Vent, Confession, and General Stuff!

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-17-2001
Vent, Confession, and General Stuff!
3
Sun, 09-03-2006 - 11:23pm

What a cruddy day this turned into. The morning with the girls was fine and then it went downhill fast... to hell in a handbasket, so to speak.

I won't give specifics, but let's just say that the lack of respect in this family finally threw me over the edge. The girls are disrespectful to me, my parents, and each other. Today, I had it. I shunned them. Imagine that! You know the funny part? I only felt like a bad mother for about 30 seconds.

Rosie mouthed off to Gracie; Gracie mouthed back; Rosie retaliated, and Gracie cried. I ignored it but went to my room for a few minutes and when I came out, Gracie was sitting in Rosie's room playing a computer game and Rosie was calmly reading. They make up at the drop of a hat, and yet, treat adults poorly and take forever to get over it. So I told them that they weren't allowed to play together and separated them, giving them the "This is your sister, blah blah blah" speech.

THEN I started thinking about how I treated MY parents when I was young and realized that every time my mother yelled at me, I was plotting how to get back on her good side and the minute I was alone in my room, I'd be writing that "I'm sorry, I'll never do it again" note. Neither of my children has EVER apologized or said "I'll try not to..." after being reprimanded. In fact, one of the things that Rosie is working on in counseling is the fact that she never takes responsibility for her own mistakes (ie, 'I was never told that' or 'My teacher never taught us that') (WHO CARES? IT'S A MISTAKE!!!!!)

I'm not sure if 4 hours of shunning worked, but I'm not regretting it. I'm not feeling like bad parent (BTW, thanks for the earlier post, Christine; it reminded me that parents are SUPPOSED TO parent). After about 4 hours, I figured that was enough and I told them that I love them and we had a long talk about respect and why they treat non-family members with respect and how much it hurts to be treated disrespectfully.

When disrespect rears it's ugly head again, I'm demanding an immediate apology or they can go sit in their room until they're ready to apologize. Zero Tolerance.

Am I the only one with this problem??

~calla~  mom to rosie and gracie

iVillage Member
Registered: 12-29-2003
Mon, 09-04-2006 - 8:20am

Funny...we are going through the same thing! I told the kids just this last week that their lives and mine would be a whole lot easier if they would just APOLOGIZE instead of acting like nothing was ever their fault.

I agree, we should accept zero tolerance!

Kelly

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-25-2006
Mon, 09-04-2006 - 11:57am

My only rule is to not disrespect other people. Obviously, this means there are a lot of "little" rules that service that big one, but that's what it all boils down to. There is nothing wrong with raising kids not to be little monsters to other people and to have consideration for people's feelings. I HATED kids when I was growing up, and when I became pregnant at 19, I vowed to NEVER have those kinds of kids. And I didn't. My daughters are both awesome at ages 19 and 8.

Keep it up---the world will be a better place for it. :)

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-19-2003
Wed, 09-06-2006 - 2:31pm

Good for you!


Karen ~ wildlucky4me ~