Parenting Method #3861

Disciplining your children is tough. Each child is different, and you have to find the technique that works for each child. For instance, hanging Child A by his toes from a large tree may not work for Child B. Child B may respond better to water boarding or sleep deprivation. I have found that you have to get more creative with discipline as your children get older, and they get more creative in their ways to circumvent your rules. I found a new technique this week and thought I'd share it since we parents have to stick together if we're ever going to get out of this thing alive, right?

Teen Angel has always been a very stubborn child (gets it from her father, of course), and standard punishments didn't really work well with her. She laughed at "time outs". She had the stamina of a POW and could sit in the corner for hours without batting an eye....when she was four. Solitary confinement in her room didn't bother her at all, and spankings were only mildly effective. Over the years I had to resort to drastic measures....house work. She hates cleaning as much as I do. Making her do it yielded better behavior from her, and eliminated a backlog of chores for me. It was a Eureka! moment when I discovered this tactic, and I rode that wave for....well, I still am. When she was six she had to scrub toilets because of her smart alecky mouth. When she was ten she had to clean the kitchen floor with a toothbrush because of her smart alecky mouth. When she was twelve she had to do laundry because of her smart alecky mouth. Now she does laundry to earn her weekly allowance and Hubby does some of the cleaning because he's retired, so I'm running out of chores for her to do when she acts like a heathen. I've been searching for new techniques.


We still have several effective methods for bad behavior in public. We have been known to sing or dance in the middle of Wal-Mart to get her to stop acting surly and mouthy. Or if she's acting really ugly, I just lay a big juicy kiss on her dad. Parental PDA stops her in her tracks every time. But at home, we were still lacking a really good method for zipping her mouth when it's out of control...until last Monday. I accidentally stumbled upon some parental shock and awe, the stealth fighter of teenage discipline, the mother of all weapons of mass attitude destruction.......parental nudity.

Remember how appalling it is to see your parents naked when you're a teenager? For some time now, I've been hollering out "nekked alert" to Teen Angel if such a moment arises on my way to the shower, but Monday she walked into the dressing room ahead of me, and I started changing clothes while her back was turned. I was standing there mostly in my birthday suit when she turned back around. Feeling sassy, I raised my arms and shouted "boo"! She screamed and ran, shouting, "My retinas. My retinas. Call a doctor! I'm blind!" Oh, it was great. I ran after her, and she ran harder, hollering for me to get away. At that moment she would have agreed to any of my demands just so I would have put on some clothes. Oh, yeah. She was putty in my hands. It was sweet. And the good part about this method parents, is that you don't have to be completely nekked. Apparently, just seeing your parent's partially clad, wrinkling body is enough to send a teenager into convulsions. Now, I wouldn't do this to a son, and I wouldn't want Hubby to do it to our daughter, but giving your teenager a glance at what he or she will look like in about thirty years shuts them up. I'm sure Dr. Phil would have something to say about all of this, but desperate times call for desperate measures, so if you find yourself in a pickle and can't get your teenager under control, I say show 'em some skin. I'm tellin' you. It will leave them speechless.

Who's The Boss?

We watched the Super Nanny last night. Can you tell there’s a writer’s strike? Whew! Every time I see that show (which is not very often) I just shake my head at the number of people who are apparently afraid to or are unwilling to parent their children and are desperate enough to beg for help before a nationwide television audience. I’m tellin’ ya’, if I stank that bad at parenting I would not show the world. I’d get some professional help that didn’t involve television cameras. During every episode, as I watch those unruly children run around screaming on my TV, my first thought is that everybody in that house, parents included, needs a butt whoopin’, a wake up call to jar them into reality. If I were the Super Nanny, that would be my first step; THEN we’d get down to new rules and that naughty pad business.

Sure, parenting is hard. It’s the hardest job you can have. If we all knew how hard it was before we had children, we wouldn’t procreate. We’d die out like the Shakers. Fortunately, most of us go into it with rose colored glasses, so the world’s population keeps growing. It’s tough, and it takes determination (and a little self medication), but I’m amazed at the people who just throw their hands up in the air and let their kids run wild. Kids today seem more rude and out of control than the kids of previous generations. One of the young kids on that show last night smacked his dad. That certainly wouldn’t have been accepted in my parents’ house. If I had tried something like that I would have been spanked so hard I would have worn my butt for a hat. As kids we were expected to show respect for adults, and we were never allowed to run around a restaurant or a store. And we knew who was boss. My parents always had the upper hand, even when I got older. Hubby’s did too, even though he towered over his folks. When he was about sixteen years old, he got a little too big for his britches one day and smarted off to Mama J. with some pretty ugly language. She swung at him with her fly swatter (or fly flipper as she calls it), and he danced around and smarted off some more. He ran away from her and told her she was too old to keep up with him. She looked him dead in the eye and said, “I may not catch you today, but I WILL catch you.” And she did, about a week later. He had forgotten all about her threat and was getting ready for a date. He thought he was home alone when he jumped in the shower. He wasn’t alone. When he finished, he mosied out of the bathroom naked and down the hallway toward his bedroom. Mama J. was waiting behind a door and jumped out, swinging a leather belt at his naked hind end. She used the element of surprise to her advantage and wore out his backside all the way across the house. From that day on, he kept his mouth in check.

When I was growing up you were expected to mind any adult that was in the room. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, neighbors and family friends never hesitated to call you out on bad behavior, and your parents didn’t mind. They expected it. If you were playing with a group of kids, and trouble erupted, it was quite possible everybody would end up punished without any questions being asked. Like Big Mama said in Madea’s Family Reunion, “I’m old school honey. I’ll beat the h**l out of you first and ask questions later.” I never got beaten, but I got my share of spankings and time spent in silence on the couch. Mama was one of those who liked to promise you a spanking “when your daddy gets home”, which was generally hours after the infraction. You had to worry and wait all stinkin’ day for that whoopin”, which was usually worse than the actual spanking. She was also fond of swinging blindly into the back seat of the car with her right hand while she was driving with her left. I used to think she was crazy. Then I grew up and became a mom. Now I marvel at how she survived raising the three of us.

I don’t think spankings are the answer to every discipline problem, and I believe they should be used sparingly and without brute force. I believe there is a difference between spanking and beating your child. There are certainly other forms of discipline that are effective. If I take Teen Angel’s cell phone and computer away from her, she lapses into fits of despair and drags around with a faded lilly on her chest until her sentence is up. If she starts acting like a horse’s butt in public places, her dad and I usually start holding hands, dancing or playing smooch face. That straightens her right up. We certainly aren’t perfect parents. We have stumbled and failed miserably at different times over the years, but we keep plugging away. I never thought we had a choice. I don’t understand why some parents think they do. It makes me want to jump out from behind a door and wail on their backside with a leather belt.