My oldest is becoming a teenager and, with that, comes a lot of hormonal yumminess. Unfortunately, she's becoming a bit of a mean girl and I DON'T mean towards the other girls. She's becoming mean to her siblings. This isn't entirely new but she's taking it to a whole different level at this point and it's making me a teeny (and by teeny, I mean ENORMOUS) bit aggravated. So what to do, what to do?
When she was younger (Sydney was only 3 at the time), her younger sister got a big stuffed giraffe for her birthday. Sydney loved that giraffe and slept with it every single night. Alyssa got mad at me for punishing her for bad behavior so she went into her bedroom and cut the mane off of Sydney's giraffe. How did she get punished? She had to use her saved up chore and birthday money to buy Sydney a new one. She got irritated with me another time not too long after and cut Sydney's bangs. That one earned her two weeks in her bedroom after school instead of playing with her friends. On and off, she pulls these little vengeance plots when she gets mad at me but it's never directed at me...it's always at one of her siblings.
Most recently, I caught Alyssa literally punching (and I'm talking sitting on his stomach to pin him down and punching relentlessly) her 8 year old brother for throwing a flip flop repeatedly in her direction. Did he get into trouble for irritating her? Yes. Did she get into bigger trouble for physically assaulting someone? Yes. She got off relatively easy in the scheme of things and didn't end up grounded long-term or anything. She was just punished for the rest of the day. That didn't stop her from getting mad, though.
Her first post-anger stunt was soaping all of her siblings' toothbrushes. Yes, you read correctly; she applied hand soap to their toothbrushes so that they had to taste soap when they brushed their teeth. Creative? Yes (and I gotta confess, I was a little proud of her for being so innovative). Absolutely 100% wrong and punishable? YES! Again, she got off relatively easy, punished for the rest of the night.
The next morning, she wakes up, comes out to say "good morning" and cops the biggest attitude she could have....not a good way to start Mom's day. She, then, goes on to yell and scream at her siblings for watching what they wanted on the TV and then kicks someone to get them off the sofa. Yep, sister, you just earned yourself extra chores. So I announced to her that she would be cleaning the tile floors in the house Cinderella-style. She rolled her eyes and copped more attitude. Oy, I'm not fighting this battle...just clean the floors.
When I get home, it's like a completely different child. Did she learn some huge lesson from the floors? Nah, probably not. I doubt she learned a lesson at all...she just wanted something and thought a perky attitude was the way to get it. "Mom can I go to Lilly's house?" Ummmm nope. Dinner's getting cooked right now and I'm not going to hunt you down. Attitude's a-go-go. Attitude continues all night and I'm in need of a tall glass of some beverage of the alcoholic variety.
Point of the story? I'm gonna need a Benadryl blow dart stockpile to make it through their teenage years with my sanity.
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