The Authoritarian

Growing up, I never would have thought myself as the authoritative parent. I always assumed that that job would be left up to Fiona. As it is turning out, I have become probably my kids' (mostly Jadon's) nightmare. Well, okay...probably not as bad as I make it sound.

Last night I put Jadon into timeout. I don't frequently put him in time outs, lately I have been averaging once a month. But when I do it, it's a huge deal. Anyways, Jadon has been crying and whining when it gets to bath time. I understand that he doesn't want to sleep (It's because when he goes over to sleep at his grandparents' they let him stay up a little bit later). So Fiona and I will offer him to go to sleep after (as oppose to before) we put his sister's to sleep. We tell him he can play with his toys, watch us give his sisters' a bath, or watch t.v. You would think that that would make him happy. Guess again. He just breaks out into tears and cries. He ends up wanting to go to take a bath and go to bed. After enduring this every night for quite sometime, and giving several warnings, I put him in timeout. We've talked to him, compromised with him, distracted his mindset but unsucessful at every option. I needed to break him out of this funk. I felt myself boil up for a few seconds but I found myself relatively calm in this timeout incident. I had even more restraint then the last time I put the bugger in the corner. This time I put a stool in the corner of his bedroom and told him to sit. He was at the top of the stairs and I was in his bedroom. I just kept telling Jadon to come to his room. He, in his usual tantrum, was jumping up and down and screaming "no." I just kept warning to come to me. In his painful cry he would try, in vain, to change the outcome. He would say "go watch t.v.....go watch baby sister take bath...." I was thinking "Sorry kiddo, too late. Your time has come for punishment." So I went and picked him up and plopped him down on his stool. I had to hold his neck and body in place. He's really strong though. I sat there holding him down by his waist. I told him, calmly, that he was staying in timeout until he calmed down. I patted his back gently and kept on reassuring him that as soon as he stopped crying and he was calm, he could come out of timeout and I'd give him a bath. The whole incident lasted ten minutes but I am sure the little tyke felt it lasted forever. After his bath and right before bed, I attempted to talk to him and tell him that there is no reason to cry every single night and that it would only lead him to timeouts and that dadda doesn't like to do that. Whether or not he was taking it to heart is another matter. He just started to tear up again. So I put him to bed and patted his back and wished him a good night.

It just breaks my heart to punish him but someone has to do it. Fiona's too much of a scaredy cat to do it. I'm guessing that over time it gets a little easier to dish out punishments (or perhaps not).