Keeping Our Kids In Line

My dad used the brush or belt. I have a friend whose mother used a wooden spoon. I have even see my cousin get it with a shoe – it really came down to convenience at that point. But back in the day when seat belts were optional, smoking was ubiquitous, and kids played out in the street until the street lights came on we children were kept in line mostly through the constant threat of a good old-fashioned spanking.

I remember being spanked maybe once (although I am certain it had to have been more than that as my cousins thought my name as “No-Nicky” because I was always in trouble). Looking back, I think it was much more the threat of getting spanked that kept me in line – or at least caused me to be as sneaky as possible so as not to get caught. It was the fear of the spanking rather than the actual spanking itself that made me fall behave myself whenever my parents got that “you-are-dancing-on-my-last-nerve” tone in their voices.

I’m not advocating that we bring spanking back – although I’d be lying if I said the thought had never crossed my mind. Take last night, for instance, when my evil-genius son spent the entire time we were at the Cheesecake Factory for dinner acting like a grumpy spoiled brat only to turn into a raving lunatic when we brought him to the professional soccer game he’s been looking forward to all week and then demanded we feed him again because he’s hungry because he didn’t eat any of the meal we wasted money buying for him when we were at the Cheesecake Factory. And he’s sobbing the entire time as if we haven’t fed him in a week. That is a moment bringing spanking back crossed my mind. Seriously.

Instead I settled for the threat to take away all electronics the following day. Which didn’t put a dent in his insanity. Then at some point his younger brother jumped on the spoiled brat band wagon – which almost never happens. Typically when one of them is acting insane the other is trying out for the “most beloved child” title. Like isn’t he so crazy – good thing you have adorable me to lavish all your well deserved love and praise on. However, last night all the moons aligned and both children decided to lose their minds. In public. It was awesome. So we did what any self-respecting parents would do after giving them every chance to act like human beings and letting them know the consequences for failure to comply – we fled. We ran out of the soccer stadium like it was on fire. And speaking of fire I really wished at that point that we had set $100 on fire and stayed at home instead. Same cost less drama.

And this is when my kids are still young, somewhat manageable, and don’t think spending time with mom and dad is a death sentence. What is life going to be like when they are, gulp, teenagers? How am I going to keep them in line then?

Well, I have to say I was much more pessimistic about that prospect until I went to dinner with a couple of girl friends last week. Their kids are almost all grown up – in high school and college. And all of their children are pretty well intact. So whatever they did worked (knock on wood). And certainly the difficulty level of keeping kids in line goes up the older they get. It is so much more a nuanced and psychological game to play. Teenagers have things like “privacy” that they don’t like to have violated. Ha!

But as parents we really still need to be in their business so we can keep them from making terrible and costly mistakes. But how do you balance being nosy and letting them think you haven’t violated their privacy? One of my girlfriends confessed over a glass of Pinot Grigio her amazingly awesome tactic that I totally plan on using with my sons as soon as they cross that teenage threshold.

When my friend comes across incriminating evidence – as every parent of teenagers will from time to time – she knows she has a choice to make. She either has to confront them, thus making them feel she had violated their privacy, or do nothing and let them make a terrible mistake. Neither option is good. So she has come up with a brilliant way of convincing them that she is onto them without them thinking she’s been snooping or spying on them. She tells them she has had a dream. A prophetic dream. And she weaves in bits and pieces of what she knows they doing or going to do. And it stops them. Because they think she is magic. Brilliant!

Evidently she is also gifted with a strong intuition so her children always felt she had an uncanny knack for knowing what they were up to. And truly don’t all mothers posses that gift to some degree when it comes to their own children? So I’m going to start laying the framework for the dream method starting today. Because before I know it my eight-year-old will be thirteen and I’ll need to have some street cred when it comes to being psychic.

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