Freakin Discipline
Thursday, May 24th, 2007So, for the past two weeks Pigpen has been showing some aggression in the classroom. He’s been complaining all year of one or two kids hitting him, as is their preschool wont, and during the course of the year his response has moved from going to the teacher, to hitting them back, to doing a GWB style pre-emptive strike, to now, when he “had (child X) in a cubby whaling on him with both hands”. Now, child X has been a problem for the Pen all year, but its apparently getting to the point where the aggression that Pigpen seems to have found effective on this boy has spread out to other kids.
I’ve been working it as much as possible at home, initiating a bold new “no hitting while horseplaying with your brother” rule, curtailing television shows displaying violence for PP, and trying to drill in (in a 5 yr old manner) that other kids have feelings just like he does and it hurts them when he hits.
Today, tho, the teacher who loaded him up in the car told me that, apparently unprovoked, he spit on a kid in the car-riders line right before I picked him up. He was on the defensive already, screaming at the teacher who put him in the car that “YOU DIDN’T SEE ANYTHING” and denying up and down what happened. Through my powers of deductive questioning, however, I bested my 5 year old and got him to admit to doing it, at which point I set into him for:
a. spitting on some poor kid (Pigpen couldn’t tell me why he did it, or who the kid was)
b. lying to me about it (always a very serious offense in the Tumor house)
After calling and talking to his teacher, this is really setting it in for me that my little sweet Pigpen has been, for about the past two or three weeks, really becoming a little bastard of a bully. Thats bad, because he’s a big ol’ kid, stubborn as hell, and will be a nasty bully if this keeps up.
Now, the problem is, with MastaG I always had discipline figured out, and I just don’t have my finger on what makes Pigpen tick. BJ had more of it, but the boy was darn near as much a mystery to her as he is to me. MastaG, at 5, got the soapy toothbrush when we busted him lying about something or other (he was never a hitter, it might have been when he was busted using foul language), but I don’t feel like that’d be the right tact with Pigpen. In fact, he kinda likes the taste of soap, so I’m certain all it would do is waste a toothbrush. I’m not adverse to spanking, but this isn’t a spanking situation. Spanking is only really useful (in my opinion, and oh boy, is this going to start something) in situations when the kid is doing something that immediately threatens live or limb, and isn’t stopping when requested.
Something that needs a quick and brutal solution on a purely animalistic level.
I never use it anymore. I digress tho, because this issue isn’t a spanking issue.
The boy sobbed all the way home because I was angry. I didn’t even have to yell (but I did a bit anyway, just to hammer it in). I put him in the bed, and he got up to pee about 30 minutes later. He asked if I was still mad, and I said “Pigpen, you spit on a kid today. Thats one of the rudest, meanest, nastiest things you can do, and you had no reason to do it. Thats not something a sweet, good boy does. Yes, I’m mad. Go back to bed.”
Kids.