The dangers of owning a kindergartener...

I'm waiting to pick up my son from kindergarten, awaiting whatever bad attitude he's got brewing. Van Morrison to help with the stress. That should work.

That's as much as I can fit in a text blog. But there is so much more to say. My son, Jack, is the greatest little boy in the world, which leads me to believe that every other little boy in the world could potentially be the Antichrist. If we ask him to do anything that he doesn't want to do ("Eat your veggies," "Stop jumping on the couch," "Clean your room," etc.) he goes balls-out crazy. He yells at us, tells us how mad he is at us, stomps around, bangs things around... until we angrily send him to his room where he slams things on the floor and yells at his door and makes things 100% worse.

Today was the last straw. It was pretty slushy out and Betsy knew the playground would be nasty, so she asked him to wear boots. He didn't want to. Betsy tried to explain why he needed to, but he just plopped down on the floor, crossed his arms and had a little fit. After a harsh encounter with both his mother and I, Jack continued to whine. Betsy had finally had it and stormed out into the garage, slamming the door behind her. Jack looks at me and, with complete innocence, says, "What was THAT all about?"



While at the bus-stop, Jack continued to give his mother an attitude. I'm not sure about all of the details, but when Betsy came back inside she was pretty pissed. She stormed up to his room and proceeded to throw every. single. toy. into his closet. I haven't seen the closet yet, but I'm pretty sure we're gonna have trouble getting the door open safely.

So, while I was sitting in front of the school waiting for Jack to come out, I was not eager in my anticipation of his reaction to his punishment (for repeated disrespect of his parents, teachers, and peers). The punishment is as follows. No toys, no video games, no television, no movies until we see a DRASTIC improvement in his attitude. He will gradually earn back his toys and his privileges.

As expected, he was not enthusiastic about our decision.

This should have been done a long time ago. I hope it works. If not, we're going to go with MY suggestion, which involves a priest and LOTS of holy water.

Thank you,
Matt Beers


Jack, loving his sister, Macy, to death.