My 6 year old is wonderful. However I am convinced he was sent to me to teach me exactly what patience is, and possibly the reason that ice cream was invented. He daily tests my ability to keep control of my emotions, and I can’t lie, some days he makes me laugh and cry within minutes of each other.
Over the years I have tried just about every parenting tool known to man. I have tried to ignore him, give him time outs, take privileges away, and yes, I have even threatened to send him to my friends house and make him sit on her couch-ALL DAY.
However I think it has only taken me 6 years to realized that I should have just pulled out the tried and true punishment that seemed to work on Leave it to Beaver ( or one of those shows). Send him to bed without supper. Last night he was having an exceptionally hard time controlling his temper and therefore he lost the privilege of having Subway for dinner. When we got home, he was sent to his room until he could calm down, and after awhile I went to check on him and see if he was ready to have me fix him some dinner-still not giving in on the Subway issue. I found him asleep.
This evening he started to act up again, right around dinner time. My advanced mom skills kicked in and instead of my usual, go to your room, or “I’m taking the IPAD away”. I went with, if you don’t change your attitude you will go to bed without dinner again. It was like a magic phrase that was the secret to unlocking the key to AJ’s world. He immediately headed to the kitchen to help me make dinner and he apologized for his behavior. He helped his brother and was nice to his sister. it was a miracle I tell you, a miracle!
I am not sure it will always work, but for now, he was scared straight. I didn’t mean for him to miss dinner last night, I had every intention of making sure he got proper nutrition, and all of you out there thinking I’m horrible for not waking him up last night to feed him, relax, he had yogurt and chips at 4ish, just not a real meal. So chill out. AND I was not really going to deprive him of dinner tonight either (but he doesn’t need to know that, right?)
Oh, and he got a new hat today for being so good, don’t worry I didn’t bribe him…..his Grandma did, but that was one of the tactics that I can tell you did NOT work in the past for me.
Love you AJ!