My Beautiful Boy

So what do you do when he loses it in the supermarket??

Yesterday I had both Ben and Corey home from school – Ben has had a sore throat for a couple of days and Corey had a ‘headache’.  Although he really didn’t seem that bad, I think it was ‘headache Wednesday’.  Yesterday was my grocery shopping day so I had to take them with me.

We started off alright and then when we were about three quarters through it started.  They started fighting, Ben said something that made Corey mad and then all hell broke loose.  Corey used that lovely ‘F’ word by telling Ben to ‘F’ off, nice and loud, right when an elderly lady walked past us.

So I guess I have 2 choices here:

1. Ignore it – which then makes me look like a stupid Mother who let’s her children swear like that without any discipline.

2. Discipline him – tell him off.  Which I know will make him worse.

So, I decided that I can’t just ignore it and let him get away with it – I don’t know why I decide that, telling him off really doesn’t do anything.  But I told him off, which of course set him off even more, then he yelled very loudly “leave me alone you bitch’.

Well, there’s nothing that makes you feel better than being called a bitch by your child in the middle of the supermarket.

At this point, I decided just to walk on and continue with my shopping and ignore him.

When we got home, he had just about forgotten anything that happened, but I hadn’t.  I know I probably should let things go, but I just can’t stand to let him do these things and not suffer any consequence for them.

So I told him he had to sit and write lines – one page saying ‘I will not use the F word’ and another saying ‘I will not call Mum a bitch’.  Then he just lost it again, told me to ‘F’ off and ran outside slamming the door behind him.

So he actually spent the rest of the day outside as I told him he couldn’t come in until he was willing to write his lines.  When it started getting dark, he decided to come in and write his lines.

It is just so draining sometimes and so silly.  Surely he knows by now that if he just writes his lines straight away it will be over and done with.  Instead he puts it off and puts it off, but he doesn’t get away with it, he still has to do them, so why put it off and make things worse.

Yes, he did also get an extra page of lines for telling me to ‘F’ off.

I don’t think making him write lines actually works – if it did he’d be good by now.  But what does work???  We’ve tried putting him in time out.  We’ve tried banning him from his favourite things.  Nothing seems to work.

People say to ignore most of his behavior – 90/10 – ignore 90% of it and discipline the 10% of it that is really bad – but all of his behavior is really bad.

Does ignoring it really work?  To me, ignoring it is just letting him do it, letting him get away with it.  How does that help?  All it is doing is letting him think that it is ok for him to do it.

Any suggestions anyone?????