… I’d probably have been fulminated this Morning!!

I hate to shout at TB! I also hate to discipline him… It simply breaks my heart… And I had to do it today, right before he went to school… it sort of started yesterday really… he is in one of these phases in life where he thinks that howling and crying and kicking and hitting things will give him everything he wants…

I know… it is a phase… and he’s only 4 years old… not a baby anymore but also not a “big boy” yet… and some times I forget that. It doesn’t help that half his friends at school do the same thing (much more than half getting exactly what they want out of it…) and get away with it… which seems to infuriate him even more because he won’t… I refuse to let him get away with being disrespectful. This is not how I was raised and I think half of the problems that Britain has today with gangs and hoodies and binge drinking, drugs etc etc etc have to do with the lack of discipline or “control” that parents exercise over their kids today…

Don’t take control as a bad word… I’ve just used it in the lack of a better one…

I don’t blame the authorities for it… I am sure they had the best of intentions when they toughened up to protect children against abuse and mistreat caused by a minority of parents, if you can actually call some of them parents… they are NO EXAMPLE to set for their kids… or at the very least a VERY BAD one… and you lead and influence by example…

The only problem is that because of these “£$%$&% rules parents are now afraid to raise their children. Are afraid to discipline them.. we kinda live in a “Free Range Kids” society.

I can’t say we don’t spoil TB because we do! We pretty much give him whatever he wants, and if we don’t then his grandparents will. He’s the only kid in his class that is allowed to play video games for example (and up till 2 months ago he had his own console as well), and some of the parents of his friends got scandalized when they found out he had his own games (I couldn’t effing believe it…) and that I allowed TB to browse the internet (he loves the Thomas the takn engine and CBEEBIES websites… ah… youtube is a big thing as well now)… Imagine if they find out I gave my old Laptop to him!!!

The thing is… We give him pretty much what he wants… within limit of course… but that makes it one more bargain chip to our side… Example… he is now VERY upset because he is not playing his Lego/Star Wars game for the whole of today because of the fit he threw this morning because he didn’t want to go to school to play Lego.

I know he has been impossible since yesterday… but that still doesn’t make me feel any better for shouting at him and going to the extreme of smacking his bottom this morning. I had to say sorry to him on the way to school which almost made him and me cry… specially when he turned to me and said “It’s OK Daddy, I am still your friend.”

It broke my heart…

He’s still not playing X-Box today tho!

How about you??? Are you/will you be a free range mum/dad??? What do You do when you need to show your kiddo some Tough Love????

Busy day ahead…

zya!