I've learned a difficult lesson as a parent. Never say anything postive about your children out loud. As every parent knows, a lesson they inevitiably learned the hard way, saying something postive about your children means they will turn into monsters immediately following the comment.
Take our 7-year-old son. He has been whining since the day he was born. We occasionally call him "Mr. Miserable". He is a glass half empty kind of kid. When you ask him how he's doing, you will usually get the reply, "not good." About a year ago, he decided he was going to be nice. It was working...for awhile. It worked until -- you guessed it -- I told someone what a nice boy he had turned into. Two weeks ago, I told my sister that his recent "good boy" behavior is the payoff for all the nonsense I put up with for the first six years. And with that, it ended and the whining began once again.
Our 9-year-old is a very good natured kid. He has a big heart and is a kind person. He always took his punishment with no reaction. Now, I could blame the recent sassy back talk as him being sleep-deprived because we have a night owl puppy in the house, or I could blame it on a growth spurt, or I could blame it him picking it up from some older-than-their-age kids at school. But no, I blame it on me. I had to do it. I had to praise the good behavior out loud.
Why haven't I learned my lesson?
A tip for all you parents out there. (Or, at least the two of you that read my blog.) Never, I repeat, never say anything nice about your child to another adult. And never, ever, say they haven't been sick lately.
6 comments:
That is SO true. It's like the Fates jinx you for your hubris.
EVERY time K plans to take a personal day off to get something done one of the children is sick. He only gets to take the day if he doesn't tell anyone which day he's thinking of... so weird.
I will berate them when I see them in January - just for you and TMS.
Don't say anything nice about me because I might turn into the "mean TBF" that TMS loves...oh so much.
But I appreciate the nice TBF
Oh yeah...I forgot...this is your blog.
I agree! Even with my children being so young, I can already see this happening.
Also, if I mention that I have a headache, you can just bet that soon and very soon Miss L will come down with the same affliction.
My husband also believe that this phenom carries over to automobiles. So, if he says something about the great gas mileage or smooth ride or whatever, he always always ends with an insult. Like, "yeah, that truck is really running good- the piece of sh*t." You might want to come up with better insults before you use this on your kids, though.
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