tongued, relentless when she wants something, crazy funny, and manipulative. All VERY NORMAL things for a young lady on her way to  being her own woman.

Now, my discipline/parenting is completely dependant on the child's attitude and maturity. As I mentioned, Ariel is starting to drive. Well, driving is not a right.....it is a privilege....and you better bet that if my teenager is acting like a 4 year old that has been told they can't have ice cream, then SHE WILL NOT DRIVE. If she is unable to find a way to help around the house and show some responsibility (without being asked).....then she will be UNABLE TO FIND HER PHONE. If she makes the horrendous decision to lie to me, then she will not have the pleasure of going to friends' houses or parties......I can not trust that good decisions will be made away from me if she has made crappy ones in front of me.

So there you have it.....very very simple and very hard for the child/teenager to argue. You are simply treating them at the age/maturity level they are behaving in. If your 12 year old wants to whine and pout like a 2 year old, then very bluntly......THEY ARE NOT MATURE ENOUGH FOR A PHONE! Would you buy a 2 year old a phone??? Didn't think so. If your child can not find a way to clean up after themselves, then THEY DO NOT NEED MORE THINGS!!! Why keep giving them more to take care of??? You are not FORCING this child to be anything that they are not ready for, if they want to be immature, then so be it. But you also should not reward their decision by treating them like they are mature and deserving of "older", more mature things.

We, as parents, need to take responsibility for our actions in enabling our children's bad behavior! You can not blame the child/teenager for what they have been ALLOWED to be. Have higher expectations of them, do not waver, and be rewarded!! They are not our puppets......but we can help them to be the BEST they will be when they are grown. Because we all know that selfishness, greed, hatefulness, temper tantrums and laziness don't just disappear in adulthood......who wants their child to be THAT PERSON when they are on their own??!! I sure don't.




If you have any nuggets of information that may be helpful to others on this topic, please feel free to share it below!

*Acceptance is the First Step....

As I am learning to accept the fact that my children are growing up.....I am learning that I have to have grown up talks with them.

Corey is the youngest....now 4 and in school full time, he has developed new behaviors. He becomes pissy emotional when told he is too young to do things. He is upset in the photo above because he wants a driver's license and does not have one. So Joey made one for him that says, "I Can Drive".

Talking to him and explaining that he will grow up too, is bittersweet. Seeing the elation on his face when told he'll be a man like daddy one day, makes my heart flutter.

Joey, playing air-guitar above, is 7. He is the middle child and a lot of the times.....bless his heart, on the back burner. He is SUCH a good child that he just doesn't demand a ton of attention.

He is at an age where he is easily frustrated by his little brother, and usually disgusted with his older sister.



He marches to his own beat, hates that he can not have a Mohawk all year long, and is now reading chapter books (that he is so so proud of). I am trying to teach Joey that girls in fact, do not have cooties!

 

Ariel, the big 1-5, is my source of indigestion gray hairs  energy. She is 100% becoming her own person.....woman. She is way too busy for my liking, and she juggles so much that I see me in her. She is in all honors classes, makes honor roll, runs cross country, cheers, is Vice President of FCA, in Public Relations for FFA and runs track. She makes it ALL a priority, does not let anyone down, and gives a thousand percent........UNTIL she gets home. (Big smiley face)....you hush, Mom! She has a hard time rinsing a dish or putting away her own clothes. Typical in every way, I suppose.



I am trying to let her learn on her own, what true friendships/relationships are and mean. It is extremely difficult, as a parent, to see your child learn first hand that a relationship is not what they though it was. My instinct is to save her...before damage is done....but that would not teach her anything.

She is learning to drive now. A HUGE deal for a parent. I am so proud that she is becoming such a responsible, smart, efficient, young woman, but it does make me yearn for those days when she was learning to tie her shoes.

And PS......I am teaching Ariel that boys DO have cooties!

*I'm a selfish mom......

I knew this day would come. I have prepared for it since he was born. On August 23, 2010- my "baby", Corey,  will start school. 

 I cried on Ariel's first day of school. She smiled and waved at me, and the video camera I was holding, as I sobbed behind the lens. I cried on Joey's first day of school . Corey and I walked Joey to his class. With his backpack dwarfing him, Joey smiled and waved goodbye .......I had tears running down my face all the way home.

It is almost two weeks until the start of school and I am ALREADY crying. I don't know if it is because he is my "baby".......maybe because I know the house will be too quiet all day now- no more playing, talking and laughing with me all day.......could it be because he and I became super bonded when he was in his body cast for a couple of months when he was two? Whatever the reason, I am having trouble coming to terms with it. I KNOW he will have fun. I KNOW it is good for him socially and academically. I KNOW that he will live and so will I. But I have to say that I did start questioning whether or not to send him. It is Pre-K at the Elementary School. It is not mandatory, in fact, there are just 15 slots available and we happened to get in. Yes, I secretly hoped that we would get passed up so that Corey could stay home with me for one more year. But, for those of you who know me....what do I always say??? "Everything happens for a reason"!!

Since I have been home with the kids for the past three years I have become SO selfish. I almost never do anything without them. They have not even been "babysat" in three years, other than time with Granny and Pa Pa. I just do not enjoy tons of time away from them. I know to some of you parents I sound absolutely crazy, but it is true. I worked so much (see my earlier posts) before, that I have savored every fighting, laughing, potty training, hugging, kissing, movie repeating, heat rash having, body cast wearing, smiley face moment!!! I am SO thankful to have my children. The love and pride for them is immeasurable.

 So, where does this leave me? What will I do while someone else gets to hear all three of them laughing, making sure they eat, and telling them to stop finger painting with spit?!

*Sigh*

* New Disease

Okay, so it has been said many times, we have a generation of laziness, but I’m here to affirm that. I am guilty of contributing to and even enabling this ‘disease’. I call it a disease because everything has to have an excuse and label these days. Overeating, drinking, drugs, smoking, it’s all considered a disease, so; I figured that laziness should be added to that list and here is why…..

My daughter is 12. She is an honor roll student, has been in cheer and plays sports. She runs track, miles at a time. Impressive I think, until I look a little closer. I recently bought a trampoline, a nice fancy one with a net around it and all. She was so happy to get it!! Then she asked where we were going to put it. I pointed to an area in our massive yard about 100 yards behind the house. “I thought that would be a good place for all play stuff”, I said. She got a look on her face like I had just said she was going to eat a piece of crap for dinner, and she said, in her most disgusted tone, “Why there?” I said, “because it’s back behind the house and I don’t have to worry about the boys near the front”. She replied with, “but it is so far away to walk back there”. So, after telling her how lazy that sounded, to not want to walk 100 yards to a trampoline, we agreed on a spot closer to the house. So now, she walks 20 yards to a trampoline that she jumps on for hours!! This goes hand in hand I’d say to the phenomenon of people driving around a parking lot for a half hour to find just the right parking place up close to an entrance, when they will be walking around a store, mall or amusement park for hours, but that extra 50 yards to the entrance is a deal breaker!

My son Joey is 4. He is active and very smart. He can give us the directions to get from our house to anywhere we have been. He is like a walking map! Who needs GPS?! In my amazement of him getting us to my dad’s house 40 miles away in Louisiana from our house in East Texas and being so proud, I still can’t shake the fact that he too is lazy. Anything that is a ‘crap job’ I say, he wants no part of. Helping me make a cake, cutting the grass on a riding lawn mower, and directing Ariel of where to pick up dog shit are great jobs for him. But tell him to clean his toys up, put away clothes or for my sake wipe his own damn ass after taking a dump….forget it!! No way!! I plead with him…”Joey, you are 4 and you’ll be in kindergarten soon. Who will wipe your ass at school?” His reply is, “I’ll wait until I get home to poop!” UGH!! Why do I enable this shit?? This is like the boss at work, you know the one. The one who dictates from his or her high horse of what to do and how you don’t do it good enough, but yet they have no idea of how to do it themselves or even attempt to try. Wiping their own ass would be a huge feat!

My son Corey is 18 months old and yep, you guessed it, is lazy too. He is as smart as a whip. Will understand anything you tell him to do, however complicated you make think it is, he gets it. He knows the name of all animals and toys, he knows if I skip pages in a book that I’m reading him for the 10th time in an hour and he will even go to the bathroom on the toilet and attempt to wipe his ass. This one has to be the ‘different one’ I thought. Well, not so fast, he refuses to talk! Can he? YES!! He said his first words around 10 months old and he physically can speak…no disorders or anything, except that horrible ‘disease’ of laziness. I officially diagnosed him this morning. He points at what he wants and he gets what he wants. I’ve tried the whole, make him tell me and not point thing, yeah, it doesn’t work with him. His personality, to be polite, is a bit abrasive. But, to be perfectly honest here, he’s just an ass sometimes! So, to keep this playful, smart, tiger appeased, I give in to his refusal to speak.

As I sit here writing this on my portable laptop, with a cordless phone next to me and spaghettio’s in a can for the boys for lunch, I can’t help but wonder, am I the cause of the disease? Did I ‘give’ my children this disease, or are they simply born with it? I would appreciate any help with the matter and even welcome support groups to cope with this disease!

*Selective Amnesia

Ok, so I am convinced that selective amnesia is inherited from a child’s father. There is no other logical explanation. My children all have it, and I’m sure yours do too. Let me state an example of selective amnesia….You tell your child to clean his or her room before going to the video arcade. He or she conveniently forgets to do so, stating it must have slipped their mind. On the flip side, you tell your child to get $10 out of your wallet before going to arcade….do you think they forget that one??? Hell no! That $10 is gone and so is your kid. Is that room clean? No way! How does this happen?

There has to be some sort of amnesia gene our kids are born with and the defect comes straight from the father. No mother or wife could ever get away with having this problem. Oh, damn honey, sorry I forgot to feed you, but I did get a new duvet. I mean, Joe will completely forget that I had asked him to take some trash to the dump, but he will remember to overhaul his entire car that weekend. He will forget that he left his clothes on the bathroom floor, but he will remember that Jimmy Kimmel comes on at 10:35pm, on channel 3. It will have slipped his mind to have rinsed his hair down the sink after shaving, but the next car show is in September over 200 days away, and if I ask, he’ll tell me down to the minute how much time remains. He has passed this disorder down to my children. I try and correct my boys now, so that they too don’t pass this horrible amnesia to their own, but I fear I am failing.

I ask Joey to please pick up his legos so I do not permanently imprint the bottom of my foot, as I am trying to keep my cursing to a minimum (stepping on legos is an immediate deal breaker). Walk, walk, walk, oh shit, damn, damn, damn…”AHHH!!!!! Joey, I told you to pick these up!” His reply in his tiny 4-year-old voice, “Oh, yeah, sorry mommy, I forgot”. Never mind that I had asked him 5 times in the past hour, he plain forgot. But, tell him that he will see Sesame Street Live next week, and he remembers the whole plan. “We will take Ariel to school, then take Corey to Papa’s house, then we will go to the show at 10:30, then after have McDonalds and maybe a vanilla shake.” Poor kid…he has this horrible mutated gene, and it’s Joe’s fault.

I took partial fault in the lazy disease, this one is all Joe! I can have no part in this. I somehow remember to change diapers, clean the bathtub and check email almost simultaneously. How can they not remember step-by-step instructions? They will entirely omit one of the steps due to amnesia.

As you can see this is frustrating for me, and I’m sure all other moms and wives worldwide. So, what do we do about it? I’ll tell you….urge congress to fund a research for this gene mutation and stop it in its tracks. I did write a formal letter myself, but have had no response. I’m sure the receiver of my request was a man and he ‘forgot ‘ to respond.