Sometimes being a mom stinks. That's right, I said it. It stinks. Today would be one of those days. I am 33 years old, have been a parent for over seven years and still evidently don't know how to effectively discipline my kids. It always seems too much or not enough. I struggle finding the perfect balance. I know I am just overwhelmed with emotion right now and feeling sorry for myself but I hate feeling like everyone else is "doing it better" than me and just "gets" this whole discipline thing. I am hard on my kids and I expect a lot out of them....so why is it that consistently my children are the worst behaved in the room? Surely this is a problem that I have created and I want more than anything to fix it. I'm seriously asking for help. Advice is always appreciated.
The drama for today is as follows...We have a standing pool play date with several of my friends and their kids. Today there were three moms and 12 kids at the pool. Usually all of the kids get along great as do the moms (duh) so it has become a known fact in my little circle of friends that Tuesday is the BEST DAY of the week. We look forward to Tuesday every day. Today was no exception and since it is 95+ degrees outside with the heat index in the 100s, we all were eagerly anticipating getting wet.
We headed over to the pool after kickball and arrived around 11:20 a.m. Everything went smoothly until about 12:00 p.m. Ben started getting a little bossy with his friends and was giving me some attitude. All of the kids got out of the pool to eat lunch and the little kids were using a raft as a diving board and jumping in from the side. Ben decided that he wanted to use the raft so he took it and started swimming away with it. The little ones freaked out and I told Ben he needed to give it back because the little kids were using it first. Ben. Freaked. Out. My SEVEN year old threw a fit like he was a 3-year-old. Literally, the 3-year-olds were staring at him. I made him get out of the pool and have a time out, which is ridiculous anyway. What seven year old needs a time out? His friends tried to talk to him and he was nasty to them so they gave up and went to do their own thing. When I told Ben he could change his attitude and get back in the pool he mouthed off and I told him that it was his final warning. If he had an attitude with me or anyone else in the pool we were leaving. Well, he couldn't get it together and was still being crabby and I tried to ignore him but then he was running next to the pool and slipped and hit his head. I am sure it hurt and he did get a goose egg but Ben, becuase he already was in a crabby mood, just lost it. He was screaming his head off. I tried to comfort him and so did his friends but he just yelled at us and wouldn't let us near him. I told him to get it together and that I knew it hurt but he was being hysterical and that wasn't helping anything.
I got back in the pool and shortly after Ben jumped in and started mouthing off to me again and whining about the raft that he wanted to use. I took a deep breath, said we were leaving, and got out of the pool to start packing up our stuff. God love Joey, he didn't throw a fit at all when I said it was time to go. He went down the slide two more times, climbed out and we were on our way.
I was furious, embarassed, frustrated, confused, sad...and hot and annoyed that I wasn't still in the pool. The whole way home I ranted (in as calm a voice as I could muster) about how embarrassed I was and how dissapointed in Ben's behavior, yadda, yadda, yadda. I know he wasn't listening to a word I said. Desparate to come up with something that I could do to "punish" him, I told him that when we got home he was going to spend "the rest of the afternoon" in his room, which really was only going to be until three o'clock because we are leaving then to go to the grocery store, so about two hours. That got nothing out of him. So I then said that he could not have his DS the rest of the day. Still no reaction. We got home and I told him he needed to call his dad and tell him about how his behavior runined our pool day and made us come home. That worked. Ben immediately became hysterical and couldn't even talk to his dad. It was probably pretty mean of me to do that to Dean; he is really busy and in fact won't be home until after the kids go to bed the next three nights (poor Ben). Not nice to put that on him but honestly, I don't know what else to do with this kid. His attitude lately is out of control. He has been so bossy, cocky, rude, etc. lately and I can't take it anymore. I really don't know what to do.
I went into his room about 10 minutes after we got home and tried to talk to him like a sane person. Of course he didn't want anything to do with me. I told him I loved him but that I was very dissapointed in his behavior. I left the room and am now sitting typing this and crying. I don't like making Ben sad but this behavior has got to stop. No winners today in this lovely little battle. None.
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