dog’s hungry. You wait. At six fifteen your son comes running in
asking if you fed the dog. You say, “No.” He says, “Good!” and feeds
the dog. You praise the boy, “Hey, great job! That dog was sure happy
to see you.”
The second night you’re in the kitchen and it’s six twenty. The dog
is looking hungry, but you wait. Now it’s six thirty and the dog is
licking your legs! So you finally feed the hungry animal. At six forty
your boy comes running in:
“Did you feed the dog?”
“Yes, I did. I charged you fifteen cents from your allowance.”
“WELL, WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?” (Yelling)
“That’s 1.”
This is not a discussion. It was a discussion, but now it’s an attack.
It’s simply one version of Testing Tactic 2, temper, and it should be
counted. You discuss discussions and you count attacks. In this kind
of situation, it’s extremely difficult to resist the temptation to get into
angry, little-adult types of comments, such as, “Do you remember
when we bought this stupid animal for you? What did you say? You
said, ‘I’ll feed the dog every single night. No problem!’ Right! Well,
here we are on only the second night and I’m already feeding your
dog! I’m sick of doing everything around here for all you people!”
What you’re saying may be absolutely correct, but tirades like this
will do no good. Parental tantrums and righteous indignation will, in
fact, cause harm. Your tirade will do two things. First, the outburst
will damage your relationship with your child. Second, your blow-up
will ruin the effect of the boy having his allowance docked. So be
quiet and let the money do the talking. If money doesn’t seem to have
much clout with this particular child, take minutes off TV, game, or
computer time, or use some other reasonable consequence.
The docking system is good for lots of things. How many times
have you had the feeling that parenting is unfair? About nine million
times? This unfairness applies especially to the moms, who often feel
marcin
(Marcin)
#1