It’s the old story: you try to have a nice weekend, get in a little relaxation, and enjoy the children (ha) instead of rushing around, and life bites you in the butt in new and heretofore undiscovered unpleasant ways.
My companion’s father came to visit and see his first (and currently only) grandbaby. Strudel was in fine form–she gave her special scrunchy-face smiles, screamed with delight, and threw food adorably. As we wrestled her to the ground to give her eye drops to combat the nefarious eye goop she’s suffering from (for the third time that day), Strudel’s grandpa remarked, “Well, that kid doesn’t pull any punches, does she?” She was howling so loudly and intently anyone could have seen the back of her tonsils or even down to her stomach if they cared to.
What was less pleasing was Franny’s behavior. I don’t think we’ve ever spent such a horrible weekend together, and that includes the times of rocket-vomiting toddlerdom. She’s got some major issues going on right now, and I don’t know exactly what to do for her (I have some ideas of what I’d like to do TO her). She clamored for attention all weekend, in that “HAAAY, LOOKIT ME, aren’t I cool and shiny and awesome?” way. She attempted to bogart Companion’s father all weekend, and I had to keep pulling her aside and gently reminding her that “he isn’t just here to see you, so give him a break.”
I got sick on Saturday, some weird thing that involved a sore throat and congestion, and stomach pains, which was a new one on me. I felt totally out of gas, which was probably for the best since if I’d had any energy I probably would have taken Franny to the Wallingford Post Office and left her there. I was so fuzzy-headed I didn’t have my usual Mom Arsenal of Child-Thwarting at my disposal–I was effectively defenseless. I was supposed to take Franny and a friend to a birthday party for a child at school who we don’t really know (what happened to FAMILY parties, for Petey’s sake? How is one supposed to shop for these unknown children?) and then I realized I was feverish and didn’t sleep well the night before (“can’t sleep, Tom Cruise will get me”) and so bagged on the party. Our friend offered to take Franny, but I decided she was banned from party-going anyway.
My companion insisted that I take a nap, which I was all for, but first we made a plan for Franny, which was that she would get the rare treat of watching a movie on her own, in the basement. I got some sleep, and when I woke up, Franny was still in her pesty, antagonistic mode. I gave her the choice of being in her room or the backyard, and I heard her screaming “I HAVE BEEN IN MY ROOM ALL DAY” at the forty-five minute mark. There was much weeping, and for some reason the snot all went on the mirror, instead of in a tissue, and in spite of repeated talks on the subject of “Bodily Fluids Should Only Go Into Tissues,” which I believe was the theme of the month around here in February ’05.
There was more general freaking out before, during, and after dinner, which resulted in a complete loss of storytime. Companion and I decompressed after bed by talking about how horrible the day was, and by going downstairs to noodle on the Internets a little bit. We are still practicing our side-by-side Internetting, which is still loads of fun.
Companion: “Whoa, what’s that?”
Me: “Charisma Carpenter’s nipples. What are you looking at?”
C: “College Roomies From Hell.”
Me: Nice.
A few minutes into the Internetting, Companion started to wipe his screen. “I think it’s dirty…wait…what are these scratches?”
The scratches were Franny’s coup de grace: during her solo movie time, she picked up a screwdriver and made gouges in Companion’s flat screen computer monitor, which is the computer we watch movies on. I confronted her about this during breakfast this morning, and when asked why she did it, she said that she “was bored.” Once she admitted it, and apologized, we told her that she had lost solo movie time.
So, needless to say, there is some residual resentment around here, and there probably will be for the next few days. What do you do with young children who wreak havoc and then go skipping merrily along the next day? We had a talk with her this morning, about all the issues this weekend, and told her our expectations for her behavior, but we’re really not certain that it sunk in.
Things haven’t been this bad in months, so we’ve decided to punish her for the next few days. She is losing storytime until Thursday, and is losing any spontaneous after-school park time, and we are canceling a playdate she was going to have tomorrow. She’ll have access to all her normal stuff around here, of course, and I am trying to relax and let the weekend go, so as not to be gruff with her.
What I’m hoping is that by punishing her this week, she’ll realize that when she’s having a bad or freaky day, there are more consequences for her than just “everyone suffers on that day,” and maybe she’ll decide to modify her behavior. It’s tempting to blame everything on her father’s house, and the lack of consequences and capricious punishments I have seen from him in the past. But she’s here with us half the time, so I need to step up and change things, so we can all live with each other while she’s around.
That’s hard, really hard. I’m trying to remember what I thought back when I was Franny’s age and how I thought since I certainly have no idea how to raise a kid. There were some things (1) I couldn’t totally control myself–or so it felt–so I couldn’t understand how it could be fair I got into so much trouble. (2) I thought what I’d done was not that bad–that there was an element of sadism in my parents’ control. Did they have to get so upset if I wrote all over the walls? Sheesh! (3) I felt incredibly horrible a lot of the time and kind of hated myself and that made it easier for me to be reckless and insane.
As you can see, I’m sure I was a lovely child.
One thing I sort of wish is that my parents also talked to me and were sympathetic and affectionate during the times I was calm. I remember this lady across the street would give me lemonade when I was on one of my tears and she would just sort of sympathize and rub my back–the way I remember this now makes me realize I desperately wanted some kind of comforting or affection or approval from someone–even though every action I performed was designed to ensure I got none of that. (Obviously, you can’t do this immediately after your child has destroyed something.) When you act badly as a kid and then get in trouble, you feel so unbelievably alone. This will eventually lead to more reckless and destructive behavior.
I’m sure Franny isn’t as crazy as I was (am). I guess, though, thinking back, my thinking about situations and interpretations of people’s behavior was incredibly distorted when I was as young as she is–and I was not a dumb kid. You don’t know why you do the things you do, you don’t know why others do what they do but if you are at all doubtful about whether you are loved you will see things through that screen. The new babies are probably so hard on her. I hope dorkface gets his act together soon so you won’t have to deal with all the side effects of his crap parenting.
You are such an amazing mom. I wish my mom had been as cool as you.
My sympathies, SuperMom. If I made you a SuperMom outfit, would that make you feel better on days when you want to vanquish tantrums and snotty behavior? I could even write you a little story to go along with it. I have most of the plot already formed. It involves hilarious double entendres and meaningful phrases. Really.
I read this really great book when my son was doing stuff like this called “Backtalk.” Can’t remember the author’s name, sorry. It gives you this four-step program that really works. Goes like this:
Child behaves in horrible terrible way.
1. You say, “When you behave in this particular horrible terrible way, I feel really sad, tired, discouraged.” You don’t raise your voice or get angry. Just respectfully state the fact. Right then, not later on.
2. Then you focus hard and try to figure out what exactly you are doing or are about to do FOR that child right at that very moment. Could be making a snack for her, or going to take her to a birthday party — has to be relatively immediate. A few hours away is okay. Or if it’s a really big important thing that she wants, even a day or two away is okay.
3. You inform child that because you feel so sad, tired, discouraged after experiencing her behavior, you are NOT going to make her snack tonight, or take her to the party or whatever it is.
4. You do not under any circumstances give the power back to the child. There’s no “iffing” as in “if you are good, then you can have your supper.” If the child begs and pleads and promises, it makes no difference. No bargaining. Power remains in your court. You can still be loving and not angry, but the thing that is being withheld remains withheld. The fact that there’s no bargaining really seems to help them calm down and be able to verbalize what’s going on with them. But still, the decision stays made. It’s surprisingly hard to do.
I had to do it only ONCE, and after that, my son could tell when I was even thinking in those terms (you have to think fast, because it’s all very immediate) and he’d shape up. There’s something about the immediacy and the lack of bargaining that really gets the message across. I was a pretty permissive parent, and it took an awful lot to get me to that point, but this routine created a boundary that he never crossed after that.
Anyway, it worked for me. Clearly, Frannie’s going through some hard times right now, but letting her get out of control and destructive only makes her feel worse about herself. For me, this was a way to help my son get back in control of himself and back into a good relationship with me pretty quickly.
Ugh, how frustrating. When I was Frannie’s age and misbehaved, my mom told me that she loved me, that she would always love me, but that she didn’t like the way I was acting and that she didn’t want to be around me. I remember how bad that felt, but I really never doubted that she loved me and it made me want to behave better and she only had to say that a few times.
I’ve seen first-hand how patient and consistant you are with F. and know your persistance will pay off eventually. I totally admire you for that–I only wish I was around to take you out for pho and adult time!
Thanks, everyone, for reading all the blab I write and responding. I appreciate all the advice, really.
Oh, and harking back to what Ozma said, I can also remember being a nutjob five-year-old. “What’s everyone so upset about, anyway?” Totally!
One of the things I like about this blog is that the comments are often as interesting as the actual posts.
Argh. I feel sympathy for both you AND Franny. For you, for obvious reasons, because when being a mom sucks, it really sucks. For Franny, because “Dad has new wife and kid” + “Mom has new baby” + “We just had to move our house” + “This fun old guy comes over and he just wants to play with the new damn baby” = “Whoa, somebody’s gonna be doing some acting out here!”
You’ve gotten some good suggestions; here’s one more: After she’s off probation, try to organize some regularly scheduled “Mom + Franny” time. It doesn’t have to be really long, it doesn’t have to be really ornate. Maybe you just sit down on Tuesdays before bath and play a few rounds of Chutes and Ladders or make a batch of Pillsbury roll cookies: It’s nice if it’s something the Strudel can’t do yet.
At least with my little monster, I find that getting more of my POSITIVE attention can really help reduce her desire to get more of my NEGATIVE attention.
thank you for posting this, honest and funny lady. good luck and if anything works, please post about that, too. meanwhile i’m keeping all this great advice close to my head for the next time i’m in a similar boat.
This post and comment discussion has been very informative. We’re pretty permissive with our 3-year-old, so we’re trying to curb our habits to stave off future tantrums and power struggles.
Yes! Start early!!! Three and a half, in particular, is a krazy age.
I thought every age was a krazy age. Except maybe the Bronze Age. Remarkably sane, that’n.
I think Carny Asada above has some good suggestions. Apparently, I started acting out a little bit when my brother was born, and it stopped when my mom scheduled more time alone for just the two of us.
I’m already dreading having to find creative, interesting gifts for the birthday parties of my future spawns’ friends.
Appalachia was blog-reading over breakfast this morning, giving me the good-parts version. When she was reading me excerpts from this I kept making her stop and go back–
“Wait a minute, she what? She took a SCREWDRIVER to his COMPUTER? To the FLAT SCREEN of his computer?”
And kind of on and on like that.
We’ve talked about this before, but the thing I always think when I encounter stuff like this is, “Oh my god, my father would have beaten me to *death* if I had done something like that.” Because, I mean, I did stuff I wasn’t supposed to when I was 5. But I had a really clear idea of what was going to get me hit, and willfully fucking something up that cost three figures or more– just because I was in a snit –would definitely have been on the list of things that would’ve gotten me hit. A lot. For a long time.
Hitting kids is not good. But the thing about kids that kind of stops me is that they have the upper hand. Short of handing them over to someone else, once violence is out of the question for YOU, THEY can do whatever they want. Even something like a time out is only as enforceable as their willingness makes it. I remember running into this with my little sister– coming home one night and seeing her boyfriend climbing out of her bedroom window. He was 18. She was 14. They were definitely fucking. And my thought at the time was, “Well, okay. Short of locking her in her room with no clothes and no telephone and standing guard to keep this other kid away, I honestly can’t think of a way I can STOP this from happening.” So instead I just got really mad at her and stayed mad at her for 2 years. Now we don’t speak. So, you know, beauty plan there.
I was 22 then. I’ve definitely gotten better at just letting things go since then, but I read stuff like this and it really gives me pause. The thing I respond most irrationally to when it comes to people is perceived disloyalty. And I really worry that if I had a kid I would have a hard time letting go of something like this because it would strike me as some kind of betrayal (even though the kid’s obviously too young to grasp that point).
It’s all very nervous-making.
See, the thing is, by the time they’re 14, you’re fucked. Anything you say to them is like shouting across a football field in a hurricane. Mine is 8, and I can already see her starting to glaze over when I give too much “advice.” You’ve got to start when they’re, like, born. You have approximately 5 years to make a serious impact. And you’ve got to STOP DOING the stuff you don’t want them doing, whether it’s being sarcastic, snorting cocaine or leaving your dishes in the living room.
Really. Stop it. They will absolutely mimic your every bad habit. Yes, this part sucks.
You have to, in fact, become the person you want them to be. And the amazing thing about parenting is, it can give you the strength to do that.
Oh, yeah: And if you do all that stuff? They will still drive you absolutely batshit about 30 percent of the time.
Wow and wow again. If it makes you feel any better, all kids are bad sometimes. I used to tell my oldest daughter (she’s 13 now) that I was really, really angry at her and I didn’t want to see her for a little while. Then I would cool down and get down to her physical eye-level and tell her why I was angry. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. But, after all these years, she has developed a sense of how her actions can affect others and she has become a much more empathetic young woman.
If nothing else works, then you could try one of my mom’s tricks. Anytime we willfully damaged anybody else’s things, she would make us do chores at a fake set “payment” rate until we paid whatever we broke off. It did teach us that material possessions cost people money, money they have to work for.
“And you’ve got to STOP DOING the stuff you don’t want them doing, whether it’s being sarcastic, snorting cocaine or leaving your dishes in the living room.
Really. Stop it. They will absolutely mimic your every bad habit. Yes, this part sucks.”
Yes and yes. This is the most effective and, hence, the hardest thing to do.
Especially the cocaine part.