And just when you thought you had turned a corner

Mr 14 proves you wrong. No, he really has not moved past the horrifically lazy stage. No he has not moved past the shirking responsibility stage. No he is not yet ready to give up the three year old tantrum technique.

Sigh... I really thought that he had turned a corner. The last year hasn't been bad and as a result we opened up a lot more liberties to him to try and reinforce the fact that good behaviour = good things. I'm pissed that we were so wrong.

The issue at hand? Mr 14 wanted to play football. Despite never played before and despite weighing less than a 100lbs wet we decided to let him follow his "dream". This was in part influenced by the fact that he had some hangups about not having been allowed to play hockey as a youngster (long story - spread across two homes and a mom not willing to drive him at 5am... she made it difficult for us to support it). Anyway, now that he's with us full time we wanted to give him the chance.

The season is all of eight weeks long. 2 practices and 1 game per week.

Last night he had not finished his homework (homework he had had for three days and did not adequately plan for...again). He did not want to have to finish it after football practice. It would have taken at most an hour. He got the speech about his responsibility to the team, was made to get changed and into the car we got. He bitched the whole way there. Then the balloons started coming out.

Balloons are those things that come out of thin air and are designed to draw a parent into an argument that really has nothing to do with the situation at hand. It's a classic technique with him. As is sitting in the car and refusing to get out. So we gave him the option. You get out and practice or you're done. Not only are you done but you will be repaying the entire cost of signup as well as your cleats. You will also go and hand your jersey into the coach and explain why you are pulling out.

We are big on responsibility and three year old tantrums are not an effective way to shirk yours.

So he's done. He owes us $400 which essentially means no pocket money until next year. Are we being hard? Yes. The soft techniques have not worked. It's time for him to realize that his actions and choices have consequences.

The homework took 45minutes. All that stupidity, arguing, tears for 45 minutes of work. I could have wrung his scrawny little neck. This is the same child that will need to watch Ms 8 in the afternoon after school when I go back to work. Yeah... gives you the warm and fuzzies doesn't it. NOT.