Total Parental Manipulation of Selfish Brats

Sometimes parenting can be so entertaining.

Now that I’m back from the mechanic – I’ve got a few minutes to share the attack strategy I cooked up for the selfish little buggers who reside in my house.

I sent them all a text message and told them their presence was required at a family meeting to be conducted in the family room immediately.

Each walked in as if they knew the hammer was coming down. I love how my kids know me so well!

Since D insisted that his rule of not sharing his music be respected, I thought we’d let him run with that rule for one week. The kicker is everyone else gets to enforce that same rule for the same amount of time.

Conversation following the finely laid out plan as follows:

D: That’s fine, I don’t care.

Me: You’re sure? You don’t want to hold your opinion until I lay out all the details?

D: No I’m fine

Me: Ok well here’s how this will work – for one week, no one is to tough anything that is not theirs. That means this remote control right here is mine – it goes to my television that’s connected to the satellite that I pay for – so don’t touch. The TV will remain on my preferred channels for the entire week.

Now, that phone over there, that’s mine too. Don’t touch.

D: What about our cell phones?

Me: The cells are yours – those were a gift – however, the service is mine since I do pay for it so I’ll have that intercepted for the one week.

D: Oh

Me: Now, when it comes to common areas like the bathroom and kitchen, those rooms are omitted from this experiment. So, is everyone game? Once we start this, there is no turning back for one full week! Any changes or suggestions need to be made now.

It was at this point that the term “mine” tucked tail and ran out the door and in it’s wake were three young men capable of working out a compromise and who had just had one hefty lesson in conflict resolution.

And here I was looking so forward to not answering the phone with some young girl calling asking for one of the boys – and to actually get to watch a few of my favorite programs.

Oh well, such is life in a household with three boys.

I sure hope I’ve not scared Char at Parenting Teens and Tweens so much that she locks her son up until he’s 25, but hey, that’s not a bad idea considering all the stupid stuff teens are involved in today.