My kids and I have discussed their
role in this endeavor and we have come to the agreement that I will not use
their actual names, but words which describe one characteristic of each of them. This grants them the option, when questioned,
to deny that they were the offending child in any of the blogs. You have already been introduced to “Ferret”
and “Techie.” I am now allowed to
present “Quick” and “Duchess.”
This may sound
familiar to you…
While at my family’s mountain cabin packing for our rafting trip, I tell
my nine-year-old playing with his lacrosse stick to bring down the day bag
sitting on the sofa upstairs.
(Acts like he doesn’t hear me).
“Darling boy child of mine, please get the
day bag. Upstairs. Sofa by the window.”
He picks up his lacrosse stick and
disappears up the stairs. I continue gathering items, chatting with Pam/Mother
Board member, throw two mugs into the dishwasher, etc… then I realize that the
boy is still missing.
“Quick!” I holler in irritation and irony.
“Yes?”
“Bring it to me!”
“Quick” appears two minutes later… with my
purse.
“No one listens to me,” I tell Pam.
Pam, mother of two boys who has watched me
and my kids for years, smirks and raises her eyebrows.
“It’s because they don’t have to,” she tells
me. “You are asked to repeat yourself and you do, constantly. There’s no consequence.”
Crap.
She’s right. Get their attention,
say the direction once. If they ignore you, nail with the consequence. It should have gone like this:
Quick wants to go outside and play
lacrosse, but I need help packing for the rafting trip.
“Quick, put down the lacrosse stick and come
here.” (Walks over, looks up) “I need
you to get the day bag. It is upstairs
on the sofa. If you are back here in two
minutes, I will let you go outside, if not, no lacrosse, got it? Repeat to me what you are getting and where
it is.”
He
does. Bag retrieved, happy mama, happy boy.
Clear.
Concise. Especially with boys. Repeating yourself drains the energy out of
you and teaches your children not to listen.
Yes, we are all overwhelmed, but everyone can improve their
attentiveness.
But not following a parent’s
directive in order to explore their own way of doing things is also part of a
child’s normal break from being a child to becoming a young adult. Applying eyeliner
above the lashes rather than below, positioning the head of the bed by the door
rather than the foot, and using honey instead of syrup on their pancakes are small
inconsequential choices that are not harmful and are a perfect way for children
to explore their options and find out what works well for them and what does
not. It is the dangerous choices that
need to be discussed out loud, with consequences explained where parents must
have their child’s attention. Unsafe
driving, alcohol and drug experimentation, and sex with multiple partners all
must be addressed well in advance of the behavior.
My
kids are still young. I don’t want to
bring that up now. Actually, you
do. In my upper-middle class
neighborhood, we have had our share of horror stories. A freshman boy and his friends were playing a
drinking game with their own version of shots –a solo cup half-full of vodka
instead of a true shot of 1.5 ounces—and he got on a losing streak. The freshman’s heart stopped twice during
transport to the hospital. Two seventh-graders were caught in the middle school
bathroom having anal sex, "because," the girl said, “it was not real sex and I'm still a virgin.” A local pediatrician, Dr. Jill Grimes
was appalled to find that one out of five of her patients tested positive for not
one, but multiple sexually transmitted diseases. Things are not the same as they were when we
were growing up, my friends. Now is not
the time for our kids to be ignoring us.
Most psychologists will agree that
parents have until their child is fourteen to make the biggest impression on
them. At that point, the child begins to
break away from the role of child to find his way into adulthood. Friends become more important than parents. It is normal, but very sad for the mamas and
can be fraught with danger for their children.
The corollary of buying and using methamphetamines, loss of appetite
(the draw for girls) and staying awake (the draw for high school and college
students), must be counteracted with the knowledge of extreme tooth decay and
severe depression (Morrison). The key to
keeping your child safe is to face these conversations without embarrassment or
hesitancy.
There are safeguards to be put into
place before your child is in middle school. Setting requirements and boundaries establishes
these ideas in a child’s brain and gives her a caution light when she is on her
own.
Duchess never wanted to be corrected on how she drove the car. It was clear that she was trying to assert her independence in this new venue. Therefore, before being allowed to get her
driver’s license, in addition to the State’s requirements, we required
that she save and submit to us a deposit of $500.00 and find a way to pay $150.00 per
month to pay for her car insurance. The $500.00
was to cover the expenses of a traffic ticket (fees and defensive driving—happened
once) or pay the deductible in case she had an accident. Since it took her over three months to scrape
together the $500.00 in the first place, Duchess was extremely careful to leave
enough space between her car and the other vehicles on the road. After a year of driving without an accident,
her insurance went down to $121.00 per month, then the following year it
dropped to 96.00. This is a real-world
consequence of good behavior for teenage drivers. We did get a phone call from a friend who
witnessed one lane-change transgression and called us to let us know. When Duchess got home a few minutes later, we
nailed her with the information, fined her $30.00, and grounded her for the
night. Astonished, she actually laughed
out loud and bowed to the ground in submission to our abilities to see and know
all. God will provide the power of
knowledge for parents who seek and appreciate it.
Before dating, I highly recommend
that each child read a book written by Dr. Grimes. Seductive Delusions, John
Hopkins University Press, is a shocking, well-written book that every teen
should be required to read before becoming sexually active. I paid each of my kids a dollar per case to
read it when they turned thirteen. No, I
do not expect my kids to be sexually active in high school, I expect them to be
informed. Knowledge takes time to sink
into a brain and better they know before heading into a situation than after. You
can order the book from her website:
What is coming down the road for our kids? We cannot foresee everything, but as their only parents, it is our obligation to provide as much fact-based information to them as we are capable of giving. These are only two examples of
thinking ahead for our kids. The first
step, getting them to listen early, makes the more difficult conversations
infinitely easier and may be the road to them saving their own lives day after day.
Grimes,
Jill. Seductive Delusions. Baltimore. John Hopkins University Press,
2008. book. http://www.jillgrimesmd.com/seductivedelusions.html
Morrison,
William. “Meth Addiction.” Web. myaddiction.com. 19
Aug 2012. http://www.myaddiction.com/methamphetamine.html
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