From a “self-control” perspective I’ve been doing pretty damn well when it comes to disciplining the kids. Largely going with the game plan preferred by my wife I’ve intervened when the apes go nuts – sending them to their rooms, taking away toys of contention, denying activities or treats they’d been hoping for – and done it calmly. For the last half of this summer I’d been setting corrective courses without yelling or showing my inner wrath, simply ignoring their fits of crying protest until they subsided. Even though the tears and screaming seemed to go on forever I refused to get reactive. I could pat myself on the back for that.

But nothing in their behavior appeared to improve with this new course of action. Occasionally I had to remind them that I was asking them “nicely” to stop something and they’d ignore the request anyway. When I dealt with their transgressions in a cool, level-headed manner they’d still flip out when exiled to their rooms or to corner chairs removed from any fun stuff going on. And with the simple, lone stipulation that just chilling the fuck out would get them out of trouble either one of them could extend the tantrum from ten very long minutes up to half a freaking hour.

All this was exactly the same as when I tended to get testy with them – barking out my disapproval, bellowing out the terms of retribution and volcanically spewing out gibberish like a Viking berserker when they continued to scream and knock stuff over in their rooms. I had a brief return to that form yesterday morning.

Up early and tired Jack was picking on Elsie who, having been up and down all night, kept the momentum going by pestering Jack. The cranks and the teases culminated as the alpha chimp descended into one of his awful whines over wanting something his sister was playing with. It’s a nasty sound, like a creaking cellar door that doesn’t stop opening, preceding a pathetic crying jag which is almost always about trifles. It’s my least favorite string of noise on the planet and at 6:30 AM it pushed the right button. So I “raised” my voice.

Raised it somewhere to the level of a propane plant blowing up. Enough of this crybaby crap! Do you have to act like a jerk so early in the morning?! You can go sit in your room until you figure out how to quit acting like a freak! Better watch it, Elsie – you’re next…

I was hollering up a storm as I hauled him upstairs on my shoulder and dumped him on his bed, spittin’ mad and shouting that this little routine of his had to end.

“I don’t wanna go to my room! I don’t wanna go to my room! I don’t wanna! I don’t wanna go to my roooooooom!” his wails growing louder and uglier and worser and, and, and….blaaaaauuuughhhhh!!!

“If you don’t want to be here then shut up and calm down. What the hell don’t you get about this?”

I stomped back downstairs while he screamed and chucked shit at his door. Back in the kitchen Elisa told me that I was only teaching him to yell by acting like that. So I turned on her and gave her a little venom over the failures of her “calm and consistent” parenting style. She countered by pointing out how more upset everyone was now and by calling me a dick.

So I grabbed my coffee and sulked out of the room. She was right after all, and as I cooled off I really felt like a prick. Nothing had been gained. I might not have noticed any marked regression from misbehavior when calmly disciplining the kids but there was a whole lot less tension to the episodes when I wasn’t howling like an ogre. It was a bad reaction on my part, coming a bit from swallowed frustration that my children were clinging to some bothersome habits. Pent up anxiety that these occasional situations might eventually grow, taking over as they blossomed into those unruly, bastard kids that seem to be everywhere and which every adult hates…

More on this later – Jack and I have to hit the ice rink.