This thread is to share stories about our failures as parents. It is not intended to be used by perfect parents. I only wish to hear from those whose parenting styles could only be described as "inconsistent at best". I know that there will be those that want to judge us and take sides(ex. - "I'm on team.....). I could care less about your opinions of my failures as a parent. I've read your condescending opinions on other threads. You're not welcome here. With that said, I'll begin...
This began as a simple request to get my son to go to bed and quickly spiraled completely out of control. It was almost bedtime for my son and I told him to check the litter boxes before going to bed. Well, when I did this, my son who always tries to be funny, started talking over me. I tried repeating what I had just said and he did the same thing. He would wait until I began talking and then immediately start talking at the same time. What can I say? He's an obnoxious teenager. Finally, I just became disgusted and yelled at him, "Forget it. I'll do it myself. Just go to bed!" Well, at this point, he sheepishly says to me, "Oh, okay dad. What were you asking me to do?" Well now I don't want to tell him. I know his tactics. He is just stalling so he doesn't have to go to bed. I tell him again to just forget it and go to bed. He tells me that he wants to know what I want him to do. This goes on back and forth for several minutes, me becoming more and more angry with each exchange, my son remaining calm, cool and collected. I begin making crazy threats that my son knows I will never follow through on(ex. - selling his Xbox 360, grounding him until the end of the school year, etc.). At this point, my son has me exactly where he wants me, so he goes in for the kill. "Listen dad, we need to sit down and talk about this", he calmly says. Again, I know this is a stall tactic to get to bed later. I tell him that we could have had a talk at anytime over the whole weekend and that we are not going to have a talk thirty minutes past his bedtime. We go back and forth, my son trying to calm me down, but in a mocking sort of way. Finally, I just try walking away and going to a different room to get away from him. He keeps following me around the house and and calmly keeps requesting that I simply tell him what I wanted him to do. The two of us possess equal levels of stubbornness, so I know this isn't going to end well. Finally, I get so disgusted that I begin putting on my sneakers and tell him that I need to leave for awhile, as I can't take it anymore.(I only wanted to go around the block and stop at a Dunkin Donuts to relax and regain my composure) I tell him to do what he wants. Go to bed or don't. I don't care. Just leave me alone. Well, I'm heading to the front door and my son beats me to it and is blocking me. I tell him to move, but he won't. We begin wrestling with the door, me trying to open it, and him putting his full body weight against it. I'm yelling at him to "let me out!" and "I'm leaving!" He's yelling at me to "Get back in the house!" and "You're not going anywhere!" And then it hits me. Somehow, during the course of our argument, our roles had reversed. Here I was playing the role of the angry teenager, threatening to run away. And there my son was, acting like the cool and collected parent, demanding that I get back in the house. How does he do this?
He is so diabolical. It drives me crazy when he gets the better of me like this. And yet, there is this small part inside of me that is bursting with pride over his amazing manipulative abilities(if only they were used for good, rather than evil). So that's my bad parenting story. Anyone else feel like confessing their lack of good parenting skills?
I POISENED HER! I gave her a spoiled bottle! She projectile puked up the whole thing...I felt soooo bad.
REMEMBER--ALWAYS REFRIGERATE BOTTLES!
She was fine, but I felt horrible.
