Tag Archives: discipline

I Suck More Than You Do

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I imagine that the relationships between other mothers and their young (toddler-preschooler) children remain pretty consistently good. Sure there are challenges along the way, but the actual relationship is warm, loving, supportive, not-strained. For some reason, my relationship with L has never been like this. We go through periods where we get along OK, but inevitably every few months we end up back to butting heads over everything.

This is all a surprise to me. I fully expected to need to work on my relationship with my husband, that my relationships with friends would go through ebbs and flows, that my relationships with my siblings and parents would change over time, that my relationships with my kids as they progressed through the teen years into adulthood would have challenges and need extra work. But I never imagined that my biggest struggle would be my relationship with a 4-year-old. What does this say about me?

This is the stuff that’s supposed to just come naturally, right? I’m the mom, therefore my feelings towards my son should involve things like overwhelming love, an overwhelming desire to support him, help him learn and grow, overwhelming wonderment, blah, blah, blah. He’s the child so his feelings towards me should involve things like love, thinking I’m kind of a superhero, thinking I’m the best thing since sliced bread, (despite his overwhelming desire to push boundaries,) etc. I don’t expect a nearly 5-year-old and his mom to never have disagreements, but I would expect the relationship to be straightforward. Ours is not. None of this comes naturally to me. This is all a reflection of my ineptitude. I feel like he is not a child I can parent properly. I am always irritated with him just being him. That can’t be how a mom is supposed to feel.

My “dislike” of all things L isn’t a one way street. He clearly dislikes all things mom too. He always has. He has always worshiped T and somewhat tolerated me. His first sentence was “No Mommy, Daddy!” He used to cry when it was me who came into his room to fetch him from his crib in the morning. And it was me every damn day. He’d throw his toys at me and tell me to go away that he wanted Daddy. Seriously. This started around 10 months of age. Not cool. This preference was supposed to be a phase, but it hasn’t changed one bit.

None of this is right. None of it is how it’s supposed to be. Since he’s the kid, clearly I’m the one doing something wrong. This isn’t a parenting issue that can be solved with trying a new discipline or parenting technique from a book, this is a basic thing that should be natural that I’ve got all wrong. And it’s highlighted daily by the fact that he has a sister who adores me (as she rightly should!) and who I properly adore right back. Even when she’s doing her 2-year-old gig, I “get” her in a way I’ve never gotten L.

I do not want my son to grow up with the constant message that he’s annoying me. But he is annoying me. This whole post makes me sounds like a monster. And I feel like a monster for thinking and feeling this stuff. I feel like it can’t be right. I must be missing some part of me that would make me a good mom for him. I’m hoping there are others out there feeling this! I hope there are others who went through this and now have a wonderful 20-something son to show for it. I just don’t want to ruin this child and I feel like I am.

Marital Bliss, Except at Bedtime

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I’m struggling with something that I imagine is pretty common, especially for couples where one partner is a stay-at-home parent. So, I want to put it out there and hear what you all do to keep your marriages copacetic. Here’s the scenario:

I’ve been home all day with the kids, or even part of the day with some of the kids if it’s a school day. I’ve made dinner, gotten them fed, lived through the first half of the witching hour (which, in my house, is actually 2 hours – from 5-7,) and then my husband comes home at 6ish. The kids get all wild and wound up to see him and immediately start acting like jack-holes. I’m DONE. I need to walk away from these small people. T also feels like he is done. He’s tired from a long day at work. He’s hungry. He doesn’t think that it’s fair for me to just pass the kids off to him when he walks in the door.

Our kids go to bed early. By 6:30 S is asking to go to bed, and L just gets wilder and wilder the longer he stays up so we try to put him down around 7-7:30. That doesn’t leave any time for T to come home, get some unwind time, and then face the kids. Basically, he walks in, gets to eat if he’s lucky, and then it’s bedtime routine time.

We just can’t agree on this. What do you do? I imagine that this scenario plays out in millions of homes every night. We both end up feeling frustrated, under-appreciated, and aggravated.

 

It’s Like a Fairy Tale Over Here (Not in a Good Way)

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Have you heard that “rule” that you’re supposed to say 4 times more positive things to your kids than negative? Do any of you manage that? I don’t. Not by a mile. Actually, I might with S, but with L? Not a chance. Last night I had a revelation: I am like a fairy tale evil stepmother to L. That sucks.

We all know that I love the kid. If I didn’t my life would be so much easier because I wouldn’t be racked with guilt, angst, and worry all the freaking time. But do I like him? Sometimes. I like that he’s curious, polite, empathetic and incredibley kind and sweet (when he wants to be). This is mostly how he is with other people. I dislike that he’s ornery, hyper, always looking for a fight, fresh etc. Those are things most parents dislike. But I go even further. I also dislike just about all of his interests. I find just about every single thing he likes mind-numbingly stupid. We have nothing in common.

Do I want to see him jump from the couch to the table to the chair to the floor and do a flip and run back to the couch in less than 4 seconds? No. Please don’t do any of those things.

Do I want to go for a bike ride in search of bad guys and shoot them with sticks and throw rocks and scream as loud as we can? No. I want to do none of that.

OK, so most of you probably are thinking that this is just normal 4-year-old boy stuff and of course I don’t want to do any of it because I’m a grown woman and little boys are stupid. (You were thinking that little boys are stupid, right?) I go even further. I say at least 4 times as many negative things to him than positive on a given day. How is that going to effect him? How can he possibly grow up into a confident, good man when he’s constantly being told that he’s too loud, too wiggly, too annoying, too obnoxious, too fresh, too wild, and just plain old too much all the time? The message he’s getting from me? It must be “GO AWAY I DON’T LIKE YOU.” Or maybe it’s “EVERYTHING YOU THINK AND DO IS WRONG AND ANNOYING.”

Then I realize that those are the messages I’m sending and I try to make up for it by telling him how kind he is. By telling him that I’m so proud that he’s such a great brother. I tell him he’s clever, that he’s cute, that he’s considerate, that he’s funny and that I love him. Then, in his excitement at getting positive attention, he takes a running leap and throws himself through the air and crashes into me. Undoubtedly his intention is to hug me, but instead of just hugging me like a normal person, he manages to knock me over, give me a bloody lip, hurt himself, and somehow knock over a full bowl of cereal and I’m right back to telling him that he’s too wild and not fit to be indoors.

As if all this messaging wasn’t bad enough, at the same time I’m cuddling with S. I’m smothering her in kisses. I’m accepting countless cups of imaginary tea, thanking her for cleaning up, exclaiming about what a big girl she’s becoming. She is receiving a loud and clear message that she’s mostly good, very cute, well-loved, clever, sweet and nearly perfect (if she’d just quit hitting everyone and throwing dramatic fits).

This is why I’m an evil stepmother. I’m leaving my kids with indelible impressions that she is good and he is bad. That she is welcome and he is barely tolerated.

Please tell me I’m not alone in this. Is my son doomed to a life in gangs or something because he’s growing up under the thumb of his evil stepmother?

I Can’t Take Me Anywhere

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Sometimes I forget where I am. And I’ve been told I have a loud voice. (I wonder where my kids get their loud voices from?) Yesterday I had one of these moments. I looked up from an interaction with S, which ended with me saying, “How do YOU like it?” while tugging on a bit of her hair, to find 6 moms watching me. Whoops.

So this begs the question: do you parent differently in public? (OK, so it also begs questions about me pulling my 2-year-old’s hair.) Can your kids get away with more or less when you’re at someone else’s house? In a store? At school drop off? Waiting outside big brother’s acrobat class?

The scene: L’s acrobat class is from 4:30-5:30 on Thursdays. S and I wait in the lobby of the dance school with the other parents and siblings. Everyone seems perfectly happy except S who is abjectly miserable for the entire hour. She begs to go home, to be fed dinner. She runs, climbs, cries, hits, pushes, throws things, cries more and drags me to the tiny toddler toilet 110 times. On this particular Thursday S was even more unhappy than usual and nothing distracted her from her reign of terror. She poked a girl in the eye, pulled a boy’s hair, yanked toys away from happy children and threw them at unsuspecting adults.

She asked to be picked up. I picked her up. She squirmed to go down. I put her down. She cried. She asked to be picked up. I picked her up. She squirmed to go down. I put her down. She cried. It was in the middle of one of these tiresome hell-cycles that she grabbed handfuls of my hair.

My discipline during this hour was a mixture of stern admonishment, sympathetic affection, distraction and ignoring. Basically just what I do at home, but without the help of my pantry and TV. So I acted as I would anywhere when I pulled her hair and noticed my audience. No one said anything. They looked at me. I looked at them. And then they looked away. Are they thinking I’m a child abuser? Or a normal mom doing normal mom things? Are they wondering what I do behind closed doors if I think it’s perfectly fine to pull my daughter’s hair in public?*

*Just so you all know, whether or not it’s perfectly fine to pull my daughter’s hair, it’s the same thing I would do behind closed doors. 

Should I be ashamed to show my face again?

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A Post About S and Grandpa

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S has memorized the How To Be An Annoying Younger Sibling Handbook. Hell, she may have revised the thing, adding new chapters such as “Sitting on Big Brother’s Head – Appropriate Situations to Employ This Most Dangerous Tactic,” and “When Hurting Yourself is Worth it in the Spririt of Getting Big Brother in Trouble,” and “Let’s Make Sure Mom Drinks Tonight.” My sweet little girl pulls hair, claws eyeballs and puts her own fingers into L’s mouth for him to bite. In her defense, she only does this stuff when she’s bored. And she will handle a whole minute of boredom before resorting to these measures.

She’s most bored when L watches TV. This is problematic for me because I plug L into the TV when I have something to do. Like cook dinner, make a phone call, or not kill him. So while I’m super busy cooking, talking on the phone, or not killing, S is in the other room stirring things up. She’s instigating a monster, and she knows it. She will sit on his head, (keep in mind, she’s usually not wearing anything on her bottom half,) pull his hair and claw at his eyes until he retaliates. In his defense, he has a HUGE tolerance for this type of crap. I have seen him watch an entire Wild Kratts with his sister on his head. When he does retaliate though, he does so with gusto. A swift twist, push and throwing maneuver and S is thrown from the couch altogether. He may leave it at that, or he may leap down after her and then the two are a blur of legs and arms as they wrestle it out on the floor.

L weighs 45 lbs. S weighs 23. Fighting is in L’s DNA. S doesn’t stand a chance.

This morning, L is plugged into a movie while I try to pack up all of our stuff as we can finally head home after a week of living with my parents. We have our electricity back and I can’t wait to get back to our normal lives. S does not want to watch a movie. So, naturally, she grabs a handful of eyeball. Like a pitbull, once she’s latched on, nothing can get her off. L is screaming and I’m yanking on S but she’s glued onto that eyeball. I finally free L from her clutches and put S into a time out. She does not stay in time outs so I am re-putting her in the corner again and again and then something strange happened.

A man came in and scooped her up. He gave her a hug and asked her if she will promise to be good. Through pathetic fake tears, she promises. He then releases her back into her freedom. WTF? Who is this man? He looks like my dad, but can’t be.

When I was growing up, my dad was the scary one. When we were naughty we quickly asked our mother, “Please don’t tell dad??” I think he still doesn’t know about the brand new ski jacket I lost in the 5th grade. (Sorry, Dad.) So who’s this softy letting my daughter out of her time out? I could have used this guy 30 years ago.

I guess the moral here is that we all have to wait about 30 years. Then when our terrible children have terrible children of their own, we can do whatever the eff we want. We can be the nice guy if we used to be the mean guy. We can give them Sugar Puff Honey Crack O’s for breakfast and then give them back to their parents. We can babysit and keep them up way past bedtime. All this is to say, that one day, we will have our revenge. Good things come to those who wait.

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Cyber-Punished

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Today I was banned from Facebook. Don’t panic! My Facebook rights should be reinstated tomorrow. As this was my first offense, I only got a 24 hour ban. I guess that repeat offenders get banned for good.

So, what did I do that was so wrong? I posted this photo:

Clearly scandalous, no?

My reprimand and subsequent time-out from Facebook has put me through a range of emotions today not dissimilar to the 5 Stages of Grief:

  1. Denial: What? I’m banned? Can’t be. Let me update my status about that. WTF? I can’t update my status?? Can’t be. Let me try again.
  2. Anger: WTF? I didn’t do anything wrong! Who is the idiot in charge of this ridiculous process? Did someone actually report this picture as inappropriate? What kind of sick person would think that way? This is not fair! I have something to say about it! But I’ve been muted! ARRRGGGH!
  3. Bargaining: Maybe I can send an email to someone explaining the misunderstanding. Obviously the carefully crafted rules and regulations regarding offensive or nude photos did not have this photo in mind. There’s been a mistake. We can work this out, surely!
  4. Depression: There is no way to contact an actual person at Facebook. Figures. What about all the funny stuff that keeps popping in my head? These are gems that are just going to be lost to my own poor memory. What should I do now? Hmmm. I have nothing to do. My life is empty. Wow. I spend a lot of time on Facebook. I’m pathetic.
  5. Acceptance: OK, deep breaths. The rules are there to protect my very own naked children against pervs. Yes, I think banning me for this is an overreaction, but it is what it is. It’s just a day. Do I have a Facebook habit? Sure. But it could be worse. I could be doing meth.
What did I learn about myself today? That I actually grieved the loss of my ability to post on Facebook as ‘Motherhood, WTF?’ for 24 hours. I’m going to go ahead and call this a First-World Problem. My takeaway is that I’m fortunate enough for this to be my biggest problem today.

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The Brutal, Ugly Truth

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L comes up with new, crazy-ass ways to be bad on a daily basis. It’s 9:45 PM and we hear him walking around after he had been sleeping. I go upstairs to check on him. He’s happy, gives me a big hug. His hair is wet. Really wet.

“Why is your hair wet?”

“Because I’m so cold.”

Hmmm. Not a good answer. I go into his room to tuck him back into his bed. His bed is soaked. The whole bed. From pillow right on down.

“Why is your bed wet?” No answer. “Did you pee?” (All over it?) No answer. I need to investigate further. I go into the bathroom where I find a soaking wet towel in the sink. Shit. What did he do??

Back in his room I begin to strip the bed. As I do I feel my blood pressure increase. My temper rises. Suddenly I’m seeing red. Here I go. I’m about to lose it…

“WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU? YOU CAN’T BE TRUSTED TO LIVE IN A HOUSE WHERE YOU HAVE ACCESS TO A BATHROOM??? ARE WE GOING TO HAVE TO START LOCKING THE BATHROOM DOORS? WE’VE ALREADY LOCKED AWAY YOUR SOAP AND YOUR TOOTHPASTE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T BE TRUSTED WITH THOSE, BUT NOW YOU CAN’T EVEN BE TRUSTED WITH PLUMBING??!!”

I can tell I’ve lost it completely. I am now officially crazed. I can’t stop. My anger is overwhelming. I keep screaming. It’s like a freight train. Unstoppable. L is crying. As I move around his bed, remaking it, I step on something wet. Underpants, lying next to a wet pair of shorts.

“What’s this?” No answer. “WHAT IS THIS?”

“I peed.”

“How did you manage to pee in underpants and shorts when you’re wearing a pull-up?” No answer. Uh-oh. Here comes the red again. I can feel the surge, my heart pounding. Suddenly I’m screaming again…

“WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?? WHY DO YOU DO THE THINGS YOU DO?? WHY DON’T YOU THINK? DO YOU THINK I WANT TO BE HERE SCREAMING AT YOU IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT? DO YOU THINK THIS IS WHAT I WANT? WHY CAN’T YOU JUST BEHAVE?”

I went on and on with no sign that this tirade was ever going to end. T finally came in and ushered me out of L’s room. And now I’m here writing this while T finishes with L upstairs and puts him back to bed. Adrenaline flows through me. My hands shake as I type. I still don’t know the full story of what happened: what was water, what was pee or why. All I know is that I seem to be hanging on to the very last shred of the last tiny millimeter of the end of my rope.  I no longer have a cushion of patience, understanding or perspective.

I am well aware that I overreacted tonight in a big way. I screamed like a crazy person. Like a very bad mother. My throat hurts. I’m sure my neighbors heard through the open windows, even though their houses are far from mine. L is now back in bed sleeping, not 15 minutes after this whole episode. Clearly he was not terribly distressed by my tantrum, which only means that he’s seen it before. That he’s not shocked like he really ought to be.

This is The Ugly. This is what happens here that I’m sure doesn’t happen in your houses.

I’m so sick and tired of fighting all the time, of the constant vigilance I have to keep with L, the nonstop battles over every little thing all day long every single day. It’s just too hard. It feels so unfair sometimes. Like I was given the wrong child. This kid needs a better mother – someone with more patience and kindness. I give up.

Hello, Universe? You made a mistake. You didn’t give me a challenge I could rise to, but one that has totally destroyed me. Please check your records and make the appropriate adjustments. 

OK, the adrenaline has subsided. My tantrum is over. Now I’m just stuck with the shitty emotional cocktail of failure, weakness, guilt and sadness. Really, what was the big deal all about? He played with water? What the fuck is the matter with me anyway?

Baby Haters?

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Actual Facebook status of a college (clearly childless) friend:

Note to all you parents out there: if you can’t get your baby to stop crying for more than 30 seconds at a time throughout a 2 1/2 hour flight, maybe you should hold off on flying because people like me hate people like you. On an unrelated note, I think it’s about time for a vasectomy.

After a mix of comments, none of which were a hand reaching out of his screen and smacking him, he followed up with:

Listen, I’m not anti child, I am anti shitty parent. If you can’t shut your kid up for more than 30 seconds on a 3 hour flight, I guarantee you that all 20 people sitting within earshot from you think you aren’t trying hard enough.

Am I naive to be shocked by this? Am I so far gone into parenthood that I’ve forgotten how people without kids think and feel? Did I feel this way? Is it normal?

My question to him was, “How exactly should these shitty parents make their baby shut up?” I haven’t gotten an answer yet.

Do childless people really think parents can make our kids and babies do anything? Or is it just a matter of not thinking it through? Obviously we can’t make them do anything. If we could, parenting would be easy. We could make them eat what they’re served, make them go on the potty, make them behave in public places, make them go to sleep and make them stop crying. If only!

Then again, that would mean that our children had no wills of their own, that they were not their own people, that they were not capable of exerting themselves or having independent thought. I’m the first to raise my hand to tell you that my kids’ will and independent thought are often entirely frustrating to me, but I’m still happy that they have them!

As for the crying baby on the plane, I hope that before I had kids I was smart enough to know that despite how entirely annoying to me a crying baby might be, there’s nothing that the parents could do about it. Those poor parents were surely trying all they could think of, and certainly felt the judgement of all the people around them. I’m positive that the parents were more stressed and unhappy about the whole ordeal than anyone else, baby included.

As for my college friend, not sure if I want him to get that vasectomy immediately, or to have a baby of his own!

Thank You

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I want you all to know that I read every comment I get here and on my FB page and every single email. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all the feedback, support, advice and points of view. There are too many awesome points for me to respond to each one, so I’m writing this as a general response:

  • Yes, I am still going to go forward with having L evaluated by someone who is not that douche-bag doctor we saw the other day. My objective is to find out what makes L tick, so I can help him tick in a way that will not piss me off is more socially acceptable.
  • You’re right, all kids behave worse at home. I should be happy and proud that L can behave so well at school. It does mean, at the very least, that he’s not a psychopath, sociopath, or any other kind of terrible-path. And it also shows that he trusts me enough to never really sell him on eBay.
  • I will try to look at L’s ransacking the baking/junkfood cabinet and the freezer at dawn today as a step towards his becoming an independent, self-reliant man. (Damn, some of you are very glass-half-full people!)
  • I had an aha moment today when I read this comment:

….I’ve found my kids doing the exact same things. They ignore rules they’ve known for years, make messes just for the sake of being messy, and misbehave for me while acting the angel for everyone else. I’ve also come to realize that every time they act this way, it’s because they know they can get away with it. I realize I’ve fallen into the parent trap of frustrated speech, not following through, and trying to plead with them to do what I told them. When I follow through with discipline and kind words, all goes back to normal…

Dean is totally right on. Things were bad with L a year ago, I got really strict and mean, things got better. Things were so good that I thought I was out of the woods. I let my guard down. I let small things slide. Small things snowballed into an avalanche of bad, and now I’m here. Time to bring back mean mommy. This will not be fun, but will probably provide blog-fodder.

So, watch out, L! Mean-Mommy is back. And Daddy’s going to bring back Hammer-T. I will try very, very, very hard not to react emotionally. I will suppress my inner combustible self. I will be nonplussed, calm, and mean.

Split-Personality?

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I had a long conversation this morning with the director of L’s daycare that should have made me feel better, but just made me feel worse. He’s been going there part-time since just before S was born – so just over 2 years. They know him well and know that I struggle with him. They see him at drop off and pick up and how he acts (out of control and obnoxious) and have always told me that he’s completely different the second I leave.

I told her that I’m getting him evaluated and asked if in her opinion L might have ADHD or some similar problem. She said no, absolutely not. She has seen kids with ADHD over the years and L totally does not fit the bill. He listens to the teachers without defiance. He is excitable, but is quickly and easily settled down. She said that he is 100% within the normal range of behavior for a 4-year-old boy, that he is not one of the kids that needs to be spoken to more than once.

However, she sees how he is with me. She said she’d like to see my drop offs be much quicker so that L and the other kids don’t think that sort of behavior is at all acceptable there. I try to get out the door as fast as possible but L hangs on me, hits me, insists he’s going with me, opens the door and runs outside…

So, I should be happy that L is so well behaved in school. That he is able to hold it together, to listen, to engage and interact well with the kids and teachers. I should be happy. But I’m miserable. What am I doing so wrong to make him so so so bad with me?

This morning, he did not come into my room as he normally does around 7. Was he sleeping in? Nope. He had opened the baby gate at the top of the stairs (which most adults can’t manage) and came downstairs and helped himself to cookies, chocolate chips, shredded coconut and 2 popsicles!. He made a massive mess – coconut and melted popsicle all over the place – and he ate almost a whole package of cookies. This is blatantly against any and all rules and he knows that. He seemed proud of himself when I discovered it all. I’m so shocked at this level of badness that I still can’t wrap my head around it.

I don’t know what to do. He is so out of control.