I've been slacking a bit this week.

I'm sure I've been slacking in more ways than one but right now I'm thinking about how I haven't laid down the law with the kids the way I should be. Yesterday a coworker asked how they were and I told him they were pushing my limits again and that I needed to crack down.  I didn't.  Not yesterday.  In fact, I quite dropped the ball.  I failed to resolve the conflict they brought to me from their walk home and I waited too long to get them to clean up the living room.  Ooops.  I forgot that half my job is to make my boss' life easier, NOT to ensure the universe continues to revolve around me.


This morning I was a little too tired to respond quickly to their misbehaviour, but still, it was better than yesterday.  As we were getting ready to go, B (the 6yo) climbed over the railing of the staircase and started walking down on the outside, just as he attempts to do every morning and just as he has been instructed against every morning (and one afternoon by his father).

I told him to get back on the other side and he asked me why.  I told him, "Because I said so," because little boys have a hard time believing they're really in danger when they're doing something fun.

It felt like a last straw.  "You know this.  I tell you this every day..." I continued without really planning to, my tone incredibly sharp and my face unhappy.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw J (the 9yo) snap to attention.

J had a lightbulb go on and he looked almost afraid when he asked, "Wait... we're not doing a good job of listening, are we?"

"Not really, no," I answered curtly.  It was a weird moment for me because I've finally found that face/tone/disposition that my boss/their dad has been encouraging me to master so the kids know when I mean business and learn to stop pushing.  Previously, I had to try to look angry or try to craft the face I thought they would respond to.  Now, it was 100% natural...which makes it 100% easy (to pull) and 100% effective (for them). I don't even feel badly about being stern or tough any more because I am convinced that they know better. (On top of this, granite is softer than their dad so they're always catching a break with me.)

"And tonight is hockey," I continued, hoping he would put even more than two and two together.  Their dad is great at remembering future positives that he can take away as incentive or punishment.  I suppose I have picked it up without knowing, because I didn't really plan to heap another threat on.

However, J made the connection a second after I did and said, "And tonight's hockey," at the same time I did.  He slumped back and mumbled something about how they wouldn't get to go.

I started to crack (inwardly).  I don't want them to miss hockey and I know their dad doesn't either so I explained that we still had the afternoon together.  If the behaviour was better, then maybe they'd get to go.

"OK, B______," J says like the law student in training that we all know he is.  "After school -- BEST behaviour."

A few moments later, B's balled up gloves were being chucked back and forth up and down the stairs by the two boys and before I could cut it off, a foot landed on a forearm violently -- but unintentionally.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," came out of the culprit and sharp, teeth-bared breaths were drawn in by the victim.  I told B that I knew it was an accident but before I could explain how roughhousing makes these accidents more common, B put his own two and two together and started crying because, "Now I'm gonna be on a timeout after school!"

He was right and I told him so, but we had to go to school.  I had to calm him down and get him out the door without excusing the incident or lifting the punishment.  He was going on a timeout for more than the accident but that didn't help his case, as he seemed to realise.

I said (now much softer), "The better you behave from now on, the less time you'll spend on the chair," desperately hoping that this is a fair economy.  I hope that every time I say it.  I hope I'm not caving and I hope they're learning.  I like to extend grace to them and I want them to think about how they can make wiser choices.  It usually goes well, when B tracks with my logic.

He seemed to get it this morning.  I repeated myself and encouraged him to come down and put his coat on.  By the time I was zipping it up, he was telling me some funny story about what happened yesterday.  Great that he stopped crying and refusing to go to school but NOT great perhaps for the action-consequence connection.  It's also not great for my resolve in enforcing the timeout six hours later when he'll look at me with complete bewilderment and hate having his mood changed so dramatically.  Oh, well. Them's the breaks, kiddo.  You'll get it eventually.