My sweet little Ava hardly ever gets in trouble. I think I might have put her in perhaps three time outs in her nine and 11/12ths years. It's not that she's an angel but she's the way I was, sneaky. I must have modeled my behavior on Eddie Haskel on the Leave It to Beaver reruns I used to watch. Maybe "sneaky" is too harsh, but certainly my daughter and I are clever enough to rarely get caught when we're bad. Chet, on the other hand, strikes first and makes up excuses for why he did it afterward.
I was in my office the other day and could hear the escalation of tension between my kids in the other room. I was determined to ignore them and to let them sort it out. Then I heard the inevitable crash and Ava hiss, "You stupid f-ing boy!" I have no qualms about writing the word "fuck" but I didn't actually hear it and anyway could never believe that such a word could come out of the mouth of my little darling.
This all happened in the morning before school. About ten minutes later when we were all eating Honey Bunches of Oats I casually asked what the ruckus was about.
"Oooh! Ava said---!"
"Shut up!"
"Ava said--"
"I said shut up! I didn't say anything! I --!"
She was already bawling and out of control and I hadn't even accused her yet. She'd make a lousy spy. You even look like you're going to start interrogating her and she falls to pieces. She swore that she didn't swear but her attitude gave her away instantly. Still, something didn't make sense. My kids' greatest pleasure in life is tattling on the other so why didn't Chet rush to me the moment she launched the F-bomb?
"I didn't want us to lose points, daddy," he explained. See, I'd recently instituted a points system, ten points for giving the other the seat on the subway, minus-ten points for whacking the other with a Heely. Once they reach 500 they earn a nice toy. They've been stuck in the mid-100s now for weeks. I was impressed by Chet's logic. Ava, all this while, was howling and hyperventilating. I could tell that she was freaking out because she thought I'd seen the ugly truth to her, not the super-sweet fawning adoration she usually purrs my way. I told her that nothing would make me stop loving her and that everyone is human. I also told her that I was angrier that she'd called him "stupid" than the F-word. The punishment I'd decided on was a week without computer games. She howled some more, begged me to just make her make all our beds instead (she loves doing that, even puts chocolates on our beds like in a hotel.) I didn't budge and let my ruling stand (until yesterday when I commuted her sentence to making the beds. She squealed with delight.)
What kinds of punishments do you mete out?
