Parenting With Whole Numbers

Parenting is hard work made much easier with numbers and some consistency. That way children can predict what is expected of them and they learn to disobey at their peril.

Of course different ages demand different techniques and I admit once my teenage boys grew to be as tall as I my options were limited, but for the early years I believe you can’t do better than counting to three as long as you count it right.

Perhaps your parents tried this.  Mine did.  When they wanted me to do something, or to stop doing something, they started counting.  Three was the end of the line and was often followed by spanking.   Sometimes it took awhile to get to three.  There were often second, third and fourth chances that sounded like “two… two and a half…. two and three quarters….. two and seven eighths….”  By the time the fractions were down to tenths, I knew the authority figure was more focused on splitting whole numbers into microscopic slivers than in  dealing with me and I was off the hook.  I could continue my terrorizing ways.

My aunt Marion was one who turned splitting numbers into an art form.  This is because she didn’t really want to discipline my sisters and me.  When she as a single, childless woman was called upon to babysit we knew we could get away with murder and mayhem right up until bedtime when we gladly hit the sheets knowing Marion would sit at the piano in the living room and play until we were asleep.  She even took requests of our favorite classical songs.  It’s how I learned the classics, falling asleep to the resonant sound of the Baldwin. Somehow Marion knew it didn’t matter if she ever reached the number three because the piano music would accomplish for her what numbers did  not.

By the time I became a parent and gave birth to four children in the span of three years and ten months, I had no time to spare to find discipline that worked.  I also had no time to review second grade math and learn fractions all over again.  Three simple numbers would have to fit the bill.

I learned the secret to using only three numbers was to make the number three memorable and I don’t mean with ice cream and cake.   Three had ugly consequences.

If, by the count of three the misbehavior had not stopped, I lunged from my chair like a Hollywood slasher.  Not wanting to end the drama by hitting, I grabbed the top of their head with one hand, their chin with the other and I pressed, pressed so hard they couldn’t yell or talk back.  Their jaw was locked.  And that wasn’t all.   Within three inches of their face I calmly and authoritatively stated “when I tell you the oatmeal belongs on your plate and not in your brother’s hair, I mean it.  Say sorry Mommy”.

They squirmed and fumed but they always saw the futility of resisting and they squeezed something that sounded like an apology through the spaces between their teeth.   Once I released their skull to snap back into the shape of a normal head I held them in a hug and told them I loved them no matter what they did.

I didn’t have to do this very often because the beauty of having four children is that for every single test of my authority there were three siblings who witnessed it.  In that way, it was like all four of them bore the punishment of one.  By the time little Christian came along he got discipline by osmosis.  I’m not sure I ever had to put his head in the Mom-vice.  He seemed to get it right from birth.  Either that or it’s true what they say about the youngest and I just didn’t care.  Everything he did, right or wrong seemed so cute.

What still surprises me today is how effective it was.  No matter the occasion, no matter how much sugar they ingested or how exhausted and in need of a nap they were, as long as I wasn’t driving, counting to three turned an immediate switch on the bad behavior.  When I was driving the kids knew this wouldn’t work and then I did what every responsible parent does when kids are acting up in the back seat;  I screamed my head off and told them I would pull over and dump them at the curb.

But when I could reach them, all who witnessed it asked how the heck I did it. The answer was consistency.  It’s not enough to count, you’ve got to act.  Even if you are exhausted and you have another infant asleep on your lap or you are buried in cement, you must get up and vault off the sofa like a maniac.

If you get to three with no result and you begin your “memorable” consequence, it won’t be good enough to stop when they say “OK!  OK!  I heard you!  I’ll stop! “  If you get to three, they get the consequence.  No exceptions.  The secret of this method of discipline is teaching the kids to never let you reach three.

Do this with consistency and you won’t have to do it for long.  I promise.  In a short time you too will give an order and when the order is ignored, you’ll give them the evil eye and “One…..two…..”

And the very next sound you hear will be your family and friends saying “how on earth did you get them to do that?”

Tagged as: discipline, Parenting