Wanna know what happened today?

@mike808 Yeah and bits of melted chocolate in the crack between the seat back and seat. Oh yeah. The pee situation. When I was a kid my then about 7 or 8 year old sister did not like peeing by the side of the road. So she used, as we drove down the highway, the empty peanut butter jar that was in there for that purpose for my brother (van and she had a seat to herself so no one knew). Didn’t tell anyone. That did not end well.

@mike808 I thought Costco rotisserie chickens were only $5

@moonhat Local groceries here have them for $6. Not everyone has a Costco membership or one nearby, so giving a Costco price doesn’t help.

@Kidsandliz mostly blame because I had the same condition twice a year as a child too…sinuses…ugh

@memini Power washer

@cinoclav @memini Go to a car wash with the hose. That also works to clean gross stuff like car seats. I went there once when my kid managed to pee through the waterproof mattress pad (had a crack I didn’t know about). I blasted it (was a foam mattress) with the soap and then the rince cycle more than once, put it on top of my car to get it home, leaned it against the chain link fence to dry it out. Worked well.

@cinoclav @Kidsandliz @memini

@unksol says:

(had a crack I didn’t know about)
The mattress or the kid?

Fixed it!
(see below)

@chienfou @cinoclav @memini @unksol

@unksol Oh I knew the kid was cracked. She came to me that way at age nearly 10. The mattress pad lining on the waterproof pad cracks which I didn’t know it would do (or I would have checked for that on a regular basis).

@chienfou yeah…I’m beginning to see that…plus she has my temper…I’m in for it now…

@amehzinggrace @chienfou Well Mark Twain allegedly said that when they turn 13 you put them in a pickle barrel and feed them through a knot hole. When they turn 16 you seal up the hole. He neglected to mention when you take them out. I am not sure mine is ready to take out yet.

@mml666 I love these kind of parenting stories. My wife works nights into and over the weekend. So grocery shopping on Saturday night is a regular errand for the 2 younger ones and I. There was one night in particular about a year ago where my son (the youngest and about 3 at the time) was losing it and I was trying to do my best to stay calm when someone just leaned over and said, “You’re a good dad, staying calm the way you are.” It was everything I needed to hear. Fast forward to last weekend, also at the grocery store, when I was in the checkout line behind a guy and his 2 kids with the youngest, also a boy, was losing his mind because he couldn’t get a toy car. The dad was a champ and I just leaned in and said something that was encouraging like, “You’re doing way better than I would.”

I hope he took it the way I intended, but the bottom line is, when parents help out other parents, it is awesome. And the most encouraging thing you can say is I know what it’s like, here something you’ll need, go do your thing. Because half the battle is knowing that you’re not alone when your kid is losing it or your car is a war zone.

POPSOCKETS! SPROCKETS! DAVY CROCKETT! AWESOME!

@mml666 @zinimusprime Earlier this week I went out to lunch with a couple of work buddies. The driver, a parent with two teenagers, was apologizing for the mess in his family minivan. Non-parent coworker said to me, “You can have the sticky seat!” I replied: “I raised four kids - do you think I’ve never sat in a sticky car seat?”
When you’re a parent, you learn to just roll with it.

@macromeh @zinimusprime and to the 40-something Guy I know who’s never had kids and his car is a shrine, he cannot fathom the idea of having Cheerios on the floor/seat/everywhere, and why the F**K I don’t take my car to a car wash to have it detailed.
“Because I would have to spend that money every week.”
When he starts with the, “here’s what you have to do…”, that’s when I tune him out.

@macromeh @mml666 yeah, that guy’s gets tuned out immediately. I do offer a courtesy apology when people get into my car because I do wish my car was cleaner, but the second they say it doesn’t take that long I immediately discount their ability to analyze anything they have no direct experience with. Lol

@macromeh @zinimusprime The same guy also tells me how I should “handle” my wife.

BTW - he happens to be divorced…

@macromeh @mml666 lol, those people are the best/worst. I have a coworker that lives in a multi-family with his girlfriend and her dad owns both units. He was telling me about the “adivce” he was getting, which was essentially ‘if she asks you to do something, just do a bad job and she won’t ask you to do it again.’ To which I responded with, “Uh-huh, and how many times has he been divorced???” Mind you, I knew nothing about his girlfriend’s dad. My coworker just started laughing. His answer was “3”.

@zinimusprime Last year I had the 5 year old (grandkid) with me at the grocery store who decided to tantrum because I wouldn’t buy some junk food thing. I told him he could tantrum all he wanted but it had to be in the cart. So I moved the stuff to the seat and under it. He, surprisingly, got up off the floor and climbed in and carefully (I presume so as not to hurt himself) continued his tantrum. He kept saying he wanted to get out of the cart. I kept telling him he could get out when he was done tantruming. The looks I got from others were pretty entertaining. I was just ignoring him other than to repeat that one sentence. He finally said he was done. He got out and carried on like nothing had happened.

He never pulled that one with me again. about 6 mo ago I had him and his younger brother (who gets an A+ in tantrums. It’s one of his best skills as he practices it a lot LOL) with me in the grocery store. The younger one wanted something and I said no. The older one told him it wasn’t worth throwing a tantrum because it didn’t work and he’d just be stuck in the cart. I got a spectacular, theatrical scowl aimed at me but no tantrum

@Kidsandliz I read this shortly after you posted but meant to tell you that I want to be you when I grow up.

@zinimusprime Thanks - that kind of stuff is learnable though. And I had a head start on that with kids I wasn’t emotionally attached to which makes it easier - but I still had to learn how to emotionally detach from their behavior so they couldn’t push buttons.

I used to take adjudicated youth canoeing across the state of FL (up the St. Mary’s River, through the Okefenokee Swamp, down the Suwannee River to the gulf, and up the Suwannee canal to Suwannee city). Oh my what could go on with 12 of them (and 3 staff, one of which was an intern and they were often as time consuming as the kids since so much needed explained so they wouldn’t intervene feeling sorry for the kids due to their background and screw things up) on a trip like that.

Learned all sort of crap (mostly the hard way) doing that that made parenting my kid (adopted at age almost 10 and not surprisingly came came to me with all sorts of issues), dealing with my foster kids, etc. much easier. Things like: be consistent even if it is going to kill you, don’t decided to out wait them unless you have the time to win - which the first few times might take more than one day (otherwise you reinforce that that kind of behavior might get them what they want if they hold out long enough and intermittently reinforced behavior is the hardest behavior to extinguish), emotionally distance yourself from the BS that goes on when they are pissed at you. One time my kid, as a teen, screamed at me, “I hate it when you use your calm voice when I’m trying to make you mad”. I had trouble not laughing. To this day she still gets annoyed that I don’t react in anger to her BS.

Another good one was (with my kid), “Take as long as you want to do the dishes (gives the control back to them, even if it otherwise the same ‘as you can’t do Y until you do X’). When you are done you can play basketball with the boys”. 5 min later: “Take as long as you want to do the dishes. When you are done you can watch TV”… rinse and repeat for several days (only thing I said) - I think it was 3 days until we were out of dishes (except the clean setting I hid for me anticipating this outcome). She was also then stuck in the house with nothing to do for those 3 days too (self grounding LOL).

So I made dinner one night. Served myself on my hidden set of dishes. She wanted to know what she was supposed to eat off of and with. I said, “There are dishes in the sink, or eat off the table. Doesn’t matter to me.”. She washed them that night. I said, “Thank you for doing the dishes. Now you can join the boys outside at the basketball hoop” (as if it was the first night the first time I had made a comment). From there on out she’d occasionally hold out for a couple of hours max but usually she whipped through them (had to check the oven for where she’d sometimes stash dirty pots and pans if she was in a hurry) as fast as possible so she could get back outside.

Another time it took all evening and all the next day over laundry with a foster kid. They do their own starting in 4th grade - I figure it is better for them to trash clothes they will grow out of faster than when a teen and might be in them for more than one year. And they are capable of doing that - my kid got that in 4th grade when I told her if she tossed her clean clothes in the hamper one more time when cleaning up her room she’d be doing her own laundry. Early on she ignored sorting them and one load everything turned pink - which she still had to wear and got me a call from her teacher so I explained - and she learned. By high school she was actually hand drying and hand washing a few things she didn’t want to wreck. And it was safe to let her wash some of my stuff when she wanted to wash only a few things and didn’t even have close to a full load (of course if I didn’t have a full load I’d also ask her if she had a few things she wanted me to throw in).

With that foster kid she had said, “Do my laundry bitch”. I said to her that in this household kids her age do their own laundry and I’d help her this time and teach her how to do it; that she needed to say to me, “Please show me how to do my laundry”. She said, “I don’t say please. Ever.”. I told her (so the battle was over this sentence with the laundry as a consequence), If you want help with laundry you will say, “Please teach me how to do laundry”. I had stuff thrown at me, my PB&J sandwich smeared on me… that kid (she was 13 and had been in my house about 10 days at that point) got frustrated as shit that nothing she did made any difference, made me mad or got her laundry done. She finally gave it up that next evening, as she didn’t want to wear anything she had left to school on Monday, asked to learn how to do her laundry (in a really nasty tone of voice and the word please was almost inaudible; I ignored all that as she had caved and said the sentence). I said, “Thank you for saying please help me learn how to do my laundry. Let’s go do it”.

Also knowing I would out wait her stopped most of that kind of behavior from there on out (she had a lot of issues and I’d tackle them one at a time). I didn’t fight her tone of voice since I knew I wouldn’t win that one with an initial battle or the swearing at me - other than to comment that I’d teach her some more descriptive words to use when she was mad so that she can strike better blows than using common swear words that meant almost nothing these days. Then I’d rephrase her insult - even the ones aimed at me - using different words, all in a calm voice. Initially I had to choose a battle I knew I would win, had the time to win and didn’t matter to me (so her laundry and the sentence with please in it) as the first battle.

I didn’t plan ahead that laundry or the use of the word please would be the battle. It just came up and was opportune. I grabbed it and ran with it. It also meant I had to let some stuff initially go, some of it important, as I didn’t have time to win. Also with, at least these kinds of kids, you can’t deal with all the issues. First you show you can out wait them so oppositional behavior won’t do them any good, picking an inconsequential battle that matters to them to win, then work on the most important things one by one (or they get overwhelmed and then nothing is accomplished). I ended up having to ignore a lot.

We’d also talk about choices (looking at how to phrase it in their own self interest without being obvious about it). You have choices. If you don’t like the consequence of one choice (in my household it was always having everything they currently value taken away from them for 24-48 hours - they usually can’t see beyond that time horizon and some kids, figuring they are already screwed will then do the thing they shouldn’t be doing anyway. If they rack up too many consequences, they can earn credit against them for doing things for the common good - something my kid would end up doing, as they also get overwhelmed and give up otherwise) then pick a choice/behavior where you like/want the consequence.

We’d also talk, after the consequence was done, about what she did that resulted in the consequence, what she needed to do in the future, what would be the consequence of doing that (should do behavior) instead, if she found herself about ready to make a choice that would end up in a consequence she didn’t want how would she talk herself out of doing that and talk herself into doing what she was supposed to be doing… when we were done I’d say “Ok. Now you have a second chance to get it right”. Umm yeah second chance # a zillion. LOL. Once she did something knowing the consequence and I asked her why, knowing how much she hates what would happen. She said because she decided it was worth the consequence (so at least she thought about it and I thanked her for at least thinking about her actions first and weighing the pros and cons). I then said, “And so what you are also telling me is that the consequence wasn’t severe enough?”. She looked horrified.

But the outcome of all this also depends on the kid. The really troubled ones may improve, or at least not get worse, but likely it isn’t going to turn a really troubled kid into one who is generally well behaved. The generally well behaved ones mostly don’t need much of this and will generalize the “learning” across contexts. The troubled ones usually need it “taught to them” in each and every context. It can be wearing and is certainly time consuming. I am fortunate that I had learned some of these skills before a really troubled, brain damaged, emotionally disturbed kid (didn’t know they lied to you to the extent they do in adoption of older kids) landed in my household or the odds of me holding on with that adoption would have approached zero.

@Kidsandliz This was amazing to read. From one parent to another, this was incredibly encouraging and you’ve made my day.

@zinimusprime I am glad you find it encouraging - although I have joked before that with a jury of our true peers (eg a parent going through what we were going through at the time) they might find it was justifiable homicide.

On a more serious note though, the thing that helped me the most was learning how to emotionally detach from their behavior and words when they were mad, trying to manipulate me or triangulate, push my buttons… makes all of this so much easier.

Oh and not care what others think or say if they see you ignoring a tantrum or otherwise dealing misbehaving kid (I use to walk out of the grocery store or other store and leave my cart behind when certain behaviors were going on. I gave one warning, told them this was their one warning, gave a reminder of would happen if the behavior continued - eg we leave leaving everything behind even if you, I or we needed it, and then if the behavior didn’t stop did exactly what I said - even if we needed the milk or meat for dinner - we had something else even if it was only vegetables, cereal without milk, peanut butter on fingers - oh well wouldn’t kill us for one night - but then I’d go get groceries if I needed it, but not if the kid would need it - we’d try again to buy it with the kid present).

Or how your kid is dressed to prevent shoplifting (tight clothes, no pockets, no socks, flip flops, no purse). Mine finally got tired of going to the store dressed like that so we had a trial run of “normal” clothes (still wouldn’t let her go in her shoplifting clothes - oversized basketball stuff) where I searched her before we entered the house (then locked the van and searched it before she could get back to it). If she “passed” she could dress normally again. I’d randomly search and she knew it. Even caught once and back to the anti shoplifting clothes to try again. She cycled through that a few times and finally we’d go 3 or 4 months before she’d take something.

Still not good in an absolute sense but far better than taking things almost every time we’d go to the store. And yes we’d talk about why that was wrong, etc. to steal from a store, from friends… In fact she even said once in about 7th grade that she wasn’t going to steal from her new friend as she really liked her and didn’t want to lose her as a friend. This was a voluntary statement not prompted. Made me happy and I told her I was proud of her for making that decision. I’d make her return, in person with me coming along, all stuff she’d take from friends. When she’d not want to do it I’d ask her what she could do instead so as not have to suffer through having to do this; how she’d talk herself out of stealing when she was tempted…

Of course the other thing that happens if you institute something like what I do/did is that behavior gets worse before it gets better. They have found somethings that work to get what they want, get out of something, whatever. When you change the “rules” (unwritten but never the less they have figured out have a chance of working even if not 100%) usually things get worse rather than better for a while as they try what they were doing harder, louder, etc. to see if you will then cave. This can go on even if you sit them down and explain how things are going to work in the future.

BUT again, most kids don’t need this to the extent that troubled kids do. Most foster kids and many kids adopted at an older age, have been damaged by what they have lived through, some more than others. Some use behavior to try to get tossed out of houses where they don’t like the rules (so escalates the situation with respect to bad behavior). What, of course, they need is to have someone not “reject” them for bad behavior and so it means figuring out how to deal with it to try to get them to clean it up a bit so you don’t lose your mind and get burned out dealing with it. And so that they maybe can start to realize they weren’t going to be rejected for how they behave; that they aren’t fundamentally bad kids (they think they are “no good” to quote one foster kid and being tossed from homes only reinforces that - kids blame themselves for all sorts of things that are out of their control and that they didn’t cause), they are just behaving in ways they shouldn’t.

And of course an easy to parent child doesn’t need all this. As a child is more troubled, stubborn, etc. they may need more of this. Parents of easy kids tend to condemn the parent of troubled kids who resort to more “extreme measures” to try to deal with a particular set of behaviors with a “harder to parent” kid. Nope it is not a case of, "well if you’d only had done XYZ then you’d have no problem. Umm you don’t think we tried the “easy” ways to deal with this first? Sigh. Those folks have NO CLUE how hard it is to parent troubled kids, especially when reason doesn’t work, especially when the kid struggles with cause and effect reasoning or doesn’t learn quickly from consequences… You end up having to try other stuff. And then those same people condemn you for being a bad parent because if you were a good parent the kid wouldn’t act this way. I once told an especially obnoxious parent (out of the kid’s hearing), well if you think you can clean her behavior feel free to take her home and do it. I’d be grateful.

And again all of this kind of stuff is learnable. I don’t think anyone was “born” knowing how to handle this kind of stuff.