I’m a tad annoyed this evening. The children, for the most part, were atrocious this evening. Harry included. So when it came time to put the wee ones to bed, Kile suggested that Harry go to bed too. Sounded good to me!
I come downstairs from getting Evie to bed andfind Harry watching TV. I remind him he was supposed to go to bed. But he wanted to watch a show! I had him DVR it and sent him packing. Kile came downstairs a while later from playing computer games and we got on with our evening.
When we came to bed, a short while ago, I saw the overhead light was on. Harry is pretty much the only one who turnson the overhead in our room. I tried to think why’ve would have come in here. That’s when I noticed the remote control had been moved. I stormed about how Harry is so disrespectful, especially to me, these days.
This was when Kile admitted that be told Harry he could watch TV.
That’s when my head exploded into a thousand pieces. The end.
Seriously, though. Way to undermine my influence there, dearest. No wonder the child doesn’t listen to a thing I say (Liam either, for that matter). He always goes to Kile if he doesn’t like my answer. Always.
Well, I’m sick of it. I don’t know what else to do other than just stop trying. I’ll just let Kile deal with all this crap from now on. The only thing is that guess who gets to deal with the aftermath the most, day in and day out?
Gah!!!
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6 Responses to “Maybe I should stop trying”
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it’s definitely NOT cool to have your authority undermined. He needs to think about how he would feel if you went behind his back and undermined his authority.
You guys should sit down and have a long talk about this so that he can know how you feel and so that you can make sure that he understands why it’s detrimental that the two of you work together (call up on some Supernanny goodness to help you with that one if you need to!)
Randis last blog post..Fairy Stairs
We’re not to this point yet as our oldest is 3, but this is how my parents handled it: First they were unified. Whatever decision one made, the other (when they knew about it) supported it 100%. If one of us kids tried to go from one parent to the next ? The kid who tried it caught hell. Because it was trying to go around and sneakily get what we wanted. So you learned to just go with what you were told first.. (It was ok to do something like “Mom said no” and state your case, appealing for a new decision and hoping dad would convince mom. But to do it deceitfully was a huge no no.)
So in this case? The offending child, for trying to go around mom, would not get TV privileges for Sunday; it’s a unified response of “don’t do that again” from BOTH parents.
It really makes sense to me and worked well with us (you don’t try it more than once or twice), so we’ll probably do this with our kids.
oh Kile did not tell Harry to go to bed in the first place only to have you enforce it (why didn’t he tell Harry to go to bed again instead of leaving it to you?) and then let him watch the TV in your room?!!??! Marilyn, I understand why you’re mad – I would be too. Well, “mad” is putting it mildly. But you can’t give up. Like you said, you’re the one that has to deal with it.
First, I would have a talk with Kile and let him know why you’re upset. Your authority was undermined, which is a slippery slope to disrespect. Liam looks up to Harry – if Harry doesn’t listen to you, neither will Liam. And Evie will learn from them too. So snipping this kind of thing in the bud is critical.
Then, Harry would get a big talking to about how that was WAY uncool. If he wants to be able to stay up and watch TV then he has to earn that right. And to do that, he has to listen to and respect you.
Of course, I say all that not having to face these issues myself (yet). And knowing myself, I would have to wait several hours until I was calm enough to actually talk about these issues instead of yelling and being snarky about it.
My kids tried this for a little while but they were undermined initially by the fact that sound travels and they didn’t realize that. We’d hear them asking the other parent & hear the answer. Once we realized it was becoming a habit we responded to every request with “what did Mom/Dad say to that?” (assuming the other parent was around to have been questioned). It took a good 4-6 months before they let go of trying it out, but it did lessen a good deal fairly quickly.
I’d talk to Kile about it when you know you can be calm about it. Takes me days sometimes before I can mention something without getting hostile. You have to be on the same page & the parent who agreed to something when the other parent disagreed should be the one to address the immediate issue & state their agreement with the original response.
Stacey~ComfyMoms last blog post..Weekly Winners – week 10
I would be absolutely furious! You have every right to be angry. The united front is the most important part of parenting, in my opinion.
We had issues like this when my children were younger and it was only through me being the tyrant that the husband got on board. I can put up with a lot, but disrespect, especially from my children will not be tolerated.
Don’t give up. You’re right, you’re the one who will have to deal with it and fair or not, we’re the ones who have to make it work.
Good luck.
My husband and I had the same problem. I would lay down the law and he would run to hubs to get what he wanted. We finally agreed that any argument would be had out of hearing rang of the kid. We sometimes would literally stop talking and head to the garage. No matter who ended up giving, the kid would never know. It was much easier when we had a united front. As far as the occasional going around me, I let it go. In the end, I was the only one upset and it wasn’t worth that.