You're Doing it Wrong

Well I'll say this about him: My son?  He's an adapter.  He's been grounded in his room for the past 72 hours and is handling like a champ.  His mood is upbeat, he's conceded to the punishment and agrees it's just, and he's genuinely pleasant to be around.  If I didn't know any better, I'd say he's almost enjoying his punishment.  What kind of sick trick is this?  Every time I go back to check on him, he's lying on his bed contently reading a book.  Did you hear me?  He's reading.  And he's happy about it. I have a good mind to go back there and take away all of his books and force him to watch TV and play X-Box all. day. long.

Waitaminute - 

Damn that boy is smart.  Or I'm stupid.  I'm not sure which is winning out here, but the thought of forcing him to watch TV actually did fly through what's left of my addled brain.  I'm using this punishment as an electronic detox of sorts - so Ryan can finally get his face out of every screen known to man and begin to replace the binary-brained Ryan with one who has actual conversations with real live people.  What I couldn't have possibly prepared for, however, were the books making him smarter than I, as he's already begun the out-witting process.

In a very uncharacteristic move, my son decided - on his own - he needed to shower today.  He then casually asked if he could take his phone into the bathroom so he could listen to music while he showered.  Innocuous request, right?  (stop shaking your heads - I know I should've caught on!)  Upon further investigation, however, that little shyster turned on the shower, sat his butt on the counter and proceeded to watch a good 10 minutes of YouTube before I busted him.

Is it wrong that I was actually shocked by this?  Am I kidding myself that he should've known better?  I always think I'm teaching, but I fear most of what I say falls on deaf ears.

My most notorious example:  

When Ryan was 5 years old, he was all snuggled up in bed.  I went in for our nightly ritual of bedtime prayers.  We have a scripted prayer that we say every night, and the fact that he knew it by heart reassured me I was doing something right.  This particular night, after we wrapped up with “Amen”, I said to him, “Promise me that even when you’re grown and out of the house, you’ll take the time every day to thank God for everything he has blessed you with.”  Ryan kind of pushed me away, and with all the confusion his tiny face could muster, asked, “Who’s God?”

Now, I’m not sure how familiar you are with Christianity, but God - kind of a big player…

Surely Ryan wouldn't have come up with the YouTube in the bathroom thing on his own.  That had to come from a book, or a nefarious friend, right?  The pushing of the boundaries - it's upon us.  And I'm not a fan.  Because more often than not, I find myself stooping to his level and fighting with him like a 12 year old myself.  Rarely do I find myself in the level-headed mom role that offers sound advice and rational punishment.  No, no, I'm the one screaming out warnings that I pray don't come to fruition because they end up punishing me more than they do my son.

Like this punishment, for example.  Why couldn't I have said, "If you don't bring your grade up, you'll lose X-Box for a month"?  That wouldn't have affected our Spring Break plans in the least.  But instead, in a moment of scorched earth fury I threatened, "If you don't bring that grade up to a B, you will lose everything - TV, X-Box, cell phone and computer - plus you'll be sitting in your room doing NOTHING until that grade comes up." 

**please bring the grade up, please bring the grade up, please bring the grade up** 

He didn't bring the grade up.

So here I sit, day two of Spring Break, without an ace in the hole.  No go-to punishment to squelch any future wrong-doing.  He could literally drink a 5th of whiskey, start a 1-900-HOT-BABE hotline and tattoo "Boats 'n Ho's" across his chest, and there's very little I could do about it. (Well, this side of the law, anyway.)

Let's hope he's not smart enough to figure that out...