With one kid about to start school in September and another about to embark on the Terrible Two’s, my other half and I are getting all geared up for a big round of behavioural problems.
Our son, who’s almost five, is FULL of attitude at the moment.
He won’t get dressed, he wont go to bed, he pile-drives his little sister into walls AND he’s just started a really annoying (and painful!) habit of punching me in the stomach which is driving me mad.
He makes faces at me when I ask him to tidy up his toys and sneers at me if I’m trying to speak to him about his behaviour.
We are determined to undo this phase and have decided to really follow-through with any threats of taking toys or privileges away, until he gets the message that we mean business.
Whether or not it works remains to be seen, but as I have been researching novel ways to discipline a wayward toddler (!), I have come across some really amazing stories about parents who went above and beyond the call of parental responsibility to teach their kids a lesson.
Here are 3 of my favourites:
1. The Hotpants Dad
This dad was so fed up asking his teenage daughter to wear something other than too-revealing hot pants, that he cut up a pair of jeans of his own and wore them himself when he picked her up from senior school. Needless to say, his daughter was really embarrassed but also got the message that her dad was trying to get across which, in his words, was; ‘modest is hottest’.
2. The Taxi Driver Dad
Another dad left work early every day to pick his 18-year-old daughter up from her office until one day, she roared at him for being 15 minutes late coming to get her. Calmly, the dad agreed with her and said;
“You are so right. That was an inconvenience for you. You should not have to wait for me as I leave my job early to pick you up in downtown traffic. So now you will ride the public bus home for the remainder of your internship and you will never have to wait for me again.”
He made her get the bus home for a month and he beat her to the front door every day. Winner.
3. The Johnny Cash Mum
Beware the child who dares to call their parents ’embarrassing’. This mum got her own back on her teenage daughter who said she was embarrassing by showing up to collect her from school the next day, in a full set of rollers, a dressing gown, blaring Johnny Cash and smoking a cigar.
“How embarrassing am I now?” she innocently enquired.
Moral of the story: don’t mess with us, kids. Don’t even try.
Have you got any stories to share, when you or your own parents, really didn’t ‘let you away with it’? Let us know in the comments on Facebook.
