by Angela Pandolfo Roy Thursday, August 21st, 2008  13 comments

A Kindler, Gentler Version of “I’ll Kick You ‘Till You’re Dead”

So I’m wondering: have you ever actually run out of ways to punish your wayward child?

Hello again, Hausguests, and apologies for a lone, overdue drive-by posting in the middle of my typical August beach-a-thon. We had a most excellent time at the Cape (Note to Pandolfo cousins: I do, however, think we should have moved the car one last time), and we are off to spend most of the rest of the summer (random work days aside) at the shore house before school starts exactly two weeks from today and my annual post-Labor Day crushing depression settles over the Haus (this year to be flavored with horrendous pre-election anxiety — awesome!). So pardon both the infrequency and brevity of posts until then.

The one jarring interruption of my blissed-out August faux reality of sea, sun, sand, beach reads, and lazy days has been the onset of full-blown behavioral meltdown on the part of The Spare, requiring me to parent to an extent that exceeds my standard August minimum: ensuring that they not get swept away with the Atlantic undertow; that they not erupt in sun-poisoned, full-body blistering; and that they eat enough to subsist, even if the meals consist entirely of boardwalk cotton candy and fried Oreos. This displeases me, as you can imagine. But The Spare had, over the past couple of months, released his inner Angry Dwarf with a vengeance, and, as I learned during Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, the only creature in nature ever known to best Angry Dwarf is Responsible Mommy. Who usually takes August off. Oh well.

What had been happening was, once to twice per day, every day, The Spare would have a top-to-bottom tantrum upon not getting exactly what he wanted — whatever that may have been at any given time, though more often then not it is some innocuous toy — exactly when he wanted it, which was usually when his brother was playing with it. There were variations on the theme, of course: he would erupt, for example, if he did not want to leave the beach when it was time to leave the beach, or if he did not want to eat dinner when it was time to eat dinner, or if he did not want to stop drowning the neighbor’s puppy when I needed to use the bathtub. And these eruptions were just that: explosive, ground-shuddering outbursts of screams, tears, flailing limbs, threats, taunts, insults, searingly indignant beseeching heavenward for his lot in life, and random gutteral sounds that I am quite sure are not human (because I heard them throughout Shark Week on the Discovery Channel).

And now I will admit something shameful: Angry Dwarf cracked me up. I’m not kidding. His meltdowns were completely different than the ones The Heir pulled back in the day, which were kind of scary, not only filled with anger but real grief and, ultimately, quite painful self-recrimination. But I’ve discussed how intense The Heir is, how he examines and reflects and just plain feels more deeply than one would expect of a seven-year-old, so his tantrums would actively frighten me, and I would completely stress out about the appropriate action to take. During The Spare’s prolonged outbursts, on the other hand, I would just keep plopping him back down onto the “naughty step,” over and over, and then hide my face so he couldn’t see me giggling uncontrollably.

You have to understand how completely incongruous it was to hear wildly inappropriate words and semi-violent behavior coming from this teeny, hairy little person who looks exactly like Curious George. I swear this is a verbatim recounting of a conversation one late afternoon on the Cape, when it was time to pack up and leave the beach to get ready for dinner:

Me: “Come on, boys, let’s gather up our stuff. It’s time to go.”

The Heir: “OK, Mommy, I’ll rinse off the beach toys.”

The Spare: “NO WAY I AM NOT LEAVING THE BEACH YOU ARE THE WORST MOTHER IN THE WORLD AND I AM STAYING RIGHT HERE TO SWIM AND I DO NOT WANT DINNER AND YOU ARE NOT GIVING ME A BATH AND I AM GOING TO STAY RIGHT HERE ON THIS BEACH OLD WOMAN AND YOU WILL NEVER GET ME OFF OF THIS BEACH! EVER! EVERRRRRRR!!!!”

I don’t know what horrified the six or seven hundred onlookers more: The Spare’s outburst, or my resulting laughter.

Hilarious though he was, obviously, I needed to address the problem, which required some action that took us beyond the naughty step. And before my comments section begins to resemble that of Salon (my sympathies to you, Alternadad and Terrible Mother), let me state for the record that I know it was not a coincidence that his behavior worsened at precisely the time that my parenting style unclenched (though I would add that it was never particularly tightly clenched to begin with). He’s too young to handle my lackadaisical approach to a typical summer day; he’s not mature enough to be without a schedule or a routine for this long. “He’s crying out for some boundaries!” as Supernanny might say. And so I have implemented a few, just enough so that there is still a clear distinction between what I will always firmly believe should be the gentle, spur-of-the-moment, whimsical summer that we are blessed enough to be able to have, by and large, and the hyper-scheduled, too-busy school year. He now eats actual food at breakfast and dinner, while sitting at a table; he bathes in an actual bathroom, as opposed to getting a post-beach hosedown in the backyard; he goes to bed long before “The Daily Show” theme song plays. I beg Mr. Monopoly, on the Tuesdays and Wednesdays that she has him, to impose some manner of structure upon him, and I believe she has.

And when discipline had been called for — when the time-out at the launch of every meltdown failed to work, and he continued his mad performance art despite my firm assurances that he would regret doing so — we started with the serious punishment: the ongoing deprivation of favorite things, with the length of the deprivation, as well as the number of favorite things rescinded, correlating to the length of the tantrum.

Ergo, here is what The Spare will be living without until Monday, September 15: all Pokemon cards and related toys and action figures; all cars, racetracks, clothing, bath towels, DVDs, and anything else he has that relates to the Pixar movie “Cars,” his near-obsession of two years now; his drums (yay!); Kraft Easy Mac macaroni and cheese; Kraft macaroni and cheese crackers; all cheese (are you detecting a theme?); Oreos (fried or otherwise); most TV; and his Gameboy. From hereon out, he may indulge in fresh air and sunshine — any sort of activity through which he can channel all his negative energy through strenuous exercise — as well as a few of his more educational, good-for-him toys: his animal figures and his jungle, zoo, barn, and forest sets; his dinosaurs; various board games; and his art supplies. Of course, on Monday, guess what he chose to do with his art supplies?

Suffice it to say, we paid for the wall paint out of his college funds. Yes, monetary fines were the only form of punishment left to us. And anyway, I’m pretty sure that at the institution he’s going to in the future, room and board are covered.

Filed under Behavior issues, Punishments.