Hard Labor

Allison is in for some hard labor. Ok, well, it'll be mostly cleaning, but 5 hours worth. Saturday afternoon, in what we can probably described as wanton tiredness and monumentally poor decision-making, Allison damaged some stuff in Jacob's room (which we discovered when we put Jacob to bed at night). After much yelling and a young girl who went straight to bed, Brian and I were unable to doll out any punishment at the time. Ok, to be honest, we couldn't really think of anything.

Punishing Allison is a challenge, and I mean that it's difficult to find appropriate and consistent consequences. There isn't anything to "take away" that means anything to her (like losing an hour of video games is enough to get Jacob to do just about anything). Plus, the whole world of "punishment" is full of wonderful advice like "reward good behavior" and "authoritarian parents will pay for it later with rebellion" and "use a poor choice as a teachable moment." Uh, huh. I'm sure that advice works well for some kids. It does not work well for all kids.

We have "rules" and praise the kids when they solve a problem without fighting, or try a new food on their own. We try never to say mean and hurtful things to them, even if they call us "poopy butt" or something worse they heard at school. But there will come a time when even the best kid makes a bad decision and then what do you do? And what do you do if your child seems naturally predisposed not to consider the consequences of their actions BEFORE taking said actions? And what if this predisposition is compounded by lack of sleep, hunger, or once medication has run it's daily course?

And then if your child does fall into that category - how much do you "forgive" on account of his/her less-developed abilities? Allison seemed truly remorseful for her actions after the fact. She wrote Jacob a note to say that she was sorry. Mom and Dad decided to have her pay for what needed to be replaced ($61 - not wholely accurate assessment, but Jacob was content with it), of which she had $36 in her piggy bank (that she was saving for Bop It) and the remaining $25 she is working off at $5 per hour with chores around the house.

All the parenting "advice" recommends a consequence that allows the kids to take responsibility and make amends for their mistakes. Allison can't have any friends over or play with the neighbors until she's finished her 5 hours and paid off her debt. She did 20 minutes of window washing today. At this rate, it might take a while.

I wish it were still as simple as a 5 minute time out. Time outs were straight forward. This is a chore.