theITbaby

the IT city, the I.T. Baby

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I do not find I like this role quite often

I’m not saying… you know what, rather than start with a seventeen paragraph intro about how I really love my kids but it’s hard sometimes, let’s just assume I’ve done all the prerequisite “but I love my kids” intro and skip down to the brass tacks.

I’ve been tasked by two chaos agents to come up with containment and punishment strategies that will shape them into better human beings. I don’t like this, both respond entirely different and have no memories that are useful to guide them, and unfortunately with a tag team duo and little support system in place, the punishment for one ends up spilling over to the other. Such as if we had the opportunity to go on a trip and one blows it, there’s nobody to watch that one.

Having to reevaluate what a non-punished child is able to do on a fairly consistent basis because the punished one and small house means quite often that the non-punished one has to do things such as TV watching in a non-common areas. One’s bad behavior affects the other’s options just because without devoting a parent as a jailer there’s no fun for anyone.

What is so maddening here though is that nothing really feels like it’s working. School is an escape where they get to get into more trouble, the world is an escape, and these kids could play with a wall and it would be escape. They also have each other to play with so there’s that they’ve always got a friend.

Not saying I want an isolation room… but I do not see any punishment I can mete out for bad behavior that has an effect beyond meh… take away internet, there’s paint on the wall, take away toys, there’s more toys or the carpet becomes a plaything. Take away chances to do something, well they didn’t care to begin with.

Combine with next to no memory of 1) the events they did that got them into the punishment they’re in, 2) inability to feel remorse because they’re little psychopaths, 3) no concept that they’ve been grounded and off of a phone for over three weeks at this point (we just add a day to the standard you’re grounded each time an event happens, it’s a three weeks now,) bleh.

Yeah I’m just complaining, I don’t have a solution. I’ve been trying to figure out how and at this point one of them is facing her second cancelled Halloween because honestly that’s the only thing that seems to have any potential effect.

Paul King

Paul King lives in Nashville Tennessee with his wife, two daughters and cats. He writes for Pocketables, theITBaby, and is an IT consultant along with doing tech support for a film production company.