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by Kathy Buckworth
One of the oldest (and most effective) discipline
techniques for experienced parents is the “find out
what they love and take it away” strategy. I have deployed
this genius move against all four of my children, two boys
and two girls, now spanning in age from five to 16. They all
have loved different things at different times in their lives,
and I have adjusted my tactics for threats and punishments
to suit my own selfish needs.
“If you take your diaper off one more
time I won’t read Goodnight Moon tonight. That will
break our record of 278 nights in a row. You’ll be sorry.”
“Stop waving your dirty underpants
in front of your sister’s face or Mr. Twitchy will be
turned over to the Stuffed Animal Recycling Plant & Sawdust
Factory.”
“Clean up your room or we won’t
go to Lululemon today. And it’s the last day of their
blow out sale.”
“Learn to wipe your own bum or you
won’t be allowed to wear your favourite army shorts
for the 5th day in a row.”
“Air out your cheesy hockey equipment
Mr. Big Teenager or I’ll take over your MSN Messenger
account and tell all your friends you’re “offline
due to the Zach and Cody marathon on TV.”
Currently I am able to utilize the crack-like addiction to
Webkinz that both my eight year old daughter and five year
old son have developed. It appeals to my sense of efficiency
and time management when there are two of them for whom the
same punishment and reward system comes into play. Somehow
threatening my 16 year old daughter with missing the Calgary
Flames hockey game or revoking the right to share my sweaters
with my 14 year old son doesn’t seem to have the same
complementary effect.
While plotting my latest parental punishment
(besides the meat loaf for dinner tonight), I started thinking
about ways in which this “Love it? Earn it” strategy
might work for both me, and my husband (besides the obvious
sex for housework trade off). For me, it would be fantastic
if I could find a way to punish myself by taking away white
wine, trashy magazines, back-stabbing gossip sessions and
pedicures (all things which make my life worthwhile), if I
ever transgress by drinking too much, wasting time, saying
hurtful things, or indulging in pampering myself one time
too many that month. I think you see the correlation. For
me, the things that I love the most are the very things that
I sometimes should be punished for doing too much of. I think
that the men face a similar challenge in that they can’t
live without Home Depot visits, beach shots of Jessica Biehl
and Eva Longoria, locking themselves in the bathroom for 45
minutes, or commenting on the exorbitant Visa bill. Their
punishments, then, would be taking away the 47th power tool
they’ve just added to their overflowing collection,
replacing their “Maxim” subscription with “Bankers
Monthly”, a timed spring lock which propels young children
into the washroom after five minutes (as happens with us sucker
Moms who don’t bother to even lock the door), and advising
the bank to skip the paper notice of the credit card bill
and to automatically deduct the amount (with no detailed transaction
records revealed) from their bank accounts. I think this could
work.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I think
I just saw a gleam in my teenage son’s eye when the
girl from next door walked by…time for a joint strategic
planning session with her Mom.
Kathy Buckworth’s latest book, “Journey
to the Darkside” is available at bookstores everywhere.
Watch Kathy on Life Network’s “Birth Days”,
Sunday nights at 10:00 EST, and visit www.kathybuckworth.com
Funny Mummy appears monthly.
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