Realistic Consequences are Best

My 8-year old has a hard time with choices. I believe that it is important to direct children to making good choices now because poor choices are a gateway to SERIOUSLY poor choices that hold more severe consequences later in life. Peyton feels that we hate her. No matter how I try to tell her if that were the case I would help her pack, she still believes that living under my roof is like having her legs broken ala Kathryn Bates in 'Misery.'

"Peyton, can you please go put your clothes away that are in your room?" - WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH....whhhyyyyyyyyyy do you do this toooooo meeeeeeee???!?!?!?!??"

"Peyton, please finish your milk and put your dishes in the sink?" - YOOOOUUUUU HAAAATTTEEEEEEE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

"Peyton, could you not play in the dirt before you go to school? You will get your clothes dirty." - RAPPPPPEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It doesn't matter the request. There is always bartering and banter that comes with it. The above are reactions that depict, somewhat, the typical reaction. The atypical reaction is the request is fulfilled without resistance. However, that is about as popular as a Centaur feeding in my lawn. It never happens. It's really hard to come up with a consequence I can actually follow through with. For example, as she is eating a meal she has eaten in the past, I watch her face at the table wrythe and contort into every possible shape to convey to me, non-verbally, that she is eating glass. It's hard for me to watch her behave this way, knowing that there are people, RIGHT NOW, cupping handfuls of urine to satisfy extreme thirst somewhere in the world, and NOT want to throw her through a wall. Instead of saying something reasonable like, "Peyton, if you don't finish your food, you will need to go to bed," I say something like "Peyton, eat...because if you don't I will let loose 100,000 black widows in your room and break your light bulb and lock the door." I can't possibly do that. I hate spiders. I can't handle ONE let alone 100,000. Pfffft...makes no sense.

That's just food. If you want to talk about clothes for school that day, that is an entirely different story. Before she goes to bed, she picks out what she will wear the next day. Seems legit. Until the sun comes up and all bets are off. Setting them out the night before saves time. However, when you have a multiple personality pseudo-disorder, as AM Peyton and PM Peyton are different in ways I cannot convey in words, this is a chore. She has learned that the more resistant she is, the more she will simply get her way as to avoid an adult aneurysm. My bad. I have evolved. So has Mom. Now, what she picks out at night will be what she wears in the morning. If she chooses not to, she will need to go to school naked....because that is realistic. Ok, not so much. I have also threatened to burn her clothes and went so far as to grab the flick lighter and hold her clothes a few inches from it...and thought better of demonstrating pyrotechnic behavior to my son who is sucking this all in. I figure, let her wear fuschia pink shirts with a denim skirt and green and navy blue leggings. The playground police will fix this for me. She will become socially irrelevant, and then she might listen.

As far as she is concerned, her Mother and I know absolutely nothing. Funny how I was the same way. My parents attempted ther whole lives to teach me right from wrong. It wasn't until I was older, maybe wiser, and a parent that I realized that I was wrong. My parents knew everything. Maybe I will dig a grave in the back yard with a blank name plate and tell my kids that that hole is for the first one to give Mom flack?

But that's not realistic....or is it?