This is a rather . . . unorthodox method

[pegkerr]

Parents strike to protest messy kids.

I have to think that it would have been easier for them if they had pushed the issue more when the kids were younger.

Comments

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

That's ridiculous. If Elise refused to take out the garbage it would end up in her bedroom until she did.

I get slightly annoyed with the whole "I can't control my kids" stuff. My parents raised nine of us, and without ever hitting us all she had to do was look at us and I would jump.

If I disobeyed something, my father would never yell, he would leave me a chore list three pages long and I would go nowhere, do nothing, and wouldn't be allowed near the phone until it was done. Period.

And as for the lawn thing? They would have moved me out before they moved out.

[nmalfoy.livejournal.com]

Your parents did the right thing: if they said they were going to punish you, they did. Their threats were not empty, unlike so many of the threats I see parents make.

[dejaspirit.livejournal.com]

Dude, and they NEVER spanked me. Not once. None of us. There was always work to be done and if we screwed up, guess who spent Saturday doing it...

[vass]

I get slightly annoyed with the whole "I can't control my kids" stuff. My parents raised nine of us, and without ever hitting us all she had to do was look at us and I would jump.

Some children are harder to control than others, though. I guess with nine children you'd see a pretty wide cross-spectrum.

I'm the youngest of three, and my brother and sister were fine, but my parents' position is that I was genuinely impossible to control. Screamed for hours nonstop for no reason. Bit and kicked.

At twenty-four I'm still learning some things people are 'supposed' to have learned in early childhood. It's *extremely* tempting to blame someone, my parents or me, but blaming won't get my teeth brushed or my floor cleared.

[cheshyre]

The Boston Globe Magazine had an interesting and disturbing article on how more parents are negotiating with their kids rather than being firm, and some of the ramifications as these little lawyers (as the article calls them) grow up.
[Garnered a lot of letters, too.]