Like most little boys, mine like to fight and wrestle and stomp and scream. It's a natural thing. But I am waiting for the day when I walk into one of their rooms and see Asher (the 4 year old) standing over a tied up Kyler (the 8 year old) and beating him like a man. The one thing that these boys share, besides some DNA, is their love of beating each other senseless. We probably break up 3 or 4 minor altercations a day between different combinations of the three of them. Its usually something light like screaming and pushing each other or the occasional head lock but it almost always stems from play fighting to begin with. We have told them countless times to knock it off but it never actually will. So we have tried a couple of different approaches to the problem. First, we thought that since they were always fighting and wrestling in their room but being loud enough to resonate around the entire house that perhaps they should fight right in front of us in the living room. Yeah, thats right parent sanctioned elementary school age Fight Club. We explained that we were so tired of on-off fighting all day that perhaps they could just get it all out of their systems and wrestle it out in the living room under our supervision and our rules. They thought we were insane, "Really?!? You're really just going to let us fight?" Yep, so we layed out the rules just like Brad Pitt and Ed Norton:
- You do not tell grandparents
- You do not tell grandparents
- No kicking
- No biting
- No hitting each other in the private sector
- Fights will go on as long as necessary. You will fight until you are ready to stop fighting and realize that its stupid.
- After the fight, there will be no more fighting.
Our second attempt at creativity was a method my mom used on my sisters, everytime they spent the day arguing she would make them hold hands on the couch for 30 minutes. I thought the idea was silly at the time but when nothing else was working one day, I thought "Why not?" So I called the boys in and said that I had had enough and I had a new punishment for them. I always like other peoples ideas but I don't like wholeheartedly stealing them without giving it my own twist. Once again, they thought I was out of my mind and protested. I won since I am the parent. After locking hands together on the couch, they looked down with their anger faces. "No, no" I said, "you have to look into each other's eyes and give one another compliments for the next 5 minutes." More protesting came forth. Kyler said, "I can't think of enough things to fill a minute up." Gavin said, "I have nothing nice to say to him." So I calmly explained that they could sit there holding hands until they figure it out and once the compliments started I would start the 5 minutes. Watching them try to concoct nice things to say to each other was like watching a movie critic trying to say something good about an Adam Sandler flick.
Gavin: Uhhh, you are good at math.
Kyler: Umm, you are ok playing the Wii
Gavin: Uhh, you are nice to some people.
Kyler: Well, I'm nicer than you.
Gavin: Well, I did get the math award that you didn't
Kyler: Well, you're not all that good at Wii, I was lying.
Gavin & Kyler: Blah, blah, blah, I hate you!!
It started that way each time but I would have to steer them back into actual heartfelt compliments which was like steering a herd of blind cattle through a maze of jagged rocks. Often when implementing this form of punishement, the five minutes could easily turn into 30 minutes of hand holding anger-bliss. Which in turn took out time of the day and wound up making them angrier than they started. Sure, they would back off of each other for a little while but in no time it went right back to normal.
Grounding the kids from TV is another one of those famous punishments but I will say that it is perhaps a larger punishment for the parents. When the kids have no option to go watch TV, that makes them wedge their heads even more firmly in my butt. I got bombarded with constant, "I'm bored theres nothing to do." I try to give them reading and such to do but they don't care, they want to make sure they take away whatever I am doing. If I am quietly enjoying a football game on TV while they are grounded, I can guarantee that they will come in the room at least 27 times with randomly generated questions to ask. The questions will not have any relevancy to anything that is going on either, they are completely random like: How long can a fish live on land? How big is the world's largest hamburger? When was the first time you ever pooped? Can a dog and a cat get married and have little pittens or kuppies? When am I ungrounded? That last one, that is the one that is never random, it is always a guarantee in their question arsenal. We can tell them the exact day each time they ask and an hour or two will pass and they will ask again. I think they are trying to confuse us because sometimes they will say that I said a different day the last time they asked. "No, I didn't" I'll say. "Yeah, dad you did. You said we are ungrounded on Friday, not Saturday. Remember??? Come on that means we only have one more day, remember???" They will keep at me like this and I'll always have to ask my wife because I am now too confused as to which day they are actually ungrounded. They don't bother asking her because they know that mommy never forgets but daddy is easily confused and passive.
So these are the "punishments" that we inflict mutually, and it never works. It is a nonstop cycle of beatings and screaming. I want one of those imported English Nannies to come here and see how she could do. Oh well until then we have the comfort of knowing that the good people at Pfizer are busy making more anti-psychotic meds for parents.
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