the eugene bean

Here was my most recent parenting adventure, and the stunning and genious way that Ty and I handled it. *Can you tell sarcasm when I write it, or do you think I'm a pompous ass?*

J is a wonderful kid who is also a doofus. Maybe the doofus part comes with being a kid? Like a natural occurance and not any fault of my own? Kids = doofus ideas and decision making.

Anyway, my bright little boy was caught smashing and crashing huge chunks of sidewalk cement in our courtyard this weekend. Sidewalk! He and a friend were picking up cement blocks and throwing them about all willy nilly with no care or concern for either their eyes or the neighbors' windows.

It's hard for me to even explain what I felt at that moment. How could I raise a kid who has Zero Concern for things that don't belong to him? Did he think about the stupidity of his actions- and then do it anyway because of the peer presure? Did he just go with this crazy plan without a single thought about the consequences?

I have never wanted to "Smack Some Sense Into" a person so badly in my life. Instead, Ty and I came up with a plan of action.

First off, when a child starts to misbehave or do really dumb shit, I blame the parents. Hello??? Who else do you blame? Yes he does submit to peer presure, yes he does make his own bad decisions, but a parent is ultimately responsible.

So Ty and I placed the blame where it was do. On ourselves. And we thought to ourselves, "What can we do differently? J needs our guidance and support and we need to prove we are there for him- as a deterence to stupidity and as a guide. So we devised a plan that forces Ty and I to step up as much as J. Only, J doesn't know that we have consequences too, that's the clever part.

Here is J's punishment:
Bedtime with E until further notice, no staying up later because he's older.
And...
For the next 4 Sundays J will go out in the morning and clean the courtyard. He'll go out with a bag and pick up every piece of trash and he'll also sweep up around the gardens and play area. This is what he owes to society.

Here are the consequences of J's actions:
He is no longer trusted to make the right decision if an adult isn't around. So, he needs to stay around the adults. No going to the big park, no shooting hoops by the basketball court. No riding bikes or scooters around the complex and no playing at friends' houses.

J will have to earn our trust back by showing he is responsible. He'll have oppportunities to do this during homework, dinner time, by playing with his brother, by turning things in on time. And so on.

It will be up to Ty and I to step up and be available to take him to do these fun things that we won't allow him to do alone. We'll need to be basketball buddies, tennis players, bike riders, game players. We've responded to the call of, "Hey Dummy! Wake Up and Parent!"

We'll see what happens.