This week was a bad week in my house. As a result, groundation ensued. Groundation is hard on both the one who gets grounded and the one who does the grounding. Essentially, I grounded myself. All in all, we both deserved it. The teenager in question deserved it because he was mouthy and rude, said bad words, generally acted jerky and got crappy grades. I deserved it too. I was mouthy and rude right back, said bad words and generally over-reacted. Not that I would admit that to my son. I was definately not the model of decorum nor a good role model for my child. For now, I'm going to blame it on my hormones and stress.
So, after the estrogen hurricane and the testosterone tornados blew over, Matthew and I talked. Well, I talked and he sort of listened (in between thoughts of "I hate my mother"). He is passive aggressive to the extreme so he can really be challenging. I talked and he laid in bead quietly. The next morning we tried again. We came up with goals, rewards and consequences. We wrote them down. He was quiet and generally compliant. He stayed that way for several hours. We packed up and headed out to ski. He read his book for English class all the way to EVL. Very quiet. He did his homework in the chalet while the other kids hung out. I finally let him out to snowboard. I wasn't going to originally but part of me realized that he needs a physical outlet as much as I do, maybe even more. So he snowboarded, hard. On the way home, in the dark, with his sister asleep in the backseat, we talked. Both of us. He is smart. He gets it. I am starting to. I am glad I changed my mind and let him snowboard tonight. It went against the groundation rules but it did open some communication for us. Besides, he had to turn down a skating party, an opportunity to go to free skate at the town rink and a sleepover this weekend. And he is technically still grounded and has no phone until further notice, so I guess a little work-release was ok. For both of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment