Cruelty, thy name is parenting

Maybe it’s the upcoming change in season. Maybe it’s back to school. Maybe it’s that weird weather in the Atlantic, where storm after storm has been churning, and now that churning is causing my kid’s brain’s to swirl inside their heads. I’m telling you, these two are driving me batty. Constant bickering, instigating, and frankly pissing each other off over the most insane things, like he took my spot on the sofa or she looked at me funny. Which of course just sets my own temper alight, when they will NOT STOP, no matter how much I threaten to pop out their eyeballs and bounce them like superballs. There is only so much back and forth irritation between two kids a woman can take before she wonders why in hell she had them in the first place and how can she give them back for a refund. Growling like a rabid animal, in an attempt to get them to knock off the crankies, doesn’t seem to get their attention. Full-throated bellowing just gives me a headache so the only other option sometimes is to threaten to feed them to the rabid pack of turkey vultures that fly around the neighborhood. SuperHubby is often on alert when he hears the growl escaping from my lips and tries to intervene before the situation reaches critical mass and there is renegade destruction.

He does have some good intervention strategies, I must confess. Some of them might seem corny but they work and we all learn lessons differently I suppose. The side bennies are that the kids really really dislike these programs of parental revenge. Every once in while, when they've reached their obnoxious behavior capacity, he makes them sit on the sofa, facing each other, and each kid has to say 10 nice things that they like about the other. They can be there for hours if they are really mad but it usually defuses the situation. The recent bicker session between the kids seemed all about how annoying they could be to each other and how quickly they could get the other in trouble for something, SuperHubby chose the intervention that would bring them closer together. At least in proximity, even if the emotion wasn’t there at the moment. He made them sit cross-legged on the floor, knees touching and hold hands.

Hold Hands??!?!?

What were we thinking, making them actually touch!! Ace’s disdain for such punishment was clear in the flushed cheeks and angry, tearful gaze. When Ace gets righteously angry it’s hard for him to hold back the tears from gathering in his eyes, which is just embarrassing for his age and this fuels his anger higher. For a bit he stood there, radiating teenage insult and frustration that we would force him to do such an inane, to his way of thinking, exercise. But he is not as belligerently stubborn as his sister on most days and seemed to feel more insulted by his sister than the enforced contact and family meeting about to come to order. With equal groans and moans of temper and indignation, he plopped down on the carpet and reached out his hands with the utmost reluctance and distaste.

Giggles stood there trembling in her fury for a few more moments before she sat down with deliberate movements that illustrated exactly how pissed off she was. She reached her hands out to place them in Ace’s with such reluctance you would have thought he had the Ebola virus, right there in his hands, and was about to transmit it via fingertips. Her face had that pinched look a person gets when they smell something putrid. Not to mention the demon fire blazing from her eyes and the steam blasting through her flared nostrils. I’m seriously surprised SuperHubby and I didn’t just burn to cinders right then and there from the acid flames in her gaze as she glared at us as we urged her (alright, demanded really because stubborn floods her veins) to hold her brother’s hands not just place her fingers in his. That doesn’t count in this exercise.

And then…and then we did the unthinkable. More terrible and horrible actions we pushed on their young psyches. GASP!!! We made them to TALK to each other. DISCUSS their anger. We made them explain why they were so mad at each other and explain what it was that bothered them so much about each other. TO EACH OTHER. All the while sitting face-to-face and making contact. In the beginning they did so through gritted teeth, spitting out words while glaring at us when they talked. But as the minutes went by, the anger faded and they stopped resisting the discussion and we were able to talk about their bickering and what was bothering each of them.

By the end of the family talk, tempers were no longer frayed and laughter and cooperation once again reigned in the land. For several days they got along, enjoyed each others company and didn't deliberately try to instigate rioting. But of course, as routine as the Earth rotates around the Sun, sibling disdain kicked in and the sound of bickering voices once again filled the air.

Ahh, the joy’s of home. Wouldn’t trade it for anything. Really.
As long as there is good bourbon handy.