A question of discipline

My teenage daughter got mad at me today, for not disciplining my 7-year old the same way she was disciplined at that age.

The fact is, she's right.

But, there are no apologies from this mom- I figured out with my third child (the 7-year-old) that not all children can be disciplined the same.

My first two, now teenagers, were fairly "typical" children. Time-outs, saying *NO* in my "mommy voice," and occasionally taking away privileges typically stopped them in their tracks.

Jacob, however, is another story. My free-spirited child, he does things my older children never even thought to do. As a toddler, he called 911. Twice. Before that, I didn't know that the 911 operator calls back, right around the same time the police officer rings the doorbell (THAT makes for an interesting morning). And, who knew that the third time a false 911 call is made results in a fine? (We never made it to # 3, but the police officer told me that when he came to my door the second time in 3 months.)

Jacob also is the only child I've had to call Poison Control about. When he was three, he wanted to see if the strawberry shampoo tasted like strawberry. (Evidently, it didn't, but I didn't know how much it took for him to figure that out. But his breath smelled really sweet.)

I could go on and on, but I want to save some for future blog posts, so let's just suffice it to say that Jacob keeps me on my toes.

So today, when Jacob was pretending he was a Star Wars Jedi in the living room (light saber, sound effects, and all), for the umpteenth time, I made him go clean the bathroom.

Does that sound like an appropriate punishment to you?

It doesn't to me, either. But, here's my thinking... I have told him *countless* times not to play Jedi in the living room. I'm afraid that the light saber will hit my TV, my laptop, or even worse, my 2-year old.

Sending him to his room was an option, but all his "stuff" is in there. While my older kids would go in their room and cry or sulk when punished, Jacob goes in and plays with his toys.

Time-outs don't typically work for Jacob. He sits wherever I tell him, for as long as I tell him to, but his imagination takes over, and before I know it, he's role playing in whatever "phase" he is in (i.e., talking to himself)-we've gone through a Doodlebops phase, a police officer phase, an Avatar phase, a wrestling phase, and the current Star Wars phase. 

Taking things away don't work, either, for the same reason. You can't take their imagination away!

So, in anger, I told him to go clean the bathroom.

My daughter was NOT happy. That's her job, and quite the perfectionist, she knew that he would not do it the way she wanted him to, and she'd end up having to clean it again anyway.

I refused to apologize to my teenager for the punishment I chose, and I didn't feel the need to explain it to her, so she got mad at me.

"Can't you send him to his room, like every other normal kid?" she asked.

I realized after that, that Jacob is not "every normal kid." But more than that, all of my kids have different personalities, and different "normals." Therefore, different punishments work for all of them.

For example, if I took my 14-year-old son's computer away, it would be the end of his world. On the other hand, taking the computer away from my 15-year old daughter would barely phase her.

Threatening to take away her phone would be a different story. I might as well threaten to cut off her right hand. My son would barely care about being grounded from his phone.

For Jacob, the very worst thing I can do to him is make him leave the room that the rest of the family is in. He is by far the most social of my children, and absolutely hates to be alone.

And, now that he's past the age of wanting to taste shampoo, I figure if I'm going to send him out of the room, I'm going to put it to good use.

Besides, my daughter will be going to college in the next couple of years, and it's time to start grooming another child to clean the bathrooms.