Family Circle

I can't match Jenny's DH story - that was too funny! - but consider our current, and as yet unresolved, situation here. Dave sent me a text about an hour ago saying he was going fishing after work. I didn't respond. Usually when he announces his intention, rather than ask my opinion, it's a test to see if I will respond enthusiastically or with reserve, and because I can hardly ever offer the first, I opt instead for silence. Sometimes he presses, and a mild argument - the same one every time - ensuses, in which he states that he might as well sell all his fishing and hunting supplies, and I protest that he can't expect me to LOVE his hobbies. It seems reasonable to me that since I'm not (always) begging him to stay home, he should take what he can get. :-) Well, this time, I did happen to remember that we have soccer practice and Awanas tonight, so I called him to ask if he was going to be back for either or both of those events. This, admittedly, is my attempt at presenting facts and testing him to see whether he will come up with the right response himself. I think I cloak this in the idea that I'm trying to be open and flexible, while at the same time just letting him know what's going on. Anyway, he processed this information for a minute and then asked me if I really needed him for all that tonight. Well, in all fairness, I have managed by myself on more than one occassion, so I CAN do it, and I told him as much, although I also suggested that it wasn't really the best night. I finished by saying that I didn't want to tell him he couldn't go, but just to let me know what his final decision was. In my mind I am fairly screaming, "DON'T GO!", but I realize that he is probably not hearing the same thing. Sure enough, he said that he would probably end up going, since I could manage by myself, but - likely in an attempt to soften my anger, or at least delay it, he said he would just "see how the afternoon was going." Anyone else have similar conversations?

In the child-rearing arena, we are dealing with a few things recently:

1. Drew and his "I just couldn't help myself" problem, followed almost always by flippant impertinence (maybe that's redundant - I just can't think of how else to describe him behavior). An example happened this past Sunday afternoon. Dave had to work for a few hours but was on his way home shortly after lunch, so when Drew asked to go over to his friend's house next door, I said no. He had peeked out the kitchen door to convey the bad news to his friend, and when he came back in, he was holding some kind of sprinkler that he had picked up from the flower bed. It had a spike in it for sticking in the ground, so I told him to put it back where he found it. A minute later, he went out into the backyard with Ryan, and although I was nursing Chase down for his nap, I looked out the window to make sure they weren't getting into trouble. They appeared to be sitting peacefully on the trampoline (this should have clued me into something!). A few minutes later Aimee came running inside to say that the boys were putting a hole in the trampoline, with, you guessed it, the spiky sprinkler thing. Ryan was less culpable than Drew, certainly, but I sent both of the them inside - Drew to his bed and Ryan to the couch - until Dave came home and we decided an appropriate course of discipline. This was maddening enough for Drew, who loathes sitting still with nothing to do, but after Dave came home and assessed the damage, we also decided to ban Drew from the trampoline for a week. This still did not feel like enough for the disobedience end of the incident (for which Drew made rather weak excuses along the lines of "I just couldn't help it..."), but I figured that while it would take a day or two, he would eventually feel the impact, since he and his friends are on the trampoline all the time. We talked to him, explained what we were going to do, and warned him specifically against making any smart remarks, as he is wont to do. However, as soon as we said, "No trampoline for a week," he replied glibly, "How 'bout ten days?"
"How about two weeks?" I returned, as Dave and I both glanced at each other in amazement. While Drew really aims to please on most occasions and isn't by nature mean-spirited or disagreeable, his biggest fault right now is serious lack of judgement, so that he can come out with some really disrespectful and impertinent remarks. We are constantly cautioning him, honestly for his own sake, to keep his remarks to himself and thus at least appear to respectfully take whatever discipline must be doled out to him. I suppose it will come with time!

Ryan and his treatment of Chase- Dave declared in frustration yesterday that time-outs just aren't working to curb Ryan's behavior toward his little brother. Ryan and Chase adore each other, but it's true that the elder really does do some upsetting things - repeatedly and with glee - to the younger. Last night he was holding Chase to the ground and sitting on his head. (The mistreatment of choice is usually pushing Chase down rather violently. ) Now, this is a hot topic, and I have no wish to spark a heated debate in the comments section here, so what I'm going to say may be best left undiscussed in itself - we do not spank, and I have no wish to resume that practice. Since this is my own blog, I will go ahead and state my own opinion (while again asking that others gloss over the issue themselves!) that while I don't think spanking done correctly is wrong, I definitely do not think it's the only, or even the best, way. That being said, obviously Dave feels that time-outs are not enough. I love him so much for being open to new ideas and not just ignoring my feelings on the spanking issue, but I understand and share his frustration sometimes. Interestingly enough, I think Ryan misbehaves most when he needs attention, so time-outs may actually work against us and we may need to work most on anticipating and thus avoiding bad behavior, but at the same, time, there does have to be some kind of definite consequence for hurting his brother.

Everybody's whining - Again, proactive prevention may be the best thing; after all, you can't MAKE someone be happy, but how whining does grate my nerves! I feel I need a better strategy to turn the whining into normal voices.

Dinnertime silles -I know the family table should be a relaxed, happy place, but I still think loud, raucous behavior and the table is innapropriate. Yet the silles show up every night, and I cannot help the kids curb them. It's not that I mind them appearing, actually, just that when I ask the kids to calm down and try to redirect their..joy, they can't seem to stop. Is is just me being tired and grouchy at dinnertime? After awhile it sounds like I'm telling them not to be happy or to have any fun, and that's not what I'm aiming for. I did institute a "penalty box" for the potty language, in an effort to be fun and keep those words at bay at the table at the same time, and that seems to work most of the time, but the loud, shrill laughter is what really gets me, and that prevails, until I excuse offenders from the table.

This has turned out longer than I had meant, and I should give my full attention to the kids again (now that they're all soaking wet from playing in the water table!).