Creative Parenting
I am the youngest of four children. Now, I know this is going to be hard to believe, but sometimes we children fought. We argued. We bickered. We didn't play nice. I know, right?!
Mom had a great "mom look" that warned us we were about to cross the line. It usually worked, too. But sometimes, we just couldn't help ourselves and we kept bickering. One of Mom's strategies was to separate us. "You play in here, and you play in there, and you play over there. You just pretend you're an only child. You are not allowed to play with each other." It didn't usually take very long for us to get bored and beg to be allowed to be brothers and sisters again.
I was about 13 or 14 when my brother Steve (four years older) and I had been picking at each other all day. Mom finally had enough and told me that if we didn't stop bickering, she was going to punch me. Don't forget she has a Dutch accent, because the threat of a punch isn't nearly as funny without the Dutch accent. I rolled my eyes and said, "Yeah, right." Mom had never spanked me, so I thought she was bluffing.
POW!!! She socked me on my left arm. You know that meaty spot at the top of your arm, near the shoulder? Yeah, right there. The same place where they gave the small-pox vaccine. As it turns out, she wasn't bluffing! Who knew?
The bickering stopped.
(so did the eye-rolling)
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Mom had a great "mom look" that warned us we were about to cross the line. It usually worked, too. But sometimes, we just couldn't help ourselves and we kept bickering. One of Mom's strategies was to separate us. "You play in here, and you play in there, and you play over there. You just pretend you're an only child. You are not allowed to play with each other." It didn't usually take very long for us to get bored and beg to be allowed to be brothers and sisters again.
I was about 13 or 14 when my brother Steve (four years older) and I had been picking at each other all day. Mom finally had enough and told me that if we didn't stop bickering, she was going to punch me. Don't forget she has a Dutch accent, because the threat of a punch isn't nearly as funny without the Dutch accent. I rolled my eyes and said, "Yeah, right." Mom had never spanked me, so I thought she was bluffing.
POW!!! She socked me on my left arm. You know that meaty spot at the top of your arm, near the shoulder? Yeah, right there. The same place where they gave the small-pox vaccine. As it turns out, she wasn't bluffing! Who knew?
The bickering stopped.
(so did the eye-rolling)
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Sounds like your mom had some great parenting tools!
ReplyDelete(Visiting from the linky :)
Wow...now there's a technique I never thought to try! :)
ReplyDeleteKind of reminds me of the time my Mom used the F word. The world stood still.
ReplyDelete