Each of my kids offers unique stylistic parenting opportunities. I have to match up my style with their needs and then, on top of it all, prioritize! I struggle with not only staying focused on what I have to do each day to keep them safe, fed and alive… but also on what I should be focusing on to make them into the best human beings they can be.

My daughter Emma is just like me and this presents me with very unique challenges. I know what this kid is capable of and it scares me. She’s head-strong. She’s opinionated. She’s stubborn. And she is smart enough to use these qualities to the best of her abilities to get what she wants. Even when she isn’t right, she’s figured out that she’s usually stronger, louder and a better manipulator then whomever she is paired up against, so she can just bully her way through.

This morning, I heard her screaming at her brother. I don’t just mean normal kid screaming, I mean all out, I’m going to make you hate me but you’ll do what I want screaming. She was throwing up insults like she had some sort of brain virus. She was mean with a capital M. It’s not important really what she was ranting about… (which was that she couldn’t find the Gameboy her brother lost) but it is important that she THINKS it is ok to berate people like that. And that she can get what she wants by being that mean.

Somehow as a parent, I have to figure out a way for her to not get her way when she’s being a bully. There has to be a negative consequence to her behavior and it has to be swift and direct. But how do I do that? I’m not around all the time. Its hard to be consistent when you don’t know it’s happening.

Emma is a pretty good kid and I am trying to reach her on a rational level. We are talking about it a lot. I spoke to her this morning about being nice to people and how that should be a priority for her. But I don’t think she really caught the drift. When I told her that it would be nice if she followed the Golden Rule of treating others the way you would want to be treated, she responded with that if she was as stupid as her brother, then she would deserve to be treated meanly.

Uh. No.

Maybe I’m focusing on the wrong priority. Duct tape fixes about everything right? Maybe I should just duct tape her mouth till she’s 18? Would that work?

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