ColdFusion Muse

Brilliant Parenting - Smart Methods With No Hope of Success

So many of you were helpful with advice on my previous post on parenting my 11 year old son that I thought I'd share 2 more approaches that go into the dust bin of "nice try". It has been our habit to play games with our children on the weekends - particularly Friday and Saturday night. I must confess that I thoroughly enjoy it. I love playing games of all kind and my kids are quite entertaining. The biggest challenge is simply maintaining control.

If you've never played a game of Nerts or Farkle with a 14 yr old Girl, an 11 year old boy and a 10 year old boy - you are missing a real ride. It's an orchestrated circus with a constant stream of conversation. Well, perhaps it would be putting too fine a point on it to call it conversation, but it is certainly a loud cacophony. As an adult you have to stay calm and not intervene too much, but it can really raise your blood pressure. The worst time (and quite often the best time as well) is when they are all trying to be funny.

Now I'm the first to admit that I can be the worst of the lot. I suppose I never got quite enough of this sort of thing as a youngster. Last Friday night we somehow got on the subject of the Wizard of Oz and my son, Matt (10 years old) began a sentence with "The *inman..." I don't recall what he meant to say. Matt is famous for making up words when he doesn't really know them - then carrying on blissfully. Anyway what I heard was something about the "ginman". Naturally I launched into a pantomime of the "ginman" who wanted to go to Oz for the wizard to give him a liver. My son Aaron (11 years old) heard "chinman" and his take was a poor soul who needed the wizard's help with recommending a good plastic surgeon. Naturally this went on for quite a while. Some might say that it went on long after it was still funny. As a parent I felt like it was my duty to bring things back into control - or maybe it was my wife's look of exasperation. In either case I lowered my voice a bit and began to chide them to stop carrying on and get back to the game.

Now my son Aaron really gets going. You remember Aaron from a previous post. Aaron gets going and stops censoring himself. If you have a pre-adolescent boy you know what I mean - he becomes a constant stream of talking. Virtually everything that pops into his head comes out his mouth. His volume level rises and he responds to everything that happens around the table whether it is related to him or not. Ann and I have tried to get him to slow down at times like these and think before speaking. Truthfully, it's times like these when you realize how truly powerless you are as a parent. His little steam engine of a brain is percolating along and churning out sentence after sentence in high volume.

Approach number 1 - try counting

On Friday I thought I would try a new approach. I have to say it was a really an excellent plan. Or perhaps it was a stupid plan but born of desparation it somehow sounded good at the time. I told Aaron the usual in a stern voice:

"Aaron, it's time to settle down now. You are letting everything that comes to mind come out of your mouth, and you are too loud." Then I dropped my little bomb shell on him. "Let's try this. Rather than saying everything you think of, why not just say every other thing you think to say." It was brilliant don't you think? In one fell swoop I was creating a mental margin that required him to think about his comments, and cutting the sheer number of comments in half. What could go wrong. I continued, "Here's what I want you to do. Count your comments and sensor all the even comments. In other words..."

My daughter chimed in, "...yeah Aaron, you are only allowed to make odd comments. But dad, how is that any different than usual?".

Well as you might imagine we lost the table to raucous laughter again. My son Matt laughed so hard that his drink came out his nose. Getting control of the table was a lost cause at that point. My wife's look said "don't you ever think before you speak?" It reminded me of that time that Aaron was picking something up off the floor and Matt kept kneeing him in the butt. "Stop it, you don't kneed your brothers butt" I had said - with much the same result as here. Finally, in a fit of laughter Aaron lost control of his bladder and rushed from the room. On the way to the bathroom he knocked something down in the halway.

Approach 2 - stay in control

When he came back things were marginally under control. I said to him, "Don't go charging through the hallway like a wild animal. You almost broke something."

"But Dad," he said, "I was laughing so hard I was peeing in my pants!"

"That may be true," I replied, "but even when you are peeing in your pants you still have to stay in control."

There was a moment of silence - just long enough for me to see Ann roll her eyes - then the table erupted again in laughter. When will I learn to keep my big mouth shut (sigh).