Either Way, We're Punished

I read a funny thing this morning during my FB perusing.

"How young is too young? Is there a suitable punishment for drawing all over my closet wall this morning while I tried to get in just 10 more minutes of sleep?"




Haha, seriously, my first thought was, "You're being punished for sleeping in!"


Being a parent is a full time job.  If you show up 10 minutes late, you're punished with any number of creative tortures.  I can attest to this.  This is my morning, like, every morning.  


And I get so mad.  Why can't they just behave?  Why can't they get their own cereal?  Why can't they not bicker for five seconds?


Then I laugh as I remind myself that they're 4 and 5 years old.  Ha!  Oh goodness, my expectations are skewed.


But really, some semblance of order must be put in place.  Punishments must be doled out, but some how it seems like no matter what I choose, I'm also being punished.


No TV turns into...well, NO TV.  That's like sending the Nanny home for the day.  Pure torture.


Then there's time-out.  Psht, yeah right.  More like sit against the wall and scream for half an hour.  Gotta love that.


No books (when Kembry colors in them) is usually followed by two hours of, Ï'm boooooooored."


No coloring (when Kembry colors on anything, thankfully we're pretty much past this stage) is usually followed by two hours of, Ï'm booooored."


No friends is as bad as no TV.


No playing outside is worse than it all.  Outside is my safe haven.  It's where I send them 80% of their waking moments.


I could lock them in their rooms, but then they'd just play.


Sit quietly in the living room turns into a 4 year old tornado going all ape on the  living room.


So now my punishments mostly consist of, "Come help mommy clean the kitchen/bathroom/bedroom/coffin/laundry,"which they actually enjoy, and even though it really slows down my progress and often makes more of a mess, I also enjoy.


The trick is keeping them out of trouble to begin with.


Good luck with that, everybody!